Hi, my name is Mike, and I’m a sweater.
No really, I sweat a lot. And one of my pet peeves is crap on my sunglasses – and there’s nothing worse than a nice big dribble of salty sweat on sunglasses. This has driven me to try lots of headbands.

On the bike I’m a fan of the Halo headband, but it’s pretty thick (maybe ‘wide’ is a better word), and it gets pretty saturated. Enter, the Gutr. It’s basically a silicone(?) headband with a profile shape of a ‘J’. The theory is that your sweat will collect in the gutter, and drip out the sides. Since it’s essentially just a strip of rubber, it doesn’t absorb any sweat at all, but rather channels the sweat to the side of your head.

In practice, I haven’t seen the bottom of the gutter get wet – I presume because the long part of the J isn’t laying flat against my face. BUT, I do feel the sweat dripping off the sides, and I have had clean sunglasses since using the Gutr.

One situation where I’ve had drips is when messing with my shoes out on the trail. Looking down can allow the sweat to pour over the top of the Gutr. When I remember, I first run for a few steps looking up into the sky – to empty out any pooled up sweat – and then lean down to do whatever. I tried the Gutr when I was on a bike trainer, and found that I’m too prone to glancing down (generally to check gearing), and I got a few ‘spills’. So for the bike, I’ll probably stick with the Halo.

Aesthetically, the Gutr is pretty understated (though they do have a camo version if you want to express your inner warrior!). It’s only about a 1/4″ wide. And in case you are wondering, it does NOT have to be super tight to work.

Cost: $16
Site: http://www.sweatgutr.com/sports-sweatband.html