I’ve been using headphones while cycling outdoors for more than 13+ years in Taipei Taiwan where the traffic here is quite dangerous all the time.
I try to keep the answers short:
buy a wired, stable-quality, and workout-type headphones, this kind of headphones will stay firmly on your ears and will not fall from your ears, and you don’t have to recharge a wired headphone, and no need to worry that headphones get broken in the rain.
ps. I use sony-MDR-XB510AS
wear only one side of the headphone in order to listen to the traffic using your another ear if there is a dog barking or a car honking at you.
No matter what any of you think you notice wearing headphones, it is 100% guaranteed that you are not hearing your surroundings as well as if you did not have the ear buds/headphones on. It doesn’t matter how the sound gets to the cochlea, whether via normal ear structures (air conduction) or bone conduction either. If you introduce a certain dB sound into an ear, the brain will not perceive other sounds until it exceeds the volume of the sound already present. In other words, car noise will have to exceed the wind noise plus your music to be perceived by your brain. Furthermore, using just one ear bud doesn’t work. Your brain will not perceive the sound in the “empty” ear until the sound exceeds the music coming in your ear with the ear bud in. We catch people in our clinic trying to fake one sided hearing loss with this technique (Stenger test).
I am not saying you are more likely to get run over by a car, just saying your situational awareness is certainly affected. Just take the information and do with it what you will.
I know this stuff b/c I’m an Otolaryngologist (Ear, Nose, Throat doc). And I don’t use ear buds on the road for the record.
That last sentence could’ve changed the whole paragraph
Thanks for the info!
Luckily, until electric cars are made the majority for the fleet of commuters i have to deal with on my commute, the sound of cars overtakes my bone conduction headphones within the distance where “it matters”. There’s non stop traffic anyways so it’s not like i’m fully taking the lane and need to constantly move over. I have to be at the road’s edge constantly for half my commute and then it’s multiuse trails for the other half.
I gotta say if i ride with other people, i usually won’t wear any of that.
Bad advice IMO. I have a Varia and recommend it but not staring at it so much.
I still have instances where I hear a vehicle before noticing them on the head unit, especially on the roads around my home base. Essentially anything over 6 kHz I cannot hear worth a shit since birth. That includes any sound alerts from the Varia via the head unit. I have no idea how noticeable the sound is to the lucky ones that have good hearing, guessing it’s not a priority or gets drowned out by the tunes.
Definitely a noticeable alert, and the color change catches your eye. Definitely not staring at though. Granted I only wear the right headphone and at a low volume so may make it easier to hear.
I used to listen to music on the bike all the time. I always struggled to really hear the music because of the wind and trafficnoise. Switched to in-ears and still struggled. So I just upped the volume… well now I have tinnitus. Maybe reinforced due to the overly loud listening of music on the bike apart from other loud sounds (military, discos…). Now I enjoy listening to the wind in my ears because it tunes out the sharp beep of the tinnitus. So whether you listen to music on the road or not, just a word of caution to look after you ears. Don’t make the same mistake as I did. Stay safe out there.
I cannot stress this enough to family, friends, acquaintances, etc. from someone born with poor hearing. It does scare me a little as I continue to lose more of it with age. We all have something we shouldn’t do though.
I’m with @AndyGajda on this one. Tried them. I’m aware of the ergogenic benefits. Just couldn’t make them work for me.
You only gotta see one cyclist get smashed by a car to convince yourself you want to absolutely minimize that risk. But that’s me…I won’t bag on anybody who decides to do it. It’s like not wearing a helmet: you pretty much accept all the risk.
@Otoman I can’t agree more with you, brother. I was beginning to think I am in the minority on this issue. Military mindset: never lose situational awareness.
if i’m alone on road or gravel (ie not in a situation to bother anyone) I, also per the law, consider ourselves motorist and never use earbuds. So i just turn my stereo on - meaning i put the music on the phone, turn up the volume, and throw it in my pocket.
Always, currently I use Jabra elite active earbuds. The battery lasts like 5hrs and there are no wires to annoy.
I live in the countryside, roads are wide, quiet and I like to listen to music or podcasts whilst out riding. Good tunes help me work out harder
I don’t wear headphones when cycling. I find it very annoying when commuting on the bike and I want to overtake someone who is wearing headphones, often the big overear headphones. You can’t get their attention, so they won’t move to the side of the bike lane to let you pass.
I also find that I sometimes have to shout at people so that they don’t ride into me (they don’t look where they are riding!). That happened last week with someone wearing headphones, I had to swerve to the side of the bike path so that they didn’t hit me, even after I shouted twice so that they would look where they are riding!
From a personal perspective, I want to experience every aspect of the cycling with all my senses. It’s my escape from a demanding job (and family LOL), I’m focused on my training, how I feel, the environment, how my bike is running etc etc…I don’t need or want music
Of course i realise not everyone feels that but why do anything that might compromise your saftey in the slightest? Cycling is dangerous enough - as post further up says it does impact your awareness.
I use Aftershokz bone conductive headphones when doing long rides and they work great. These work well enough listening to music and they do not block out any road noise or ambient sounds.
Do you also wear elbow pads and knee pads when cycling on the road? What about a full-face helmet? Everyone has to decide how many compromises they make for the sake of enjoyment.
