What do you listen to when you ride?
 

Now, I know some will post that they never listen to music when they ride citing safety concerns and spoiling the zen of riding.....so for those folks if you could listen or wanted to listen to music while you were on your steed what would it be? For the rest of us whats in your Ipod? I have a huge mix. AC/DC, Nickelback, Creed, PCD, Fergie, Billy Joel, Elton John, alotta Hip-Hop and gansta rap.

I don't usually listen to anything, but now that I'm getting into spending more time (4+ hours at a time) in the saddle, I'm considering a single earphone on my non-traffic side.
If I go that route, then my player will be loaded with cheesy 80s hair metal: Queensryche, Poison, Cinderella, Ratt, Twisted Sister, Bon Jovi (before he decided he was a country singer) etc. Maybe some wailing speed metal thrown in for fun: Judas Priest's "Painkiller", and Iron Maiden's "Number of the Beast".

Like you warned, listening to music ruins your safety and the zen of the ride. I listen to my tires and my chainring mostly. Sometimes I listen to passing cars, or for the "oh SH#T", of bikers with earphones on as they realize they are about to narrowly avoid accident with either car or me. If you are riding in the city, do everyone a favor and leave the earphones in your bag.

I listen to the wind in my ears, birds singing, the rustle of leaves, water babbling down a lazy brook, you know, all the things you don't hear in a car.

Its like they say, silence is golden and duct tape is silver.

I listen to my heart beat, the wind going around me ears and through my helmet. I listen for idiot drivers, so I can find an easy exit if needed. I listen to the quietness of being alone on a road and can hear my tires on the roadway.

Reverend Horton Heat, Patsy Cline, Metallica, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Anthrax, Command Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen, Bucket Head, Funkadelic, The Police, Stevie Ray Vaughn, etc.

I ride with my earphones VERY lightly inserted. I have NO trouble hearing traffic a good distance behind me. I also ride with a rear view mirror.

Joe

The wind, the birds, the cars coming up behind me that I wouldn't hear if I were dumb enough to wear headphones....
Man, you only have two senses to keep you safe on the bike, and vision only works in the direction you're looking. Why would you disable the other one?

I sing four-part harmony with the voices in my head.

Apparantly because I AM dumb enough. I have yet to have a car or another cyclist sneak up on me. I don't have a problem with it. If you do then by all means don't do it.

Depends on what I'm doing. My commute is so short (1.5 mi one way) that I don't listen to anything. Close to half of my rides are with a friend and again, I don't listen to anything (she's not as strong a cyclist so there isn't much chatting on the rides.) If I'm riding by myself on a long ride (more than an hour) I listen to podcasts in my right ear. Gives me a chance to catch up with them and they're quiet enough (talking not music) for me to hear what's going on in the world.

That's why I use a mirror and if you don't blast music to the point it makes your ears bleed you can easily hear cars behind you, it's not like they're ninjas or something sneaking up to take you unaware.

Like so many have and will state… I don’t listen to music when I ride, because of the safety aspect of it, but besides that I ride most of the time with my wife, and she would find it quite rude if I didn’t talk to her as we rode. She may even smack me in the head, just as an attention getter don’t you know…:eek:

But if I did listen to music it would be Classical for the most part, with probably some Heavy Metal mixed in as well. I have to admit it would be nice to ride down a greenway in the fall listening to some beautiful Bach…or Vivaldi, Mozart, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Liszt… and so on.

If I were to listen to music while riding, I would have to say..................................everything but rap. I have a very different taste in music. Bluegrass, blues, jazz, classical, hard rock, classic rock, etc.....

My wife has the same thing, and sometimes I make some CD's for long trips and she is usually happy with my selections. But these are for motorcycle and car trips. On the bicycle she gets to talk, and I get to listen. :-)

I'm another who listens to wind, birds, trees, tires, chain, river and fellow riders. On the trainer, though, I enjoy listening to jazz. Somehow the traditional west coast sound seems to go well with peddling.

Car horns, curses, squealing rubber, loud engines. I laugh at every, "there's this creak" thread cause I'd never be able to hear one if there was one!

Depends, if I'm riding van supported, music is pumping out of the roof speakers, and then it's 100BPM metal or techno. Anything to keep the beat going and my head out of the pain past mile 120 or so......

Everytime you hear a car coming from behind you jump into the ditch?

I think the biggest thing for me is safety. I don't ride on bike trails, as we don't have any, so all of my riding is on the street or the highway with semi's, pickups, cars, motorcycles, all being driven or ridden by anyone from 14 year olds with school permits to 98 year olds that can't even see me or hear me when they don't stop at stop signs or yield signs. I am trying hard to staying focused on my bicycle ride, with the goal of finishing in the time I want without getting hit or pushed off the road by someone and getting hurt. If I was able to ride bicycle trails, I could probably do it without worry to listen to music.

To each his/her own. Do as you wish and have fun doing it. I still have my fun, don't think, just because I am safety first, that I don't have any fun.

Presently, my Ipod is loaded with 43 of Steely Dan finest, the Yes live album Yessongs and Monty Python's The Final Ripoff.

All great stuff! At one point I had all of Rick Wakeman's solo albums but when I was stationed in Turkey my wife decided that we didn't need vinyl anymore! Try to find some of that stuff on CD. I do have to say that I would swap "The Final Ripoff" for "Contractual Obligation." The Sound of John Denver being Strangled is priceless!

Joe

Love Rick Wakeman. Saw him in concert once post Yes and it was awesome. Check Ebay for Wakeman CD's. I had Contractual Obligation, but it came up missing as I think my kids took it somewhere and lost it. You can never listen to the Spam or Parrot routine too many times.

+111111111111111111........I've been on organized rides before when rear tire starts to go flat right before a fast downhill. Only thing that saves me i shear the wHiss-whiss-whiss-whiss-whiss of the air coming out of the tire. I know people who have gone out of control and crashed cause they didn't pay attention to the noise. Happened once on our tandem. I was able to stop right as the bike started sway almost uncontrollably. I can't imagine telling my wife, "sorry your legs are broken, but a good song was playing when I should have been listening!".

So pretty much the only thing I listen to is the guy next to me saying 'sorry' after I've just stiff armed the guy drifting into me after calling out 'onyer left' 3 times before attempting to pass him!:mad:

Lots of Elvis Costello with a smattering of The Clash while on the trainer only.

I use the time to listen to books on tape. I recently finished the NY Times Pocket MBA series and a book on working with and managing knowledge workers. This morning on the way in I listened to the entirety of Sun Tzu's The Art of War.

I am one that refers to listen to the sounds of traffic and nature while outside riding. Listening to music while riding is sortof like talking on a cell phone while driving!

If however, I am "spinning" I listen to alot of different stuff - everything from show tunes to christian, alternative, rock, reggae, pop etc.

Funny story about someone using an iPod while riding: A group of us were out mountain biking. This one guy was using his iPod and we tried to get him to stop. Oh well he wouldn't. While descending down a particularly steep trail, the lead called out "Go left! Hole on right!" I was 6 back and heard her. The iPod guy was 2 back, didn't hear her 'cause his music was cranked up, hit the hole and lunched off the cliff into cactus. I'm sorry couldn't stop laughing although I know it hurt. I don't care if you think you are listening with one "good" ear, you are still distracted.