Helmets and Long hair

[Blueberry]

No personal experience (I tried to grow mine out not long ago, and couldn't make it past chin length before it started driving me nuts!) - but I wonder if you might find inspiration here. The author appears to have long hair, and usually does 2 braids. Might be worth asking her opinion directly, as she does lots of long distance riding. Her blog is pretty amazing reading btw - lots of inspiration there

Good luck! Cut if if you want to - but I'm confident you can find some kind of solution if you don't want to.

[TrekDianna]

Short rides I just ponytail, but long rides or mountain biking it's either one or two braids. If I get tangles, conditioner usually takes care of that in the shower.

[antimony]

Waist length here, and I just put it in a low bun just under my helmet. That way it doesn't flop around and tangle (or at least not any more than it would doing other day-to-day activities). I have to admit I've never gotten the hang of doing a single braid down my back, so if I'm going swimming mid-ride (I used to ride out to Walden Pond to swim a fair bit) I'd put it in two braids and then twist the braids into the same bun, so that if it came out of the bun while swimming it wouldn't tangle around my shoulders.

My real issue with my hair & riding a lot is that I have to wash it so often to get the sweat out -- it's really much happier only being washed every 4-6 days (which I promise is not gross if one's hair prefers it), but I a: have nasty sweaty hair and b: get dandruff from the nasty sweaty hair if I don't wash it after every ride long enough to get sweaty-head. Alas.

[carlotta]

I go with the two-braids solution, it seems like my neck stays cooler that way than with either a single braid or ponytail. I did like it when my hair was short, but I'm not committed enough to get it cut regularly so that never looks very good and I like it long when I'm off the bike.

[OakLeaf]

My real issue with my hair & riding a lot is that I have to wash it so often to get the sweat out

When my hair was long I'd only shampoo my scalp. Some shampoo would get onto the rest of my hair when I rinsed it, obviously, but not enough to strip it.

[antimony]

When my hair was long I'd only shampoo my scalp. Some shampoo would get onto the rest of my hair when I rinsed it, obviously, but not enough to strip it.

Oh, yes, I do this. Shampoo just at the scalp, conditioner everywhere else, and I just used up the last of my old stock of shampoo bought on sale, so except for dandruff shampoo everything is SLS-free. And I can just rinse-and-condition a lot of the time after a ride, but it still dries it out a bit. I really, really hate the smell of vinegar, so I'm not willing to go to vinegar instead of shampoo, which would probably be the next step.

[Judith_39]

Another advocate for the low bun here, it doesn't get in the way of my helmet, and I also wear a bandana which helps to hold everything in place. My hair is waist-length and curly, and if I don't tie it back like this it ends up in one big tangled mess!

I also only shampoo the scalp once a week (when you rinse it washes the ends anyway), otherwise I just rinse with water to get the sweat out, then apply conditioner, but only from the shoulders down.