Cycling with earphones, yay or nay edition: Jeremy Vine panned for falling off bike and hitting pothole while wearing earbuds; Thibaut Pint-ot in the PSG Ultras; New Cervélo for Jumbo-Visma; Pogačar on for Track TT Olympics? + more on the live blog

I can only speak for myself , Mr Vine does cycling no favours riding with earphones is in my opinion dangerous. I dont myself purely on the grounds of distraction and affecting my safety.and road awareness.

Being lit like a Christmas tree, dressed in highly reflective Proviz, sitting on the centre lane, indicating a right turn while doing 18mph on a narrow domestic street - outside my fecking house - didn't stop the Audi from overtaking me.
Just in front of the wankmobile, you can see the last white line that denotes the junction.
Unfortunately, the rear camera was covered in crap and is not viewable

I do wonder what I'm meant to do with the additional info my ears would give me. Even if I can somehow tell that a car is coming straight at me from behind, what do I do? Do a backflip over the car like in Spider-Man 2?

Earbud users are a menace, especially on canal towpaths where the users are oblivious to everything around them. bells are no use, even shouting is wasted on some. Even worse are the earbud users who wander all over a shared path whilst staring at their phones.

Ref cycling with headphones/pods. Maybe we should start a campaign to outlaw all in car entertainment systems, (radios to us old gits), force drivers to drive with their windows down and ban vehicle manufacturers fitting with accustic absorbing glass? 

I like the sound of birdsong, and the rumble of my tyres.

I was no more dangerous when I used headphones (with cassette payer), 30 years back, or safer now.

I do find hearing the change in engine tone to be informative, but wether that's truly safer?

YOU MUST WRITE LOUDER I'VE GOT MY HEADPHONES ON!

Heh.

I've been having a fun conversation on twitter about cycling round puddles, and the need fror investment in the public realm.

I've tried cycling with earphones, but I find the additional wind noise drowns out the music. But when not moving I can still hear more than I can inside my car. What is there to hear anyway?

• In a busy urban envirnment the road noise is near constant and gives no indication of immenent threat levels.
• In quiet rural environments the car that close passes or hits (I assume) sounds exactly the same as the car that gives a safe pass.
• If you change your line without looking you are rolling the dice on beaing hit by an electric vehicle one day
• If a motor vehicle uses their horn near you it is incredibly loud (in order to be heard through car windows) and you will hear it over earphones.

Maybe next time someone mentions how unsafe this is, I'll invite them to stand next to my car with earphones on and give the horn a blast.

Obviously if you use earphones while cycling, it can be hard to hear the difference between "a puddle" and "a pothole", as JV unfortunately found out.

If I am out solo on a long ride I sometimes use  bone conduction headphones to listen to radio/podcasts and sometimes music but not often. I like them as I can still hear my surroundings.... but it's a personal thing I guess. I do have in ear buds too but I never ride with them, they are only used at home.

As someone who lives in London, if I go for a ride it is going to be a fact that when I'm riding I'm likely to have a car in front of me, one next to me and one behind me.  Whether I hear or not isn't going to make any difference.  The only thing being able to hear allows is for me to hear the occasional insult from a driver.  Mind you, I'm a cyclist that is regularly looking over his shoulder and paying close attention to his surroundings.  If someone isn't going to pay attention due to headphones I'd hazard a guess that they are also likely to be the kind of cyclist that rides with tunnel vision and doesn't use their eyes properly either.

Been wearing headphones while cycling probably since 2017 and music has never distracted me. I wear these wireless headphones made by Mpow (purchased before they got booted off amazon for falsifying reviews...) and they are designed as such that they dont sit deep in your ear canal compared to similar headphones or have ANC on 24/7 so I can still hear everything around me as I ride.

Obviously one has to use some common sense along with it and not run them with the volume all the way up.

Im always shoulder checking so Im doubly careful of whats going on around me.

I dont particularly care what people do. Its not my place to judge but if people are going to do it, at least use some common sense.... if not for your own safety, then the safety of others.

Then there are those people who use those headphones that look like studio headphones which clamp around your head. Ive seena lot of people cycling with those headclamps on.

Motorists who scold cyclists for wearing earphones will, of course, drive around with their car stereos off and windows fully wound down. If they aren't hypocrites, that is.

I ride an ebike and wear hearing aids.

Thank fuck I'm not on twitter.

(I did manage to lose a £1500 hearing aid on a gravel ride. It came out when I hit the deck at speed.
Didn't notice until almost at coffee stop; we had the coffee, went back to find it.
Not easy seeing something that's less than 50mm long and skin tone against a gravel track ... but we found it ... and it still works 😁)

If people are going to complain about cyclists wearing earphones, I'd like to point them to pedestrians wearing earphones. They are completely unable to hear my bell.

In those scenarios I slow down and wait until there is plenty of space to pass them*.

I don't squeeze past them just because they can't hear me, because that would be unsafe.

*On one of the few sections of shared use path that I make use of