I might get a flame for this, but I took a radio with me today. Tiny little transistor radio was sitting in the room with my bike - I looked at it and said 'what the hell' and strapped it under the net on my rack. I was lucky enough to find a station doing a Glenn Miller special (which sounds great through a cruddy speaker) and kept it at barely audible volume. My 10 mile Sunday spin around the block ended up being an all-morning bike adventure. I thought it was rather nice. I didn't seem to be distracted by it. I loved approaching pedestrians from the rear. All they hear is a clarinet solo coming from behind them.