Do you or don’t you?
Along with helmets, Campag /Shimano / SRAM, and what do you think of Lance [oh, hold on, we seem to have resolved that one…], the question of whether to ride with music or not always has the ability to divide opinion. Even such luminaries as Bradley Wiggins have expressed their views. Everyone’s favourite bumbling floppy-haired buffoon of a politician, London mayor Boris Johnson has called cyclists with headphones an “absolute scourge”.
It’s worth talking about this in three contexts though: first, on the turbo or rollers; second, on the trails; and third, on the road.
On the turbo
To me it seems pretty obvious that listening to music helps with what can otherwise be a pretty boring and painful experience. But I’m going to be exploring that in a separate piece, with some help from published scientific reports.
Tunes on the turbo. Photo: Mike Blewitt
On the trails
There are two schools of thought here: one that says you should enjoy the sounds of nature, unadorned, while riding off-road. And one that says some tunes can add to the experience now and then.
Most often I’d prefer to be riding with mates; chasing your riding companions down a flowing trail is one of life’s great pleasures, as is trash-talking each other’s abilities. Music has no place in these circumstances. However, it doesn’t always work out that you’re riding with a group, and sometimes there’s nothing better than riding solo, with no-one to wait for, no-one to share decisions with on what trail to ride next – just doing your own thing. And sometimes music can be a great accompaniment to these kinds of rides.
The main arguments for not listening to music while riding off-road seem to be:
- Losing out on the sounds of nature. There are times when a good part of the joy of a mountain bike ride is in being out in nature, hearing the birds, or unidentified small mammals scuttling about in the undergrowth. Or just enjoying the silence of being somewhere other than the usual bustle of the city. On those occasions, music would mean missing out. There are other times, though, when the pleasure is all in the buzz of riding a really good trail; and I find that can even be enhanced by some really good tunes.
- Missing some trail feedback. This seems a bit tenuous, but I’d agree that you probably can get a small element of extra information about the level of grip your tyres are achieving by what they sound like over the ground.
- A diminished ability to hear people coming up to overtake. When out on a normal ride, I’m not too bothered about this. I’ve got my music low enough to have enough of a sense of what’s behind. And there’s also a bit of arrogance here, I’ll admit. Especially while riding my local trails, I’m fairly confident that getting overtaken is going to be a very rare occurrence. I don’t feel too bad about reducing my sense of who might be coming up behind me, because I’m not expecting anyone to be there.
Clearly “listening to music” is not an absolute concept. There’s a big difference between the way I listen to music while riding and the guy on the commuter train who has got his earphones in, but also forcing everyone else in the carriage to share in his dubious taste in music. I firmly believe that I can enjoy some music while also maintain a sufficient level of hearing of what is going on around me. I never run my music at more than 8% of maximum level; more often 5%. Which to some people might barely seem bothering with, but I’m not planning on being semi-deaf by the time I’m 50.
There’s also a question about listening to music while racing. I always look askance when I see someone wired for sound on the start-line (as I did in a recent four-hour event). Unless you’re in a very select group of people in the race, you can guarantee that you’ll be getting overtaken at some point, particularly on a lap-based course. If you can only hear faster riders’ overtaking calls when they’re right on top of you, then at best you’re negatively affecting their race, and at worst you’re creating a risk to both your safety and theirs.
And if you require music to keep you going in an XC or marathon event, you probably need to rethink your attitude to racing.
All in all, don’t do it.
The only time I’ve used music while racing has been in 24-hour solo events, and really only at night. Under those circumstances it seems acceptable to me, but not under any others. The inside of a solo 24-hour racer’s head can be a pretty dark and scary place when it’s raining at 3am; the distraction of some good tunes can surely never be more necessary. It’s also one of those mental tricks that can be used to keep you going – “just three more hours and I can put my music on”. And it’s pretty easy to get a good sense of when other riders are coming up behind, as their lights are very conspicuous in a dark forest. However, headphones now seem to have been banned from quite a lot of races – probably quite sensible.
On the road
There are some people who say no-one should ever ride with music on the road. Fair enough, they’re entitled to their opinion. I don’t mind saying that I quite often ride with music.
Particularly when riding on the road, there’s a trade-off between risk and enjoyment. I want the enjoyment of a ride; but if I wanted to minimise the risk completely, I wouldn’t go out at all. It’s always possible that I’ll be in the wrong place in the wrong time when the wrong driver does something stupid and takes me out. But if I took that attitude to risk, I would never leave the house.
I take a similar view of music while riding. I get extra enjoyment from my riding through music. Sometimes if I’m tired, it can help keep me going through a long road ride. And yes, it does add a small amount of extra risk – I’m under no illusions that it doesn’t affect my senses at all. Obviously if I’ve got something else going on in my ears other than listening for traffic, I’m not going to be quite as good at hearing cars.
However, it’s all about keeping the enjoyment / risk trade-off sensible. So for example, I never listen to music while riding round London. I see people commuting with earphones in and feel that their enjoyment / risk trade-off is a bit poorly adjusted. On such crowded streets, with so many people in a hurry to get wherever they’re going, I absolutely believe in using every sense unhindered. But out on country roads, or round Richmond Park, music, at a suitably low volume, can add to my ride while in my view not unacceptably increasing the risks.
What are your thoughts? Ride with music? Or keep all your senses uninterrupted?
This is part one of three on music and riding. Stay tuned (no pun intended) for parts two and three – a look at the scientific research on the effects of music on athletic performance, and some thoughts on the best tunes to train to.
In case this wasn’t already obvious, this represents my own reflections and in no way an ‘official’ marathonMTB.com opinion. Do what you think is best, and stay safe out there!