A conversation under a helmet

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Helmet-to-helmet intercom system has its pros and cons on a long motorcycle road trip.

Mark Richardson

I don't think Andrew Meeson's forgiven me for singing on the way to Chicago.

That's okay – I haven't forgiven him for interrupting my highway meditation with his rambling stories of growing up in Strathroy.

You see, we were on motorcycles. Well, I was on a motorcycle, he was on a scooter, of all things, and motorcycles are supposed to be quiet, solitary places – a peculiar mixture of experiencing the road and enforced personal thought.

A long road trip on a motorcycle makes the rider think about life as it's presented by the highway, peruse it and turn it over and over in the brain until it's exhausted and new meanings have come, gone and built upon themselves.

Except, of course, when you're wired, like Andrew and myself.

We were trying out a bike-to-bike intercom, the Scala-Rider Q2 made by Cardo Systems of Pittsburgh, which sells for about $220 per headset.

Cardo has built upon its earlier intercoms to now provide a Bluetooth-compatible system that allows conversation by a helmeted rider with a Bluetooth phone, as well as with other equipped passengers or riders up to half a kilometre away.

The phone conversations are neat: when the cell phone rings, you can accept the call with a spoken command and then yack away with the caller. Hands on the controls, eyes on the road. Just like a car.

Out of principle, I refused to use it. I ride my motorcycle to get away from it all, not to stay in touch. "Sorry – tunnel! xzxzxzxzx... " If my wife (or God forbid, the newsroom) needs to reach me, there's voicemail to be answered at my convenience.

That said, it was really useful to be able to talk with my riding companion – instead of gesticulate – about when to pull over, where to eat and what we should do with an evening in Chicago.

The sound was normally crisp and clear, from flat headphones that stick with Velcro into the lining of the helmet. Mine were completely unobtrusive; Andrew never did get his just right.

I know about this because he blathered on about it all the way down the 401. It was like riding with my mother-in-law inside my head, which is a dreadful penance. And then when he did settle down, he would have to stop for gas. Again.

The wind noise was completely removed by tucking the directional microphone inside each full-face helmet, where there was just enough space left for it to brush against the lips. Everything attaches and removes easily, with no stickers or damage to the helmet.

There's also an FM radio receiver inside the small clip-on pod that attaches to the outside of the helmet. It needs to be pretuned to any of six different frequencies, so it's impractical on a long trip where stations fade in and out of range, but it's clear in town.

It would be nice to have a plug to attach a cord from an iPod, but that would not be weatherproof, unlike the rest of the system.

The Q2s turn themselves off after a short period of silence to conserve the rechargable battery, but ours rarely seemed to turn off. I don't think there were that many periods of silence, especially when I started singing Me and Bobby Magee to myself, over and over.

Those batteries did, however, last a long time – all the way to South Bend, Indiana, where Andrew was begging to stop for the day because he was tired and thirsty for beer.

At that point, about nine hours after leaving, the batteries succumbed just as we entered town and we were unable to debate the merits of the Comfort Inn over the Red Roof. We ended up in an over-priced dive.

That's part of the pleasure of a motorcycle trip, discovering new things. The next morning, we both discovered that we were quick to don our helmets and looked forward to switching the recharged intercoms back on. The conversation, and the singing, may have been inane, but it had an appeal that was hard to shake.

The Cardo Scala-Rider Q2 is sold at most good motorcycle shops. For more information, see www.scalarider.com.

Mark Richardson is the editor of Wheels. mrichardson@thestar.ca

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