Several miles of my route have no vehicular traffic. I also have a 25 minute train ride that gets a little tedious at times. Anybody run an MP3 player they want to recommend?

I'd be willing to go with an Apple product, but they don't put an FM tuner on theirs, and I really like to hear news in the morning, so I'm leaning toward a Creative Labs Zen Nano Plus 1 gb model.

Note: I will not be using any electronic audio entertainment devices while operating a bicycle on public streets.

Input?

I took an Apple ipod shuffle and coupled it with Pod Gear's pocket party (for ipod shuffle) battery powered mini (and I mean mini) speakers. Then I attached those to a mop handle clamp to clamp it to my handlebars in an instant. Makes for a nice light weight sound system.

I love my Creative Zen Microphoto MP3 player. Unfortunatly it got shredded by Sir Isaac Newton while I was avoiding a land-yacht and kissed the ground.

Podcasts are a great way to get news while riding. One little gadget I've found invaluable for my commute is the remote. It allows me to make sure the volume is at the right level (i.e. not too loud). If you're concerned about not blocking out noise, steer clear of in-ear earbuds and just stick with regular ones. They stay loose enough in your ear so you can still hear what's around. iPod or creative, both are good.

I would avoid a hard drive unit if you'll be using on the bike. A small flash based thing should do the trick, I use a creative labs something or anohter. It doubles as a usb flash drive, but you have to use the dumb creative labs software to load the songs.

I use a 60gb ipod with no ill effect, but I keep it in my bag on my back, not the bike.

I use a Sandisk 256Mb ($50 at Staples) w/a FM receiver and a set of Sony earbuds that have hooks that loop over the ear. Those earphones seem to work better than regular buds. The player runs on one AAA battery and I get about 2 weeks out of a battery.

I hang the player off the "necklace" that has my work badge on it so I never forget my badge when I leave for the office. The system works well and I can tuck it all inside my jacket when it's raining.

Urgh.. No traffic or not, mp3 players while cycling can be bad.

Maybe I just relying on my hearing too much. But I like to hear things I cant see, as well as things I can see.

I like to hear things too, but I don't think listening to music has too much of an effect on my ability to do that. There is probably some effect, but I find the while music comes from the headphones, they also reduce wind noise, even with no music playing. Without anything on my ears, travelling over 20mph, the wind frequently obscures all traffic sounds anyway.

That's the player I have. Really like it. Tiny, featherweight (the weight weenies will love it! ), good sound quality (Creative's sound quality is generally considered unsurpassed when it comes to mp3 players), pretty good navigation, no special software required to download/upload songs, no weird formats (Sony used to make players that would not play mp3's, only some obscure Sony format - so it had to convert every file you downloaded on it to that format). Would suggest swapping the headphones for something more stable and with better sound quality though (earbuds just don't seem to fit my ears, ever).

It is when your like me and like listening to your music really damn loud.

I use a 40 gig iPod 4th Gen. Works fine. I store it on the bike in a sunglasses case that is mounted next to my hip. (recumbent) Even with the earbuds, I can still hear the traffic sounds just fine. I don't think it has a detrimental safety impact. Mostly I listen to Podcasts. You can get your news that way. NPR has many news podcasts among others.

Humming of your tires on pavement, Gears shifting, wildlife noises....thats all music to me...

Ok, so maybe a HD unit isn't a bad idea after all. I've always heard vibrations and bumps can be bad for them and that they aren't good for jogging etc... Even though riding a bike is much smoother, I figure a small flash based unit is much lighter anyway.

That argument has been used on a motorcycle forum I visit regularly and I agree. Just don't crank it up too much and you can hear traffic just fine.

I also use Jabra Ear Gels on my earbuds. This helps prevent them from falling out of my ears.

I have a Creative Zen Microphoto as well. I love it to death! I dropped mine as well, and it wouldnt start up. So I sent it back in and they gave me a new one (it was still under the 90 day warranty).

First thing I did after taking it out of the box was drop it . Still works, and I bought a nice case for it, so hopefully i wont drop it again!

Two more advantages of earbuds or earphone(s) are that they tell me who NOT to draft, and who to NOT let draft me.

And how often are you drafting while commuting? Listening to music on an empty road is a far cry different from riding in a pace lane.

Back to reality instead of make believe..........

I use the sandisk mp3 player.
Its cheap, so if you fall over and break it you havnt lost 500 bucks, just 50 bucks.
It is 1 gig flash memory, expandable to 3 gig, has built in fm tuner.

I listen to radio my whole commute and use the memory to transfer files from work to home.

I use a 2gb nano with some Sony over the ear headphones. I carry it in my backpack. I make a playlist of about 50 songs, set it on shuffle, and set the volume before I get going. It seems loud when I'm just sitting in my drive way before I start riding, but once I'm moving with the traffic and wind noise it's just right.

If you want news, you can download a podcast and stick it on the ipod before you take off in the morning.

I picked up a Sandisk 512 from Office Depot for $28 after double rebates. It's decidedly so-so. The buds hurt my ears. I've used it with regular phones; it seems a bit bass-shy.

Drag-and-drop is a nice feature of this model. And at this price, if I literally drop-and-drag it I'm not going to be crying.

I haven't tried it cycling; I'm thinking about hitting Missouri's Katy Trail for a ~150 mile ride... it might stave off boredom there. I enjoy cycling and would probably be annoyed by the noise on a reg'lar commute.

The Koss KSC-75 clip-on over-ear headphones look good for on-the-bike use...