Everyone, even most men if they’re honest, knows how to do a simple plait. It’s one of those things you just pick up from your school days, when even if you never actually sat behind a long-haired friend idly plaiting her hair (or his hair, although in my day the lads would have been instructed to visit the barber’s long before it got to that point), you would have watched someone else do it. There really is nothing to it, and if for whatever reason you are embarrassed about being a dab hand at this particular area of tonsorial dexterity, you can always pretend you picked it up learning how to make those plaited bread rolls you see in French bakeries.

If you have long hair yourself, you’ll know how messy it can get after a few hours under a helmet, and no one enjoys looking like a kind of sweaty Wurzel Gummidge when they’ve stopped off at a lovely country pub for a well-deserved mid-ride orange juice and soda.

Here then is Total Women’s Cycling’s guide on how to perfect the perfect hairstyle for those precious days in the saddle. The video will explain things far better than we ever could, but basically you style a plait using the standard technique, then secure it using an elastic hairband, a bobby pin, and some hairspray.

So have a go and see how you get on. If nothing else, it’ll work a damn sight better than one of those hipster top knots we’ve been seeing so many of lately.