Listening to music whilst out on a ride

Anyone who rides a bike
Anyone who rides a bike listening to music,is a pratt,to darn dangerous.A good friend of mine who was my 2up TT partner whilst racing for East Surrey RC,has sadly gone deaf and needs to wear 2 hearing aids,and he says he had to stop riding because he finds it hard to hear anything coming from behind!How can you be concentrating on your ride if you are listening to hard rock or whatever? 😉

I use a pair of sports
I use a pair of sports bluetooth headphones that I can pause the music by jabbing aimlessly at my right ear. They’re also vented/open backed so even at full volume you can hear road noises, upcoming cars – even the noise of someones chain if they’ve sneaked up behind you.

not normally in heavy traffic though, it’s just not worth it.

and never on group rides, just seems rude and you miss the banter 😉

Post edited. The wind in your
Post edited. The wind in your ears means it doesn’t matter most of the time anyway whether you have headphones in or not. As others have said, if someones going to hit you by driving dangerously there’s precious little you can do about it anyway.

VecchioJo wrote:i listen to

VecchioJo wrote:

i listen to music all the time, have done for the last 25+ years, i’ve never noticed how much more dangerous the roads are when i plug myself in, i rely on my eyes a lot more than my ears whether i’m listening to music or not, it can be hard to hear a car with 20mph wind in your ears

do those who say listening to music on a bike is dangerous and distracting also not turn the radio on in the car and then wind the windows down, or do they use their eyes to see what’s going on?

all the accidents (some involving hospital visits and surgery) i’ve had have been while i’ve not been listening to music, just to add that to the anecdotal mix

It all comes down to personal choice, based on perceived level of risk and where you ride etc. My personal view is that I’d never do it. I take the point about car radios but you’re slightly more exposed sat on a bunch of carbon/metal tubes than in a car with numerous safety features.

I can’t help but think some riders like to have one earphone in just to look that bit more ‘pro’. They should get bonus points for the surgical tape and for talking into the wire/pretend mic. 😀

I don’t. I think that the
I don’t. I think that the music is either distracting, or you are concentrating on other things (traffic/potholes/lights/effort/technique etc etc) such that your brain can end up tuning out the music anyway.

I tried on a pair of those shockwave thingies at the bike and tri show in Manchester. They are bone conduction devices that sit just forward of the ear and enable you to hear music while leaving the ears uncovered. However, I found that the music could still drown out ambient sound (dependent entirely on volume), and unless you held the speakers against the bone, there was no bass whatsoever. Without bass, there’s less rhythm, and therefore less point.

Interesting story about Londonplayer’s mate. I expect that in any incident, it would be more difficult to explain that you could indeed hear the car coming (appreciate that he didn’t) – we get enough stick about hi-viz/road tax/cycle lanes/helmets as it is.

davidw07 wrote:When riding

davidw07 wrote:

When riding (IMHO) your ears are as important as your eyes and I certainly wouldn’t advocate riding with both eyes shut – or even one come to that.

Think that’s overstating it a bit! I imagine you cycle at night, when your vision is severely reduced? Listening to music is a personal choice of course, but it doesn’t have to render you completely deaf, it has to be used wisely i.e not in heavy traffic and actually is quite motivational when riding solo.

IME perfectly safe to listen to music as long a conditions are right. Never been hit by a car in 15 years of riding with headphones..

Frantically searching for some wood to touch.. 😀