msheron

Okay..................I was one of the first to question those who ride with MP3 players due to safety. Well damn it! I bought a MP3 and used it on a organized annual ride and it really was nice having tunes. I could still hear cars from behind but not as well.

I assume I will use it again on my regular rides and guess I have gone over to the dark side of my thinking to incorporate it into my riding regime.

botto 

using an MP3 when you're by yourself is fine.

using an MP3 on an organized group ride is asinine.

msheron

Why is that? I have nothing to say to the schmuck beside me and it drowns out their moans as we go up the side of a mountain!

cydewaze

You're right. I use noise-cancelling, full coverage headphones instead.

botto 

that way you can actually hear the people helping to find your teeth after you done a faceplant because you couldn't hear the warning in time.

you noobs kill me sometimes

WheresWaldo

I thought the OP was going to say he bought a Motobecane!!!!

JayC

I use an MP3 player when I ride my mountain bike on trails.. but some days I ride the whole trail (25 miles or so) and never see another soul so I really don't consider it dangerious. I think the most people I've ever seen was 5-6 people.. one of the advantages of riding during the day.

On the road, I wouldn't even consider it and especially not in a group ride. I saw someone get taken out by a guy last week who was drifting willy nilly through the pack.. I thought to myself when I went by him "This guy is gonna take someone out" and it wasn't 30 seconds later, CRASH! I like to have my full attention on the task at hand when riding with a group. Too many other people that you don't know what they are going to do.

DavisClydesdale

+1!

I wear my iPod all the time, but I only use the right ear-bud. I need to look online to see if they sell one ear-bud setups.

Talewinds

I ride by myself on 99% of my rides. And I ride on MUPS so far out there are no other people 99% of the time, so I use my MP3 religiously.
I just invested in one of those sets of Shure high end earphones that have popped up since Ipods have taken off. And let me tell ya, the sound quality IS AMAZING!

msheron

What a pompous a$$....................not a noob here! Go back to your pink colored sky of a world.

GuitarWizard

Always 100% headphone-free....

....then again, I like having all my senses available to me when I ride on the road where some people have a tendency to not pay attention. The other half of it is, even though you may feel you're more than attentive enough with headphones, it is fairly easy to become distracted enough at some point (particularly when you're in a fatigued state) to not pay attention....i.e., your mind may wander for a little bit, and sometimes that's all it takes to hit something in the road that you "didn't see" and go down.

But.....if people wanna ride with headphones on, that's fine. Since it doesn't impact me, I could care less what happens to them.

botto 

Alright, I'll rephrase it:

That way you can actually hear the people helping to find your teeth after you've done a faceplant because you couldn't hear the warning in time.

you Freds kill me sometimes


Is that better?



ps - WTF are you getting at with the 'pink colored sky' comment?

msu2001la

It probably impacts you more than you realize. I've had several instances where I've been trying to pass another cyclist wearing headphones and they've failed to hear me say "on your left" and drifted/turned in to me. Usually, they are quite startled to find a cyclist next to them, since they had no idea I was there, despite me trying to warn them of my presence.

Headphones are fine if you're smart about it. Keep the volume low enough to hear the outside world, and take the left one off or turn them off completely when you're in traffic or on a busy trail.

jrod2143

XM Radio is good for me but only wear it when on rides by myself on the rural roads. Dont think it is too smart to wear one on group rides. Reasons mentioned above

DavisClydesdale

At the Tour of Napa Valley ride last month, I can't tell you how many people passed me and didn't bother to announce their presence. I place my speed about average for the event because I passed about as many people as passed me. I always announce my presence, but I find these hard core riders zip right on past you only inches away without saying anything. At one point, a seven rider pace line zipped past me doing at least 5 MPH faster than me, and the lead rider said nothing. If I spooked, I could have taken out the next six.

It always seems like the noobs, as well as the hard-core rider, that doesn't bother to announce their presence. Noobs because they don't know better, but the seasoned rider?

