Music & cycling?

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Scotty_Dog said:

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Apologies.

trucker39 said:

I was just wondering, from a safety perspective, whether many of you listen to music while cycling? Personally, i find it helps, but i can see flaws with it in terms of safety on the road.

Any views?

I ride with a small mirror on my glasses and choose local roads which have a shoulder as wide as a traffic lane with a rumble strip to separate the shoulder from the traffic lanes. I can still hear cars coming up behind me though probably not with as much forewarning as I'd have without the music. Overall, I don't feel any less aware of what is going on around me but then I don't usually have the music blasting. Even the wind noise often competes more so than does the traffic.

I have to admit that any other sounds will limit your ability to hear traffic to some degree but overall, the hype about the dangers of listening to music are over-blown.

I never listen to music while riding. It's too distracting, ad i can't hear anything.

This is a frightening idea. I enjoy riding bike specific trails and I have trained well enough to be fairly fast. I still, however, occasionally get passed by someone a little faster. Since mirrors don't work well for me, I depend upon their verbal warning to let me know of their approach. On the road, I definitely need to hear the traffic. Here in Ohio, bicyclists are considered fair game by many of our "licensed" drivers:eek: .

Thanks for replying everyone!

In Ireland, our roads are disgraceful. In the very rare case where there is a hard shoulder, it's usually of very poor quality and full of holes (which destroy my bike, but that's another issue). Also, drivers generally have no consideration for the cyclist, and give us very little room. So, listening out for the traffic is very important. Despite this i do like to listen to music while i cycle, it helps pass the time, but i'm serously considering stopping this practice.

It all comes down to what you are comfortable with.

I do listen to my ipod while riding, although most of my time is spent on bicycle only paths at around 6:00 - 7:00 AM, so it is not much of an issue.

I listen to my iPod too when I ride by myself. But I only use one ear piece in the kerb side ear and keep the volume low to medium. I find that it does not affect my situational awareness and similar to above, I typically only ride in the early morning where traffic isn't an issue.