For Long Hair - Wear a Buff

by Tracy
(Canberra, Australia)

I've only been riding about 6 months, however the biggest teething problem I encountered was how to tame the wild mane of hair the resulted even after a short ride. The end of my pony tail would be like a crazy birds nest that was painfully knotty ... taking a considerable amount of time to brush out.

Not liking to tuck my pony tail up into my helmet (as I've heard other girls do - I think these girls may have allowed for a larger helmet for this purpose as I found I got a headache after a while!) my solution is to wear a buff!

A Buff is essentially a tube of stretchy (almost lycra like, but not quite) fabric. Place it over your head, tuck it under your chin, and tuck your pony tail inside the Buff to protect it from the scarey winds!

But that is only one factor .. the Buff won't protect you from "Flat Hair". Since riding I have changed my hair style in a number of different ways to reduce the impact a motorcycle helmet has on my hair, especially since I ride my bike to work ... a baseball cap is not an option unfortunately! I don't have a recent photograph, but essentially, I grew out my fringe (I think American's call them Bangs?) as this was a huge factor in exaggerating the helmet hair experience. The other thing I did was moved to a style that could either a) be placed in a pony tail, or b) straightened with a hair iron ... u can't get much flatter than that! It's about an hour ride to work for me in the morning and I can pull my helmet off, give my head a bit of a shake (picture slow motion movie cut scene!) and I'm ready for the day ahead!