The other day I saw “Portland Bike Jesus” and I noticed he was wearing headphones.

Is it really safe to get around town while listening to something else that could be distracting and not help you be aware of your surroundings?

I feel if you are are going to make a living of pointing fingers at other people, you might also not want be part of the “problem”.

8 replies on “Headphones While Biking?”

  1. Interesting post. I happen to make my living thinking about traffic safety and traffic culture and I wear headphones while biking. I don’t think it’s a big deal at all. It’s not like I’m blaring death metal super loud or anything. I make sure I can hear things around me just fine. (FWIW I’m usually listening to podcasts and not music.)

    In my opinion, cycling with headphones at a reasonable sound level is no big whoop. I also like to listen to music on my car stereo when driving around town.

    – Jonathan Maus, editor and publisher BikePortland.org 😉

    p.s. whoever this person is that “makes a living pointing fingers at other people” sounds like a real jerk.

  4. Mr. Maus/Bike Portland makes a living pointing fingers at other people, whether he is mis-labeling an Asian-American cyclist as a cop, or slandering a car driver who was attacked during a march, or rebroadcasting Hart Noecker’s trashy attacks on those who dare to drive cars.

    Whatever a middle class white cyclist does (no helmet, ear phones, “taking the lane” just to control traffic) is always okay with the bike evangelist crowd.

  5. I totally agree that there is nothing wrong with wearing non-noise blocking headphones while cycling. I drive around in my car with the windows up and the stereo on all the time and I can hear far better listening to a podcast on my bike than driving in my car with the windows up.

  6. While Mr Maus point is well-expressed, I think one can easily discern that perhaps anything on headphones can be a deterrent to paying 100% attention while biking,and so I am not in favor of it whatsoever.
    I’ve biked as my main form of transportation in the much more heavily congested Germany for 5 years, and I would have been a fool to have headphones on.
    The same applies to biking in Portland.
    It is called Common Sense.

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