We all know the pleasures of getting lost on a bike ride, of being able to let your mind wonder, to experience the world via two wheels. Now, podcaster Matheus Siqueira has launched an attempt to bring that to people when they're at their desk, on a walk, in their car.
The Brazilian is the man behind the Ride With Me podcast, a project that seeks to bring cycling "soundscapes" from around the world to people's ears.
Siqueira has listed the podcast as part of a growing wave of podcasts designed to elicit ASMR, or Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, the tingling sensation some people experience when they hear certain sounds - think the opposite of nails on a chalk board. But he admits this doesn't fully encompass what it is. Instead, it is an auditory experience, one that transports the listeners to Jerusalem and Girona - the two locations recorded so far.
"It's not exactly ASMR, it's more like slow radio or soundscapes," Siqueira tells Cycling Weekly from São Paulo. "If I call it this though, people don't know what it is. When I'm on my bike, there's the noise of changing gears, the noise of the wheels, you can hear the noise of the tyres on the tarmac. But there are also the noises outside: the birds, the noise of the city.
"I've been doing podcasts since I was a teenager, so I thought I could try an art experiment and see if I could get decent soundscapes on my bike ride. I am doing binary recording, so I had to put the microphones inside 'ears', I have these silicone ears that are 20cm apart, and fit in my bar bag. Then I started to record rides that I've been doing."
Siqueria heads out on rides to try and help people experience locations that they might not have been before, with the help of a binaural rig - stereo microphones, in effect - which allows him to capture his experience.
"It was interesting, I went to Israel with my bike and started recording, and it's a very foreign soundscape to me," he said. "One of the fun parts is listening back to what I pass through, and I discovered it was very different. Brief segments of people talking, cars passing with music on, there are mosques and other sounds.
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"I capture the environment also with the sound of the bike, for an hour. I'm experimenting, and I don't know what will work or not. There are noises from the person who is riding, and for now I've been removing this. I'm trying to work out if people are interested in this or not, maybe if I can get a pro rider, their breathing might be different."
The binaural setup, in the handlebar bag
(Image credit: Matheus Siqueira)
Cycling lends itself to this experience, which is much like slow television or radio - last decade, the BBC tried out slow TV, showing a two-hour long canal boat trip in its entirety, aping Nordic television. In a very visual world, with the dopamine hits of social media, a step back to reflect is welcome.
"It's more an art experiment, that I hope will interest a part of the cycling community," Siqueira said. "People have said that it feels very visual, that they can imagine what they're passing through. I think we live in an era which is heavily focused on image. That's not a problem, but we focus on image on so much - POV [point of view] GoPro rides for example.
"These don't leave a lot to your imagination. When you only have the sound, it brings a more abstract imagination into it, what the sensory experience of riding actually is.
"One of the pleasures of going on a bike ride compared to running and walking is that you get to know more. You have this higher speed, but it's not something that's so big or so fast that you don't see the world. Sound-wise, it is easier to capture places too. You reach this equilibrium with cycling between having the physical experience, and also the perfect sound spot."
Of course, one might wonder "why not simply go for a bike ride?", but the podcast takes people to places they might not have been with their bike, to hear new worlds.
"It's an experiment I want to take to more people," Siqueira explained. "My dream is to have more people recording. I'm going to try and get more riders to take this contraption with them, it would be nice to have professionals carry it in their training. I want to go off the beaten track. Thailand, for example, I know there's a big cycling community there, and probably there are some different soundscapes."
'Ride with Me' is available online at ridewithme.fm, or on your chosen podcast app. So far, Siqueira has recorded in Israel and northern Spain, but there will be more locations to come.
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Adam is Cycling Weekly’s news editor – his greatest love is road racing but as long as he is cycling on tarmac, he's happy. Before joining Cycling Weekly he spent two years writing for Procycling, where he interviewed riders and wrote about racing. He's usually out and about on the roads of Bristol and its surrounds. Before cycling took over his professional life, he covered ecclesiastical matters at the world’s largest Anglican newspaper and politics at Business Insider. Don't ask how that is related to cycling.
