Cycling types are a special sort. There is no denying that they are incredibly passionate about their sport and lifestyle.
For as crazy as it may sound to those living in car-packed cities, there are places in the world where cycling is king. Anyone who has ever visited Amsterdam knows that there are often more cyclists out on the roads and streets than motorists and the city boasts special lanes to accommodate them. Tokyo, Dublin, Montreal, Paris, and San Francisco can likewise be counted as ranking among the great cycling cities in the world.
No matter where you live or what the cycling culture there is, however, one problem that all cyclists are all too familiar with is the sensation and sound of wind whistling past their ears. On the one hand, that can be part of the allure of cycling in the first place. Who doesn’t like the sound and feeling of wind in his or her hair as he or she rides? At the same time, when that sound and sensation becomes too much, it can leave you unable to hear and cause discomfort. Also, If you’re a woman, it may also leave you with a bad hair day, however, that can be avoided with a suitable fitted helmet for females.
You never want that to occur, which is why you’ll want to look into means of reducing excessive wind noise while cycling. These methods can help you reduce that excessive wind noise and make your cycling experience all the more enjoyable.
Why it Matters
It can be tempting to ask why something such as this matters in the first place. If the wind whistling past your ears is too intense, it can cause discomfort while riding. What’s more, it can also leave you unable to hear what’s around you. That can be a problem when you are riding through city streets. You need to be able to hear approaching vehicles and certainly won’t want that blocked out by the sound of wind in your ears.
Headphone Options
For those looking for a low-intensity “solution” to this problem, wired or wireless headphones might be an option. While you’ll want to be careful with them as they can block out sound and thus leave you vulnerable to not hearing traffic, this method can at least free you from being stuck with that whistling sound in your ears.
Ear Flaps and Cups
If you are looking for a more permanent solution to the problem of excessive wind and noise filling your ears while riding, you’ll want to look into helmets that feature ear flaps and cups.
Cycling is not the only sport to be experimenting with ear flaps in their helmets. The design of baseball helmets has evolved over the decades with examples in the 1960s not having any and recent innovations adding ear flaps to both sides of the helmet.
While soft wind noise reducers add a tiny amount of extra protection for your ear region in the event of a cycling accident, their main benefit is reducing the amount of excessive wind flow whistling past your ears. Their design features soft flaps placed near or on top of your ears. Ear cups are designed in much the same way, cupping your ears with a fabric or light plastic or rubber material.
In each of these instances, your ears are shielded from excessive wind flow. These ear flaps and cups are designed to be as unobtrusive as possible. They can look a bit “novel,” to put it mildly. That said, so do baseball helmets with two ear flaps or extended ear flaps forming mouth guards.
Innovations often seem “novel” until they catch on and we wonder how we ever lived without them.
Headphones, ear flaps, or a combination of the two can thus help spare you the worst of that wind whistling sound in your ears while riding.
