Looking at your pic, I'd definitely go with white on top, about 1/3 to 1/4 as wide as the orange underneath.
The checkerboard idea is cool as a concept, but it would be almost impossible not to make look sketchy even if you had a 'thick-bar' mohawk instead of a spike version.
As an alternate- how about 2" of orange at the bottom, a 3/4" stripe of white across the middle, then about a 1/8-1/4" flash of white frosting the very top/ tips?