Well, I hope at least we agree on me not "expending my energy". Headphones is just one of the good indicators. If I see the bikes I mentioned before with their owners wearing their headphones at the rack on the Staten Island Ferry that I take daily. The do not even say "hello" when you do (now I don't unless they do & they don't). Where do you go from that? And what kind of opinion would you like me to form about them?

I complete understand your stance...

I don't doubt that there are competent cyclists out there, but there are also a ton of idiots on the road... It isn't their safety that I (as an anti-earplug, pro-low level headphone, cyclist) am concerned about in all honesty. It's those people that weave and are generally awkward on their bikes, that make it difficult for other cyclists, pedestrians and motorists to predict their movements. We need to realize, there are many people taking up biking as an alternative right now, many who are in the process of developing good cycling skills, and I just don't think it is the best idea to say that this is okay for everyone, because at the end of the day, it isn't. There are those people that really have to use their ears, maybe their eyes are weaker, or they just can't process everything as well as other cyclists.

"Surrender" is accepted. My logic is rather a simple one. I listen to the noise of vehicle tires & their engines when I ride. It is VERY important to me because while riding a bicycle I am not surrounded by the tons of reinforced steel and airbags. The basic instinct of self-preservation dictates that you have to use everything feasible to limit the risks instead of increasing them & wearing headphones does just that. That's why I feel sorry for people who use phony arguments in order to justify unjustifiable. And I feel sad for them after reading "another cyclist is down" articles in local papers or on this forum. But that's me because the Nature is neither happy or sad. It just the way it is.

oh boy.

Message forums are amazing places. The anonymity of the Internet certainly entices discourse that would not occur in person. It matters not what forum you are on, as long as there is anonymity. Sure, misunderstandings due to the lack of verbal and non-verbal cues essential to communication are partly responsible for some text only exchanges, but not for what I have read here.

I am unsubscribing to this thread.

All right, win, surrender, whatever floats your boat. You seem rather proud. That's just plain weird.

"If someone doesn't say "hello" to me, then I will despise them."
You live a spoiled, self-centered existence, don't you?

I would venture to say that most everyone here feels for any cyclist who gets killed on our roadways. How many of these cyclists were killed wearing headphones? Out of all the stories I've read about downed cyclists, I can only remember two that even mention headphones.

On a similar note...
How sad do you really feel for cyclists killed while using headphones? You've said you despise them, which makes me think that your sadness would be rather insincere.

The primary reason for road rage as well. As long as it isn't face to face, everybody's a tough guy.

Thank you! That's as succinct as it gets!

As I already wrote in one of the previous posts in reply to YOU: "I despise them because in my book riding with headphones in traffic is equal to wearing a jersey that says "I am a moron" in big letters."
My existance is not up for discussion. Not on this forum & not with you :rolleyes:

How many? More than their fair share on the road. You wanna bet?


I am sincere. I just feel less sorry for them as opposed to the cyclists that did everything feasibly possible to limit the risks but got killed by some freak accident. One can always make the case that headphone-cyclists "had it coming to them". You know what I mean?

:roflmao2:

Seriously though, RFOMENKO, what the heck? Your statement is full of contradictions. You seem annoyed that they don't wave to you, but you snub them given the chance. I don't get it.

Do you really feel that strongly about headphones? Have you ever tried it (at a reasonable volume)? Or are you just basing this round of hating on a strongly held but relatively unfounded personal belief?

I wear headphones to help me ignore people like rfomenko.

Does playing "chicken" qualify as "face to face"? Doesn't happen every week or even every month but it happens from time to time. Is winning such encounters qualify me as a "tough guy"? But the previous poster is certainly right. Such conversations rarely occur outside of the cyberspace. Self-preservation at work, isn't it?

Just saying it does not make it true. Neither does challenging me to wager on it.:rolleyes:

Show me some numbers.
In my search for some statistics on bike-car accidents in which headphones were involved, I found this:
http://www.bikexprt.com/bicycle/hearing.htm
It has some interesting science about how inaccurate our hearing really is.

When I used to say "Hi" or nod to them in the past, I would not get a reply in about 90% of the time. That's why I stopped. What would you do? Where is the contradiction?
I do not care about the headphones one way or another with the exception of the fact that I do not like to be lumped into the same category with the clueless cyclists who annoy the car drivers by lumbering all over the road & not hearing a car/truck five feet away behind them that is just trying to pass by. I have to deal with the same drivers, you know?

huh?

and uke, you can't get better entertainment than this. You may want to ignore him at first but you don't know what you'll be missing.

I doubt you dislike being lumped into that category any more than I dislike being lumped into that same category just because I wear headphones. The symptoms you describe above are likely statisically unrelated to the wearing of headphones at a reasonable volume.

Just because a cyclist does not cowardly yeild the lane when a passing car is approaching does not mean that he did not hear it. It is not always safe or practical to do so.

