Air Zound 3
Many people often stop me and ask me what the bottle that is fitted in the third water cage on my bicycle is. Unfortunately on my bike, the third cage can't be used for much else.
The Air Zound's air bottle mounted in a water cage.
The bottle is the air tank for my Air Zound 3 bicycle air horn. I use the bicycle pump to pressurise it up to around 90 psi. There is a small hose that runs from the air tank, up to the air horn itself. The tank is pressurised by flipping the horn's actuator upwards and attaching a bicycle pump to the shrader valve.
The orange bit on top flips up to reveal the valve.
To use the horn one just presses down on the orange valve on the top of the horn, which release air from the tank and blasts the horn. It's extremely good for warning Ipod wearing pedestrians on shared pathways.
Horn actuator button flips back down to cover the valve.
The horn comes with a mount for mounting to handlebars, and by lifting the horn up at an angle, it can be removed from the bike along with the air tank, leaving the horn's mounting bracket on the handlebars.
By giving a quick press of the button, the horn emits a short loud blip. When holding it down, it emits an ear ringing 115 decibel blast.
Front view of the air horn. Make sure it's facing away from you.
The air tank comes with a felt style holder, that has holes for cable ties so that it can be attached to the frame. Alternatively, the air tank fits into a standard water cage as in my case. The third cage on my bike doesn't have much clearance to the front wheel, so I modified a plastic cage to mount it lower, and then squeezed the Air Zound's air tank in.
I find this horn extremely good in vehicular traffic as most drivers look around for another car when they hear it.
Make sure when you mount the horn that it faces away from you, as you will deafen yourself. It is very easy to operate, and also very easy to pressurise the tank. Having a Topeak road morph pump which is a fold out foot pump, I did have some difficulty in attaching and operating the pump, but I carry a spare hand pump as back up and use this for pressurising the Air Zound.
I find this air horn very effective, and give it a rating of 10 out of 10 and highly recommend it. It's also useful when attached to a shopping trolley in the supermarket. I have heard that the air tank's top can be removed and fitted to a larger bottle for instance a soft drink bottle.
