"If music be the food of love, ride on..."

The Walkman, and through natural progression the MP3 player, must be one of the most successful and widely used pieces of leisure technology in the world. Watch the pavement as people hurry to work and earphones are in as great numbers as the looks of resignation at the start of another day. While this is accepted as part of daily life, the pedestrian coccooned away from the world, much like the motorist with the windows up and radio on, the very thought of a cyclist donning earphones before heading out into the traffic is met with howls of horror at the blatant danger in which the cyclist is placing himself and others.

But I'd heard tell by some people who did cycle while listening to music that it really wasn't the danger it was made out to be. There was only one thing for it, and so digging out an old MP3 player already loaded with a few tracks I liked I set forth on an experiment to try and get to the truth of the matter. With this clipped onto my courier bag I slipped the bike out of the garage rather guiltily, went through the usual ritual of resetting the cycle computer and looking to the sky to see if the Race Blades were necessary, and pushed off in time with the beat.

Within 10 seconds I couldn't hear a thing. Not because I had the volume up too loud, but quite the opposite, as soon as I got moving the wind noise was drowning out the low volume I'd set in a moment of paranoia. Fortunately easy enough to adjust on the move I upped the sound incrementally and got into a rythym not entirely of my own making.

This felt.... Odd. But the moment the first car came from behind and passed me I also realised that the slight background soundtack to my progress hadn't masked the approach of the vehicle in the slightest. This surprised me, although as I rode on I wondered why. The volume still wasn't loud and I had in the past (anti-social though it is) carried on conversations while listening to music on headphones.

This was going beyond my initial thought of 'Just what does hearing add to cycling?' and into 'This has no effect on my cycling at all!

The starting point was acually one I had heard a number of times. I had argued it myself, before starting this experiment. Does not being able to hear make any difference to a cyclist's safety? There are a number of issues which run from this, and primary amongst these for me was that from behind a car that is about to go past you can sound no different from a car that may be about to hit you.