Top Ten Reasons to Wear a Bandana

Anonymous
by Anonymous

In the modern world, riding a motorcycle is one of very few things that justify wearing the classic bandana. The bandana and the leather jumpsuit, that is. Take full advantage. Wearing full leathers every day might be pushing it, but there’s no excuse not to tie on a tasteful bandana.

10. Stay Toasty, My Friends

The bandana keeps nasty drafts from reaching your Adam’s apple and being directed to your hairy chest, where they could cause pneumonia or nasty tangles. If you don’t have a hairy chest, the damage could reach far deeper. Nothing’s better for plugging that under-helmet gap, in most weather, than the 100-percent cotton bandana.

9. Chicks Dig Bandanas

Women have always understood better than men that accessorizing is key. A colorful bandana can rescue an otherwise listless riding ensemble whilst drawing attention away from your stubbly jowls. In other words, chicks dig bandanas.

8. Scientifically Proven To Possibly Prevent Lung Cancer

If you’re riding in Beijing, sucking air through a couple layers of cloth keeps approximately 8 pounds of particulates per minute out of your respiratory system. In places where fauna still exists, bees aim for somebody else’s throat when they spot your bandana.

7. Keep Your Cool

When it’s hot, wrapping a wet bandana around your neck when you stop for gas and letting it perform a little convective cooling as you roll along helps tremendously.

6. Because Cowboys Wear Them

Nearly all leading cowboys wore bandanas, and no bandito would be caught dead without one. Humphrey Bogart, Errol Flynn, Brad Pitt and every other cool actor sported the bandana in at least one classic film, and nobody ever snickered at them. Après-ride, the bandana can double as a headband if you’re Brad Pitt or Willem Dafoe or Cheech.

5. They Make Great Snot Rags

If at any point during your ride you begin drooling or your nose starts running, the bandana provides a first line of defense between bodily fluids and your chin, followed by your Ralph Lauren silk dickie. When you’re laid up with a cold, a couple of bandanas has the snot-absorbing capacity of an entire box of Kleenexes. (Remember to launder them before redonning, or forget #2.)

4. They’re Better Than A Comb-Over

If your hair has abandoned its post and the ponytail is no longer feasible, the bandana is a worthy substitute means for letting your freak flag fly. Once at your destination, it converts instantly to a do-rag, and no one would ever guess you’re bald.

3. Excessive Brain Power Not Required

No farking Velcro!* or complicated mechanisms or moving parts. If you can fold a square once to form a triangle and tie a granny knot, you can handle a bandana. And not wake everyone in the office when you take it off. (*Unless you go with the very nice in extreme conditions, Aerostich Evapodana.)

2. They’re A Douchebag Identifier

Identify possible a-holes. Anybody who gives you a hard time about your bandana is a cretinous asswagon with no grasp of history, imagination, or fashion. (Note: This does not include the balaclava. Feel free to give guys who wear balaclavas shit. And berets.)

1. They’re Cheap, Like Us!

Bandanas are usually free or, like deer nuts, under a buck. I got a sweet one at the Progressive Insurance booth at the last Long Beach IMS show. To go with my Jose Cuervo, my OshKosh, my Ducati 749, my Target, my Big Machine magazine-insert one… Why do Japanese bandanas run small? Discuss…

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