Here are a few sure-to-please cycling gift suggestions - well, if you count my last tip, it's more like many thousands of bike gift ideas, so keep reading! (And be sure to share this, so that you get the gift you really want!)
Let's start with a suggestion dear to my heart: my very own Your Home Bicycle Workshop e-book. It's the only book of any type all about setting up the perfect place for your loved one to work on all your bicycles. And you can download it right away so it's the ideal last-minute gift. It's in the RoadBikeRider e-bookstore where you'll find many other great cycling reading gifts available right now.
Every year about this time I start searching local bookshops for a nice, new bicycle theme calendar for my office wall, and to give as a gift. But, I almost never find anything. So, I was happy to discover the magazine Bicycle Quarterly’s Classic Bicycles Calendar, that features 12 studio-quality photos of famous road bikes and a short history about each one, too. They'll also love receiving Bicycle Quarterly magazine next year ($36 for a year's subscription in the USA).
All roadies need a good floor pump because it’s the one essential tool for keeping tires fully inflated so that they always enjoy great rides. But I’ve found that lots of riders use their pump for so long that it barely works anymore. If your loved one has been using the same pump for eons like this, they will be delighted to receive a huge upgrade in the form of Pedro’s Super Prestige. Its best trick is being able to grip Presta and Schrader valves every time with an airtight seal and without having to change the pump’s head in any way. It’s also easy to pump, has a nice and very visible gauge, a long hose and is built to last.
This gift idea is for a somewhat-new technology that many road riders love when they try it: shoes with Boa Closures. It’s a system that uses tough, thin wire/filament laces that you tighten and loosen with a ratcheting dial. This allows fine-tuning the fit along the entire length of the shoes simply by turning the dials. And the result is even more comfortable shoes and power transfer. To buy this gift, you’ll want to give them a gift certificate to a bike shop that carries shoes with Boa Closures so that they can get the right fit and features. Here's a page showing the many shoe brands using Boa Closures.
A new helmet is always a great gift because with use, helmets become less effective. And new helmets continue to improve offering more protection and comfort. Plus, in the case of Specialized’s S-Works Evade, you’re actually also giving them the gift of free speed because it’s a wind-cheating aero helmet proven to reduce drag and save them energy on every ride. There are other companies making road aero helmets, too, such as Giro's new Synthe ($250).
Keep On Kovers make a great stocking stuffer for anyone riding Speedplay road pedals (look for lollipop-looking pedals on your giftee’s bike). They’re rubber cleat covers with a great trick: they go on and stay on (unlike all the others that you have to put on and take off every time you stop/start)! These covers don’t interfere with pedal entry/exit one bit and they fully protect their Speedplay cleats and even keep the screws in should they loosen. Even better, they won't lose them or forget to bring them along on rides because they stay on their shoes!
I just received this new book from VeloPress and I’m reading it every chance I get because it immediately jumps you behind the scenes of professional racing and puts you in the team car and pits with the mechanics. These are the overworked guys in charge of keeping everything running, from the bikes, to the cars and trucks, to organizing the pits, to even helping dress their riders and care for them during races. If they have any interest in the nuts and bolts at the pro level of our sport I’m sure they’ll be as taken with this book as I am. The many photos alone are worth the price of admission.
Every roadie needs new, clean and high quality bottles, so you can’t go wrong gifting them a Camelbak Podium bottle or two. They’re so easy to drink from and leak-free and tasteless, that they’ve become my favorites. They’re also available in different sizes and insulated versions, some with custom graphics, too, so you can get whatever you think best matches their bicycle or kit. This is an inexpensive gift with high value to your rider.
A clean bike is a happy bike - and rider! You can make it super easy for them to keep their baby showroom clean by gifting them a supply of Grease Monkey Wipes. These handy towelettes are saturated with a citrus cleaner so they simply wipe to clean their frame and components - even greasy drivetrain parts. They’ll be as amazed as I was how much easier these make bike cleaning. They come in the handy packets shown (easy to take along on rides) or in canisters, too.
Type "bicycle" in the hand-made gift resource/community Etsy and you'll bring up tens of thousands of ideas. That's how I found BryansRebicycling's Silver Infinity Spoke Bracelet shown, a super-cool recycled bike-part gift idea, and hand made, too, for only $14.98 plus shipping! But there are almost endless other choices, so happy searching and shopping!
This beautiful front rack has been out of stock on the Velo Orange site for some time, however, it's such a nice porteur rack - a type kind of hard to find - that you might want to give a gift certificate for it and just let them wait for the shipment to arrive. Porteur racks have a wider platform than standard ones, so they're ideal for city bikes that carry larger loads (French newspaper deliverers used these racks). Velo Orange's is made of polished stainless steel so it adds class along with versatility to your around-town ride. The rail is removable.
Here's hoping you have wonderful holiday,
Jim (aka Santa)
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