The last couple of rides I’ve taken I experimented with the idea of wearing headphones and listening to podcasts while I ride. I’ve generally been cautious about cutting myself off from surrounding sounds just based on the fact that the more aware you are the better able you are to keep yourself safe.
But on a long ride home last week I was tired and decided to listen to Splendid Table to distract myself from my fatigue and get through the last couple of miles. It really helped and I was still able to hear approaching cars because unlike music, talk doesn’t take up all the sound space.
Talk still takes up some of the sound space though. Enough that I don’t automatically hear when I don’t have the shifter quite in the right spot. Enough that I don’t hear my brakes rubbing on my tires and making me work harder.
Why am I so tired? I know I haven’t been riding enough lately, but… I have still been riding. I must just be out of shape.
No… well maybe a little, but my brakes were rubbing. Alot. And it turns out that somehow my rear wheel had no tension in it so it wasn’t entirely straight and maybe it wasn’t entirely round. I took it to the bike shop on Monday and they fixed it. It about a half and hour to get it back in good shape. I was really happy that they did it on the spot because I had been super annoyed about the idea of having to drive all the way from Rochester to Geneva two days in a row.
I did ask how this might have happened, you know, so I don’t do it again. He said just riding. He asked if I was carrying a lot of extra weight in my panniers. I’ve been carrying a few extra lbs on my body but not 50. I’m not totally satisfied with my understanding of how a wheel loses ALL it’s tension. I haven’t ridden it off curbs. Their have been railroad tracks and dirt roads but I was pretty sure that was an acceptable level of abuse.
I haven’t looked it up yet. But I will. And then maybe I will have learned something. Something besides the questionable nature of riding with headphones on.
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