No, this isn’t going to be a post about some great band that rides bikes, or some bicycle/music festival. It’s about another clueless individual who’s now dead because he rode with his iPod or MP3 player.
Don’t get me wrong, I really love my music. For some folks, it’s a great motivator when you’re out riding, or a bit of company in your head for those long training grinds. But let’s be sensible here. There’s a huge difference between riding out in the mountains, or an a bike path/MUP, and riding through the city. I’ve heard some guys say that they just use one earphone, or that they keep the volume really low, so they can hear what’s going on around them. Fair enough. But how loud would your music have to be that you couldn’t hear a train? A f**king train? By the way, trains are found almost exclusively on train tracks. Active tracks generally have a lot more trains than abandoned tracks. It’s not any big secret that vigilance and attention is required when crossing the tracks.
This week, a guy was riding his bike across the TRAX train tracks in Sandy, just south of Salt Lake City, enjoying his music, and BAM! Now he’s dead. There’s no way to sugar coat it. And it’s not that I lack compassion for his family and their loss, but now he can be a lesson to walkers, joggers, skaters, and cyclists everywhere. If you choose to listen to your music while out and about, at volumes that block out everything else, you’re putting yourself at risk. The cyclist mentioned above left behind a family and a nine year old son.
Think about it.
I wonder how many cars, with their obscenely loud stereos, have suffered the same fate — funny how that isn’t tracked, everything else is.