Delta Airzound Bike Horn
The Airzound is an air horn that mounts to your bicycle handlebars. You recharge it with an air pump and the reservoir is basically a soda bottle. As a result, the entire assembly is quite lightweight. You can adjust the volume with a small dial. Do watch out that you have it turned back up when refilling the bottle, as it controls flow in and out of the reservoir (one minor design flaw in my opinion).
This air horn was on my shopping list for years though I didn't have any real need for it until recently. An air horn is way overkill for riding on trails. However, one of the eight bicycles in our household is a Green Gear Bike Friday Family Triple -- a bicycle built for three. One thing you don't realize about riding a tandem or triple with kids is how much of a pain it is to start and stop when you have to coordinate balance with other people. As a result, we tend to do very slow, deliberate rolling stops through stop signs whenever the coast is clear. Though the traffic in our neighborhood is light, I've got the horn as an added measure to make sure we're seen.
It's freaking loud!
Most of the time I just give two quick toots to people who are amused to see a bicycle built for three. I've only blasted it once to someone who was backing out of a driveway and clearly hadn't seen me. Again, not for trails or pedestrians, but perfect for riding in traffic where you have to complete with stereos and contend with closed windows.
The makers say you get 50 blasts with the supplied reservoir (16-oz. plastic soda bottle) but I upgraded mine to a 1-liter bottle. Now I can blast all day and not worry about running out of air, and it's always right there affixed to my handle bars.
Available from Amazon
Favorite (15)
William
My favourite story of air horn use was from a colleague - they were riding to work in the morning, and there was a person sitting in their car in the bike lane. My colleague rode silently up to the open driver's side window, and let loose with a long blast from the air horn as he rode by. Looking back, he was amused to see the inside windshield covered with coffee, completely obscuring the driver.
dwight
good horn. worthless in cold weather. like, here in Minnesota in the winter.
AJT
" . . . let loose with a long blast from the air horn as he rode by."
A funny visual for a slapstick movie, perhaps, but sort of counter to the spirit of sharing the road with civility, don't you think? While squatting in the bike lane is annoying, blasting someone's ears is dangerous and more than a little hostile. When the matchup is 200 pounds of bike/rider vs. 3,000 pounds of car/driver, I don't think you want to invite road rage.
fellow biker
William, the fact that you find humor in your friend's story is very sad.
When you show up at a public hearing about bike use on the roads or trails and you hear from all those people who are against bikes, they are often friends of someone who had a bad experience with bikers - like the coffee drinker in your friend's story. Every time a biker makes an enemy they make *dozens* of enemies as these stories are retold. You and your buddy got a few laughs. The poor coffee drinker and his buddies banded together to try to restrict bike lanes, bike access, etc.
There is never a good reason for a biker to do something that will leave that person feeling bad about bikes. It will always come back to haunt us (the bikers) in the end. Save the airhorn for actual emergency/alert use only.
Peter
Anyone have experience with this horn and loose, chasing dogs? Does it scare them or enrage them?
Greg
A real attention getter. Use one on my fat tire group rides (ala Tour-de-fat- http://www.newbelgium.com/tour-de-fat )
William
To AJT, fellow biker;
You both have a good point, but your sanctimony is very tiresome. Yes, all cyclists are tainted when one behaves inappropriately (and the above-mentioned behaviour was out of proportion to the offence of parking in the bike lane). However, when my colleagues and acquaintances are killed or maimed by drivers, does that reflect on all drivers to the same extent? Responsibility needs to be in proportion to the power imbalance, not inverse to it.
archer
you've got the sanctimony backwards, william. the holier-than-thou, i'm-green-and-hip-and-you're-not attitude of too many bikers is getting ridiculous. the reality now is that motorists are much more respectful of bikers than the other way round for the most part. your friend's behaviour and your defense of it is an example.
Julie
I have used this hornfor my kayak for several years. Just the thing when you're not sure a speedboat or jet ski can see you. Wish they made a version that was truly waterproof.
Narwhal
I used one of these for a couple years on my morning commute, and it came in handy more than once. Nice to have something that can be heard by an auto with the radio on. Hopefully though the design has been improved, because a push of the button on my unit only had about a 60% chance of getting a good blast instead of a light wheeze or nothing at all. So when I needed it, it wasn't always there for me.
Jim
It is loud and it is cheap. I never felt like it would last and I was right. A nice toy but it isn't built to make it beyond a season or two at the most. I wish there was a higher quality model.
Eric
Easily the most useful gadget I've ever bought for my bike. Commuting to and from school in NYC, it sees daily use, especially since a good number of pedestrians cross against the light, or in the middle of the street without looking for whats coming first, and a lot of drivers have a bad habit of checking their mirrors after they've already started turning.
Also extremely effective at clearing pigeons on the road, which aren't always afraid of people.
The only problem that I've had with it is that in dusty conditions, dirt can find its way inside and prevent the diaphragm from vibrating properly, which is most likely the problem that Narwhal was having. But this is why the cover over the diaphragm can be unscrewed and the dirt cleaned out. I usually have to do that after about a month of normal use.