Cycling UK Forum

Left ear only listening to Test Match Special no bother. I won't play high volume rock music into both ears when riding. I also live in my mirrors.

yakdiver wrote:A rear mirror makes up for the lack of hearing, if set up right you only have to move your eyes, I think I look at my mirror more times than when in the car.

I was trying to think whether I would go for hearing or mirror and in the end I chose mirror, on balance.

RPDave wrote:I cant understand why people would want to cycle with their headphones on so that they can't hear traffic or cars sounding their horns behind them. I cycle 12 miles each day to and from work on the "Boris" superhighway from Wimbledon to the City, and I would estimate between 15 and 20% of cyclists have headphones in thier ears (maybe more) and they cant hear a thing.

Surely this is more worthy of a safety campaign than anything, its madness in my opinion.

Am I being too negative?

I don't ride with headphones on but I know people who do. It's none of my business if they choose to do that and neither is it any of your business.
BTW how do you know all the cyclists with headphones can't hear a thing?

The one thing I miss by listening to music while I ride is mechanical noises on my bike.
Until very recently I wasn't that bothered by imperfectly indexed gears ...

... or rather over the course of a 40 mile group ride, I'm constantly hearing things going wrong with it.

I don't wear headphones on the bike - in fact I have an idea that it's illegal here, although many do it - but occasionally on long flat stretches I find my hand reaching out to where the radio button would be in the car.

If I do feel a need for music, I "sing". Yesterday's victim was Pancho & Lefty.

Audax67 wrote:If I do feel a need for music, I "sing". Yesterday's victim was Pancho & Lefty.

you must be super fit to be able to sing and cycle at the same time! Whenever I try to do justice to a song I have to miss out the odd word in order that I breathe!

I would generally agree with the OP, but he is talking about a 'cycle highway'. I assume this is something that doesn't involve cars? If so, why not listen to some choons?

Hector's House wrote:you must be super fit to be able to sing and cycle at the same time!

Or slow

Nutsey wrote:I would generally agree with the OP, but he is talking about a 'cycle highway'. I assume this is something that doesn't involve cars? If so, why not listen to some choons?

There will always be people taking it a bit too far in the headphone department :-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbxwOrVSXpk

I saw a chap last week with a speaker in a front basket, blasting out regae music and singing along merrily as he rode through busy traffic.

Seemed harmless at that speed. And I bet he wasn't going far.

Hector's House wrote:

Audax67 wrote:If I do feel a need for music, I "sing". Yesterday's victim was Pancho & Lefty.

you must be super fit to be able to sing and cycle at the same time! Whenever I try to do justice to a song I have to miss out the odd word in order that I breathe!

I did say that it was when I felt a need for music. Grinding up cols I rarely do, though I have gone halfway up La Petite Pierre** on In the Year of '39. And Stewart has the right of it: these days I am sloooooooow.

** Pierre in this case = rock, not Peter.

Maybe the ability to belt out show tunes could be a rough and ready indicator of whether we're pushing our exercise runs a bit too far...

Some of the rides I was on early this year, You tiny hand is frozen would have been more the thing. Only it was my tiny hands.

According to the writer Tim Hilton the singing club run was a frequent event before the Hitler war.

Leaving aside "on-bike karaoke" of which I find myself frequently guilty......

It's interesting to compare the majority attitude on two topics on this board, namely high viz cycling ware, and this one.

Apparently the majority believe high viz is useless, and anyone cycling with headphones is practically asking for it. Is it possible that posters are seeking to justify their own choices. Apparently if you can't be seen it's the car drivers fault, and if you wear headphones (& I suspect the majority of posters might not) you are an accident waiting to happen, devoid of 66% of your senses (hearing and common sense).

Leaving the high viz point, I find the "evidence" for not wearing headphones largely ill considered. The first point is in what circumstances does hearing actually improve awareness of traffic? Well certainly not in a city. Here my ears tell me there is a lot of traffic - I am rarely unaware of that in a city. It doesn't tell me if a Chelsea tractor is about to rear end me in a bid to switch lanes. The traffic noise in a city simply tells me that there is a lot of traffic around, which really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. It similarly doesn't help when I'm cycling into a headwind. Cars sneak up unheard in these circumstances all the time. Do I feel unsafe cycling into a headwind? - Not particularly, I use a mirror which far more frequently warns me of approaching traffic than my ears in all circumstances.

The second point is that knowing a car is coming adds very little to your safety, unless you are behaving in an unsafe manner at the time. There are surely three dangers - you do something stupid that means a car hits you from behind ( so hearing it coming is a benefit since you can stop the unsafe act, but the better remedy is not to do anything stupid in the first case), or you are two abreast (and how many people would wear headphones & cycle two abreast?) or the car behind doesn't see you (back to high viz), in which case hearing it does nothing (or possibly very little) to add to your safety.

For what it is worth, I don't wear headphones, I'm too busy singing out of tune renditions of Dean Martin or Tim Minchin