Headphones no, but earplugs yes.

 

Never - You hear things before u see them sometimes..

 

I never ride without my Sennheiser noise cancelling buds. They cut virtually all ambient sounds from my hearing.

I play music all the time and I have different playlists for my moods but never let the tempo of the music affect my riding (not that I have noticed anyway).

I can hear car horns, emergency sirens and that's about it. I guess that my other senses have learned to over compensate for the drop in hearing which probably makes me a safer rider anyway.

A couple of times I have run out of phone battery and not worn the buds and the amount of engine noise and wind noise is distracting and sounds like over a long period of time could damage my hearing.

Also I use an iPhone based sat nav from time to time which temporarily dips the music volume to announce the directions. I'm a dab hand at navigating by hearing alone.

I'm an ex courier in London so having to listen to the dispatcher with an earpiece was a normal daily thing for me so I may have learned to ride 'deaf' from then.

 

I listened to ear buds for awhile but it was distracting and for the amount of volume I was having to put them at I imagine I was doing more hearing damage than having none in.

I am planning on getting a pair of the scala q2's for me and my brother so we can talk back and forth when we ride. There are helmets out there that block a good portion of wind and road noise but they get very hot in the summer.

 

My bike is loud and on long rides I cant hear anything when i get off. I use ear buds a lot they take out a lot of the road noise and a lot of the high drown of the motor and allows me to hear other cars and things. Some times I plug them in and will listen to music on long boring rids, other times i just use them for navigation. For really long highway rides I will use ear plugs.

 

I do every now and then but you have to be smart about it and make sure that it doesn't get in the way of your riding or your awareness of your surroundings. When I do it I only put one ear bud in and I run the headphone cord under my shirt so if the bud falls out, (which happens a lot) the cord isn't dangling off the bike and potentially getting caught in the back wheel which could end very badly. As long as it doesn't get in the way of your riding or your safety I don't see any problem with it as long as you don't mind people giving you weird looks when you're dancing on your bike at stop lights lol

 

What model buds are they CBR1K?

 

The headphones I use are Sennheiser CX299's

 

Always have headphone in. I wear only on in thou. I find if I have 2 in I can't hear cars, horns ect. As mentioned the fasted the music the faster you tend to go.

 

I'm curious about the laws around this. In MI it's illegal for a car driver to have headphones in both ears while driving - it takes away from their ability to pay attention to the road, they say. Is it any different for motorcycle riders? Why or why not?

On the same note (though somewhat different), I've also read that MI's no-fault insurance does NOT carry over to motorcycle riders. Again, why not?