CanyonChaser

Yeah, i use headphones on my solo rides about 70% of the time. It helps pass the time, particularly when I'm just doing the ride after work on the same road I've ridden a hundered times.

Listening to MP3 doesn't mean you have to have them turned all the way up, using noise cancelling headphones. I just keep the volume down a bit. But there's really not a lot I can do about a car careening up behind me at 60mph.

Besides, the argument that you should not ride in headphones makes as much sense as saying deaf people should not be allowed to ride on the streets.

dp

EventServices

I ride with an iPod 80% of my solo rides. If you saw where I ride, you'd approve.

But I'll go along with the not-a-good-idea-in-a-group-ride belief.

Oddly, society has outcasts who want to fit in on their own terms.
i.e. "I'll ride with your group, but lordy, don't make me interact with them."

Geez, how are you gonna hear the guy who shouts out "BRAKING!"

Olebiker

On our club ride last Sunday there was a guy that nobody seemed to know riding with us. He was riding in the middle of the lane a few lengths in front of us. Someone called "car back" and the guy didn't move over. We called out again. He still didn't move. After the car passed us one of the riders rode up to the new guy to inform him of how we do things on our ride.

The guy pulled his ear buds out and said, "What? I couldn't hear you." He insisted that he had ridden that way for years and couldn't understand why we were upset with him.

CanyonChaser

If anything, I find it to be quite rude when you hook up with some pals to go for a ride and one of your "pals" brings along his headphones. Doesn't that stike you as kinda not-so-cool? Granted I don't plan on having long disucussions about politics or anything, but I'd like to be able to drone along and chat on the straight sections.

Headphones are for solo-rides, if for no other reason than manners.

dp

azwhelan

We get the same thing on our group rides with new people and their head phones. We always approach them politely and tell them the no head phones rule and they always seem to react harshly.

daytonian

I love my mp3 for solo stuff but I gotta agree with Botto for group stuff they aren't safe. The 2 group rides I do wouldn't allow it. Plus it is anti-social in a way.

GuitarWizard

The only time I've ever used music to ride with is indoors on a trainer, since I would get bored out of my mind. Out on the road, there's too much to see, enjoy and concentrate on to be distracted by music.

Panic

I have this happen to me all the time with riders, walkers, roller bladers wearing headphones on the MUPS. Last week a girl was running, I called out - on your right, and sure enough she decided that was the perfect time to switch to running on the right side. She didn't hear me as she was rocking out.

Two nights ago a gentleman, and I use the term loosely, was riding at a nice pace on the path, left ear phone only, "On your left with plenty of room", he starts no-handing it, I pass by, he gets startled and nearly wipes out, starts cursing at me. I stopped, "hey buddy, what's your problem? I said on your left?" (I say it pretty loudly as well). He tells me he didn't hear me because he had his ear bud in. Asshat.

Then the teens riding, swerving all the time, headphones, music loud.....

Bacciagalupe

Riding with headphones is unsafe, period. If you're solo and on the road, you're dramatically cutting down your ability to hear other vehicles. MTB may be another story, but even there it's always possible that headphones will make you totally oblivious to another cyclist, pedestrian or even atb / motorized vehicle on the path. The "isolating" headphones like the Shures are worse than regular headphones in this respect, as they block out even more sound than usual. Great for the train, disaster for a bike.

Of almost equal importance is that the music will distract you from your current activity. While it's nowhere near as bad as, say, talking on a cell phone, it's still drawing your attention away from the road.

Hearing is omnidirectional and positional, and a decent "early warning system." Your peripheral vision is wide, but far less accurate than you may believe; try reading text that is at even at 30 degrees to the side, and you'll see how much detail you lose. You may also want to read up on "change blindness," a documented phenomenon where even objects directly in your vision can change without you noticing at all.

So you might believe that your vision is accurate, wide, highly attuned to your surroundings and is sufficient to alert you to conditions. But this belief is incorrect.

Save the MP3 player for the subway.

derath

I tried once but the wind noise was so bad I couldn't hear the music anyhow. So I didn't bother anymore.

-D