I recently purchased the Cardo Scala Rider G9. I purchased this mainly because of an upcoming trip, although I am an admitted tech addict and grant it, the idea of music on some rides is appealing.  With all that said however, I have always simply enjoyed the sound of the motorcycle while riding along. I mainly ride solo as well, so a need for an intercom wasn’t urgent on my list. My upcoming motorcycle trip in an unfamiliar area though, was just the rationalization I needed to purchase my little piece of motorcycle tech.

It arrived this past Monday. I was most pleased to see it on my doorstep. Installation took about ten to fifteen minutes and that was mainly due to the fact that I simply couldn’t “buy” that it was that easy. I have a HJC CL-Max helmet that is several years old. It fits fine on my helmet.  Installation really was simple.  Then I came across the unfortunate instruction that the G9 needs to charge for at least four hours initially.  That meant no “playing” with my new “toy” on Monday night.  

Tuesday morning I decided to just check it out.  Still in PJs before my shower and before work, I plugged in the G9 to the helmet.  I listened to some music and it sounded quite good.  I put the “toy” up to go to work and figured I would take it for a test run Tuesday night after work.  Unfortunately we had a storm and lots of rain.

About 8:30pm Tuesday night I noticed that though very wet out, the sky had cleared.  So I promptly decided to take my “toy” out for a spin around the neighborhood.  The G9 does take a little getting use to on how it works.  I need to refer to the manual about the voice commands for instance.  My music did play and sounded nice. I never got over 40mph (it is a neighborhood you know), yet could still hear the music clearly.  I called my house twice to test the calling feature.  One thing I did notice is that the G9 had trouble understanding me say “home” yet after I pulled over and changed the name to House, it was fine. I called my house twice and left messages.  Each message I was going about 35-40mph.  The first message I had the full-face up so the mic was open to the air/elements. On my voicemail at home you could still hear me very clearly.  The second message was with the full-face closed.  This message was clearer and quite a bit louder as there was no air/elements creeping into the audio has the helmet was closed.  

I made one other quick phone call just to see how it sounded to someone else.  My full-face was open then too.  I was told that I sounded clear though not at the volume I normally sound on a regular phone.  I was also told that the sound faded in and out some; although this did not happen during my two phone messages.

Both calls were made using the voice command; however, I had to use my left hand to hit the “mobile” button so the music would pause and I could tell it whom to call.  I have an iPhone so when I did this Siri came up and made the call per my direction.  Perhaps it was Siri that simply could not understand “home” versus “house.”  I had no misunderstanding of the other person I called and Siri called them immediately.  Once the call ended, the music automatically started playing.  I did notice that you have to wait a couple of minutes for the call to end itself, even after the other party hangs up. This could just be trial and error on my part to get the hang of using it.

I must say my first impression is that I really like it. I need to do more playing, um I mean, testing.  It seems to work well.  I’ll definitely find out on my trip in August.

(photo from Internet)