What do you do?

[indysteel]

+1. Being in the moment and part of the world around you is one of the main reasons I ride my bike. There are no distractions, just what is happening. It's quite powerful.

Absolutely. I don't generally like listening to music with earphones anyway, but I love the noisy quiet of my rural rides. By noisy quiet, I mean that overall it's generally pretty quiet riding out in the country--until I focus on the chatter of all the birds and insects, mixed with the hum of my bike. I love it.

[PamNY]

+1. Being in the moment and part of the world around me is one of the main reasons I ride my bike. There are no distractions, just what is happening. It's quite powerful.

This, exactly.

[Maxxxie]

I always have some song or another going through my head, whether I'm cycling or not. +1 to other peoples' suggestions of saturating yourself with great cycling music beforehand. Then just play an "encore" in your head and you'll be fine

Max

[Pedal Wench]

I always have a song in my heart though.

Love that!

I ride with music about 50% of the time. Never in a group or when riding with friends, and not usually on my intown rides. I was doing a long, lonely hill training ride, realized I left my player at home and almost turned around to get it. But, on that ride, on the descents in particular, I almost got my descending mojo back. Part of it was singing out loud. The Glee version of "Total Eclipse of the Heart" just had me carving turns like never before.

[marni]

ah bless the "mind worms" of songs that wander through my mind when I ride. I talk out loud to myself, the animals, mutter at the drivers, and then I make up songs about the ride and alternate them with Queens' Bicycle race, and some mental mozart masses that I only know a few words to, or just think my thoughts, watch the road and listen to the birds. I do however often ride with an earbud in my bra if I am doing intervals or really pushing for speed and or distance but that is because I ride solo 99.9% of the time.

Incidentally, for those who haven't yet discovered them yet there is a podcast called "Podrunner" which does a whole series of podcasts featuring tempo runds at different speedds, plus a series of training podcasts for 5,8 and 20 K training with gradually building tempos. These are great for intervals on the bike.

marni

[Jiffer]

I have done some organized rides where I "happened" to notice they say "no headphones", but people wear them anyway, including me, and it is not an issue. I think they say it as a precaution, but in my experience, they don't enforce it. Especially if you are reasonably subtle about it and only wear it in your right ear. I don't want to get you in trouble, though. Just giving you my two cents.

Having said that, I have done a few races where I for sure could not wear headphones without being disqualified. The first was 55 miles and I was a little freaked at the possibility. But found the thrill of doing the race kept me going. I think you'll find you'll be distracted enough with the ride itself and the people around you to be too frustrated about no music. But I suspect you'll see other people wearing headphones. Not that you should. That's your choice to make. I think the worst that could happen is they tell you take it off.

Have fun and good luck!!!