My guess is that the evidence would show that listening to headphones has almost no impact on the type of weaving you describe. In fact, in my case, headphones played at a reasonable level actually improve my hearing of road noises as they cut the deafening wind noise. I could certainly see how someone who has no experience cycling with headphones would not believe that.....but it does not make it any less true.

Unfortunately, the majority of lawmakers in this country seem to think (as you seem to think), that opinion and emotion are adequate substitutes for empiracle evidence when creating policy to impact the freedom of others.

I once had a Business Law professor that would start almost every class by saying "NEVER FORGET THAT EMOTION, NOT FACTS, DRIVES THE REGULATORY CYCLE".

Nice! :thumb:

You make lots of sense & could be right even though I seriously doubt it. I'm sure that there are some studies about it with all-important statistics thrown in. I do not know how music works on others but with me it invokes certain imagery that different from the surrounding reality. Especially if the music is from some soundtrack. And that certainly doesn't help.
It feels so good to be lumped with the politicians for a change. Perhaps I'll run for an office real soon ;)
And your law professor is 100% right.

Huh? Can't take a joke anymore? Succumbed to political correctness? Never watched late George Carlin?

How I ride in traffic is sometimes based on auditory cues that I hear. For example, big engine or a truck/bus coming up, I'll move closer to the right as well as look over my shoulders to see what is coming. When it's a howling engine pushing high RPM's, I will pull over and check what it is coming up behind me. Once in awhile, you'll also get the, "On your left" to indicate another rider wanting to pass. Whatever it is, from brake squeal to engine noise, I find it useful to hear my surroundings.

I thought about using an iPod during my rides but never bothered. I do use my iPods when I jog but that's either on a track or a treadmill.

I have a pair of Etymotics ER-4 isolating earphones. They are essentially 30dB earplugs that pipe sound through them. (They are _highly_ useful when travelling by plane - screaming babies cease to exist.) I wear them walking but have to be careful even then, since all external sound is blocked. It's amazing to me how many auditory clues I get from the outside. I think these would be far too risky for the bike, but that's my opinion. (I have thought about using regular iPod earbuds and turning them on low, but I haven't tried it.) I think the problem with these is that the sound is so involving and all-encompassing in your head that it's hard to concentrate with the reflexes you need.

Incidentally, I've tried using them while driving (just a brief distance). There's a big difference between having the stereo up even fairly loud in the car and having these things in your ears blocking out all external sounds and filling your head with music. I found it far more difficult than I would have expected to judge where I was relative to other cars on the road. My uninformed guess is that this might relate to the role of hearing to orientation, but someone with more knowlege of this can maybe elaborate.

Jersey pocket. ;)

You forgot to mention that I bale babies with a pitch fork.

I got 30+ years commuting in traffic that, along with your two silly posts, pretty much bears out that I was correct...you are a peckerwood! :p

Thing is, riding with buds and music does not make you deaf (well it might if you crank it too loud!). THAT is the dirty little secret that the safety nannies won't share because they are long on opinions and short on actual experience.

If the sense of sound perception is so important to operating a vehicle in traffic, why are there not literally thousands of car accidents daily due to the fact that drivers cannot hear anything outside of their steel cage, for the most part? Yes, some sense of sound is a definite requirement (to detect emergency vehicles for example), but listening to music at a reasonable level does not take your hearing below the minimum levels required...if it did, auto sound systems would be illegal and the deaf/hearing impaired would not be allowed to operate vehicles, don't you think?

So you are one of those nannies who believe the deaf an hearing impaired should be barred from operating vehicles. Good thing that even most clueless politicians have more common sense than you do...or at least a fear of the ADA lobby, so have not passed silly laws to support your silly theories. The phony arguments are all yours, pal...but if that is what you need to believe you are not inferior to the rest of the world, have at it. :roflmao2:

It bears out exactly nothing. This is not the court of law, it's only a forum, remember? All in your head pal, all in your head. Though it is increasingly likely that you are either a small town hick or a backward dork. Or perhaps a democratic combination of both :backpedal:

:roflmao2: Nice try, peckerwood...obviously your phony assumptions about me are no more accurate that you phony arguments about riding with music. Keep typing, the court of common sense convicted you pages ago! :lol:

Repeatedly saying that my arguments are ridiculous without refuting them doesn't make them untrue. It just makes you a good pupil of Dr. Joseph Goebbels. Same thing about you imaginary "court of common sense" and its "convictions". I can't care less even if it was true. As for calling me names goes, I tried to respond in kind but really shouldn't have stooped to this level. And for that I am sorry. Take care pal.;)

Perhaps if you used Mr. Eye and Mr. Brain to read through and understand many of the posts, including my own, in this thread, you might see that your attempts at phony arguments have been thoroughly refuted already.

Your original post in this thread set the tone, so please spare us the crocodile tears, m'kay. If you wanna come off as a peckerwood, don't be surprised when you get treated as one.