Dozer - I never ride with ear phone/music because I do like to listen out of sounds off road. That wombat or roo running through the scrub, sound of tyres or laughter coming the other way.
Likewise on the road - I can hear car and bike tyres behind me - bike changing gears. Trucks changing gears or that diesel drone. But that is just me
More me I just feel safer if all my senses are engaged - off road and on. I had a head on in the 90s (with a guy wearing headphones and no helmet) on a bike path in Brisbane around a blind overgrown corner - (I called out). We clashed heads and both were knocked cold and taken to hospital. I tore all the muscles in my neck and took a while to recover but the other guy discovered (from a catscan) he had a preexisting blockage to the brain. He was booked in for an operation a week later. I look at it - if we didnt crash, knocked out - he would never of had a scan and found this blockage which might have killed him anytime.
I dont really care what others do - I personally just need that focus. In the car it is the Hi5 and Justine Clark which I just shut off.
I ride with head phones for the following reasons:
I hate wombats, actually not as much as those fucking koalas who constantly growl and bitch about their trees being cut down. If I had my way, there would be bush everywhere with singletrack in between. I am not a politician so I can't change it. I am not on a committee so I can't complain about it. We are all in it together. Get over it.
I don't ride with anyone else, because all they want to do is moan and bitch about this guy, that guy, how it used to be in 1998 blardy blardy blah. I don't want to hear anyone laughing either. It means they are riding too slow, are not concentrating on going faster and are too stupid to stay quiet enough not to wake up the fucking koalas.
I don't need to hear the sound of my tyres. I don't own a 29er, so clearly I am there to ride and not dribble on about wheel size and then try to pick up men in the car park.
On my road bike I don't want to hear some wanker drive past in his six cylinder commodore or his fucking girlfriend in her Lancer with a 44 gallon drum for an exhaust pipe. I bet they have koala skinned seat belt covers with matching wombat steering wheel covers. If some over-drugged, banjo strumming, deliverance reject from Forrest drives too close to me in his CAT Kenworth, I don't want to know that my last moments on earth was on a fucking road bike. I hate Lance Armstrong.
I would rather get run over by a truck and my earphones used as a koalas necklace and my helmet used for a wombat nest than ride without my music.