Today I rode to work and back wearing the headphones. The carnage was incredible, the broken bodies left in my wake, buses crashed, semis jack knifed, cars in flames, countless other cyclists left dead and broken. The police, fire and paramedics said they have not seen this much destruction since the riots and northridge quake. Can't believe it didn't make the news. BTW I was killed but some great trauma doc at UCLA was able to bring me back to life. Icredible the damage a 150 lb old fart on 20 lbs of bicycle can do!! Can't wait to do it again tomorrow.

I like to be able to hear trucks coming from behind, sometimes they might need more room, if they do, I'll sqeeze closer to the edge of the road. Or there might be another biker behind me wanting to pass and being able to clearly hear them might prevent any snear looks...


Riding with headphones would be like driving without a rearview or sideview mirrors. Doable, heck, at one time, my first car didn't have the driver's sideview and the rear view mirror, able to drive fine, but just knowing who's around you in case something jumps out in front of you or something makes having them worth it. If you want to be the oblivious person riding, go ahead, but don't get mad or frightened when an 18 wheeler screams past inchs away at 50 mph.

I won't use my iPod on the road - I don't feel comfortable at all. Some folks might, I guess, and if they can pull it off, whatever. If they can't, well, sometimes the bar eats you.

I do enjoy having it for the bike path where I do a lot of riding. I'm frequently there after work and feeling tired/unmotivated/etc. Good music helps with that. The traffic isn't heavy there and I try to keep the volume down so I can hear what's going on. If I approach a cluster of people I'll turn the music off - the iPod Shuffle is great for this kind of stuff and has a big round play/pause button that's hard to miss. Same goes for crossing highways. I'm generally the fastest thing on the path (not bragging at all, it's just not used that heavily) but keep reasonably over to the right anyway.

Every time there's a thread on this it seems like 100 show up and say what an awful idea it is and you'll be dead within the week and so on. Thing is I agree with some of that sentiment but I think there are situations where it makes sense and can be done safely. I don't like telling people what's right for them, and I imagine that the line between safe and unsafe is different for different people.

My day was worse, after my turtle saw me wearing headphones, it got hysterical, took off and swam to the Galápagos Islands where it could safely evolve IAW Darwin's theories.

This lovely thread and others like it have given me an idea. I think I will leave my headphones in when I exit the MUP onto the streets and simply turn the mp3 player off. Maybe I can entice one of you safety ninnies to give me some grief. he he *cackles incessantly*

It's a terrible idea. Don't do it. Save the iPod for work or school or whatever, not when you're being overtaken by a bus.

Hopefully your turtle can evolve in time to coninside with our inevitable extintion. I grew up thinking the bomb would be the end of our species but turns out it'll be the ipod! Curse you Steve Jobs

If I spent all my time capitulating to what others think I should do, I would be one sorry bloke.

Adaptive radiation huh? Wasn't it the finches and not the turtles? hehe

I think that listening to music while riding on the road wouldn't make a difference to my general safety at all cuz as it is, quite often I can barely hear with all the wind rushing past the ears... i'm pretty new to cycling though so maybe its just down to that...

Sidestepping the sensory awareness issue for the moment, there are real problems with mini-style headphone usage in an enviroment with high ambient noise levels. The noise leakage from outside leads to turning the headphone up to dB levels that will eventually cause damage to the inner ear. There are high quality (expensive) phones such as those made by Etymotics that provide a good level of noise isolation, but even then I'd be wary of incipient hearing damage.

Aha! I was thinking the pedestrians on my usual MUP ride were controled by aliens by way of those little white wires - rich aliens if they were holding one of those little boxes with an antenna to their ear. Turns out it's just music and cell phones. Problem is, mine don't sway out of the way. They squeal and jump straight up. No way of telling where they're going to land.

Somewhat related, I notice that in the summer, I can't wear my hearing aid. The wind noise translates into something like a person blowing into a microphone to see if it's working. In the winter, I pull a light Turtle Fur balacalva over my ears, and the hearing aid works great. Without the hearing aid, I won't hear the engine noise, but the sound of the tires is on just the right frequency for what's left of my hearing.

I have bolded your false assumption. In fact, sometimes wind noise drowns out my headphones.

What Are You Guys Saying?
Speak Up I Cant Hear You !!
Im Listening To My Ipod !!

You must have misunderstood the nature of this discourse. It is all written text.

Yesterday I came upon a Coyote rounding a corner. He saw my headphones and assessed my lower SA and saw me as prey. Bared my teeth and growled just in time to avoid an attack. Yet another negative to the old ipod.
With all the talk about SA I casually observed that over 22mph the wind noise made it nearly impossible to hear sounds in the enviroment. No birds chriping, no buses bearing down. Do those of you that consider hearing indispensible to SA keep your speed under 20mph?

Wonder how I've managed to survive 30+ years of riding motorcycles in the city wearing full face hemets and ear plugs. Must be one lucky SOB.

He must have the new text ipod

Where can I get a handlebar mount for my laptop? Don't worry, I'll turn the sound off.

https://www.shoptronics.com/ipanymp3plsp.html

How about this instead?

Might work for some, but not me, as it sounds like crap.

I think I will start riding around with this:


I wonder if anyone will object to that?

Interesting stuff to read. I've been using my MP3 player / headphones on my motorcycle for...5 or 6 years now. Unless I'm riding in-town for less than 10 minutes or so, I use my custom-made earphones. On a motorcycle, they don't bother me at all, nor do I feel they offer a significant safey issue. Even when lane-splitting in rush hour traffic on the 10 in LA.

On a bicycle, I think it might be different. On a motorcycle, you're always going around cars and / or traffic. There's not much coming up behind you to run you over. At least in my case, I'm always the one doing the passing. On a bicycle, I guess things are a lot different. That's certainly a point to consider. I think small speakers (earbuds not in my ears?) may be the way to go.

As "trained" as I am to use my headphones on my motorcycles...riding without might take some getting used to.

funny I've never worn headphones on a motorcycle. Always thought I didn't need entertainment outside of the ride. The bike is so much slower it seems theres lots of attention to spare. I keep the volume pretty low and the phones that come with the ipod allow the ambient noise to get through.
If you mashing up a hill at 8mph and a car is about to run you over at 60mph do you think that your hearing is going to save you? If your hearing is that acute than you should never get buzzed.
Seems like all the risk assessments done here are nothing more than opionon. Anyone know of any studies?

I do. They are ugly!

Hey now! That is the set I use at work.
I'm not here for a fashion show. They are just darn comfy

I couldn't be bothered to read your post... but you're an a$$hole