Used headphones and more recently AirPods for years on the road. Just be sensible, turn down on busy roads, increase awareness by checking around you more regularly and enjoy smashing it up some gradient with your power tracks on when the time is right.
You can even chat alongside other riders with them. I meet guys all the time with mine in and just pause and chat away. They block very minimal sound when off and even when on unless they’re up super loud or are actively noise cancelling which most either aren’t or are bad at.
Apple leads with the button on them are excellent as you can pause and start easily even with thick gloves on. Vol up and down easy too.
AirPods don’t fly out even when you hit huge bumps by mistake it seems. Newer AirPods have Siri so maybe these can be used to say volume up or down or pause etc without taking hands off bars? I’ve had poor experiences with voice commands on the GoPro though the mic was quite far away unlike the AirPods…
Quote a polarised topic but as usual the reality lays somewhere in between all the the ranting.