Cycling Training: Riding Inside versus Outside, Part 7

Here’s the next part of the riding inside versus outside series.  The series started here.

Inside: It’s easy to listen to music or something else while you ride.

Outside: It’s a lot harder.  First of all, listening to music takes away your hearing – not a big deal inside.  But outside, losing your hearing means that you can’t hear that car coming up from behind, you miss that dog chasing after you until the last moment, or you’re so caught up in a song that you miss a stop sign.  But worse than all this, it’s harder to change songs if you get a bad one on your walkman.  Inside it’s a snap.  Outside, you’re using both hands most of the time, so you can’t just fast forward (at least that easily).  So if you get a song you once liked but now hate, you’re in for four minutes of torture!

Now to Part 8.