aquagirl - 2009-07-14 4:42 PM Never ever. Period.
x2.
I look at it this way...
First, you gotta realize, you're on a bike. Not in a car, a bike. There are so many larger, faster moving objects out there, plus pedestrians, and you're not protected by airbags. It's dangerous, you need as much information as you can get to ride clean. 2
) you won't hear callouts from riders ahead of you as to trouble
(car back, etc
) or horns or emergency vehicles or bells/verbal warnings from other cyclists, 3
) if you ever have to fiddle with the playlist to get to the next song, you're not paying attention to the road, and 4
) Audio cues are one of the easiest ways to tell if you have something going wrong with your bike, like a spoke broken, issue with a fork, etc.
Lastly...A crash at 5mph can mess you up. A crash at 20 can wreck your season. A crash at 20+ the speed of another pedestrian/vehicle is season ending plus. Plus. Why introduce any more risk into the equation? Get a riding partner, talk a little, work a little, enjoy the ride. Leave the headphones home, or crank 'em on the trainer.
PS. I'd bet that no one that advocates an ipod has ever been in a serious accident wearing their ipod, and I'm sure that they don't wear them in their car
(which, ironically, would be more protected than on a bike
).