06.18.09
Dilemma
This could very well be the most specific post I’ve written. I’ll keep it short, too, in case you have places to be.
I’ll begin with some information. I have a nice bike. It’s a bike that I really enjoy riding around. While at BYU during the fall semester I would ride to school probably twice a week on average. Then winter rolled in and by the time the temperature warmed up to the point I felt comfortable riding long distances in it, I was burned out and biking to school didn’t sound like fun.
It’s summer and I want to spend a lot of time outdoors in the thick of it, hence my desire to go camping with friends. I also want to ride my bike around for fun to nowhere in particular.
Information over. Now for dilemma.
With so much time spent out riding a bike, I would like to multitask. Namely, by listening to music, books on tape, or general authority talks. The problem with this is that it’s not safe to ride around with headphones in my ears. There are expensive headphones (in excess of $150) I could get rest outside of the ear and send vibrations to the earbones without obstructing the ears, so you still hear everything going on around you.
For any bikers out there, what do you do? Not take an ipod? Only listen to one earpiece, or even both? Any advice would be appreciated.
Mom said,
June 23, 2009 at 5:05 pm
I spoke with one of the girls I work with, she is an AVID bicycalist—I think that’s spelled wrong—she does races just about every weekend. The most she would consider is using one ear piece, and then she would only do that if the traffic were very, very, very light, as in out in the sticks. She said it’s too easy to get distracted listening to music and everyone knows that drivers are pretty impatient around bikes. You might check a bike shop, maybe there’s something that has external speakers and can attach to the handlebars or frame and you can listen that way. Be careful. I don’t want my baby boy getting hurt!!
Ryan said,
June 26, 2009 at 8:38 pm
I listen to my iPod with regular Skull Candy ear buds, and just turn the volume down to where I can still hear traffic. It’s easy to do with music, because it’s just a background thing. Listening to books on tapes would be much tougher, I think. Listening to GA talks would be even worse, because the soporific delivery would lull you into a deep sleep mid-pedal stroke, and that can’t be good.