While I appreciate every effort made by my wonderful friends and family, I don’t want to find any cycling-related gifts under the Christmas tree this year.
Aside from the fact acquiring and using new bikes, parts and kit is a major part of my job (and I therefore already have enough cycling-related things to last a lifetime), my tastes in this niche pursuit are more specific than any layperson could fathom.
The odds of picking something I’ll actually like within a reasonable budget are too long, and as pathetic as this no doubt sounds, ‘close enough’ just won’t do.
My childish fussiness aside, though, I also don’t want my nearest and dearest wasting their hard-earned money on things I’ll never use.
There are countless cycling-related gifts available, but the following six could go down like a lead balloon with many discerning riders.
So, if the cyclist in your life is similarly fussy, pay close attention.
Socks
BikeRadar’s guide to the best cycling gifts lists a pair of socks as the very first entry.
“Who doesn’t like getting socks as a present?” it says. I must be the exception that proves the rule.
When it comes to socks for cycling, there are only two acceptable types, as far as I’m concerned. Long and white for dry weather and long and black for wet weather. That’s it.
On the face of it, that seems pretty simple, but the unfortunate reality is that most brands aren’t so tastefully restrained with their designs.
In what I can only assume are attempts to stand out in a crowded market, many embellish their socks with overly large text, logos or, worse, gaudy designs.
Sock length is also a tricky topic. Each brand seems to make its socks in a slightly different length, and what’s perfect for me – long but not too long – is hard to judge, whether buying online or in a local bike shop.
Any kind of cycling kit
Having dealt with socks, I’ll go one further – any kind of cycling kit is in dangerous territory.
It probably won’t come as a surprise to anyone that I’m the kind of person who cares about their kit matching and looking ‘good’.
A cycling jersey without a set of matching bib shorts is, therefore, practically useless to me.
Fit is the real minefield, though.
Everyone naturally has different tastes when it comes to the fit of clothing, but as a committed road cyclist and aerodynamic evangelist, I prefer my cycling kit to be made from stretchy, technical fabrics and to hug my rake-like figure tightly.
To look at one of my time trial skinsuits on the hanger, you could be forgiven for assuming it was made to fit a small child, not a 183cm-tall adult.
Given my height, I suspect most non-cyclists would assume I wear a size medium or large jersey. In fact, I usually pick a small.
This isn’t a guarantee of a correct fit, though, because every brand cuts things differently, and many even use different cuts for the different ranges within their collections.
As I wrote in the introduction to this article, the odds of getting all the details right are incredibly long – longer than my long-term review of Giant’s TCR Advanced Pro 2 Disc.
Bike parts
Just as it’s tricky to know what cycling kit will fit me just right, the ever-increasing use of proprietary parts and integration on bikes means parts are also a big no-no.
There are some parts that remain (near) universally compatible, such as pedals, tyres or bottle cages, and there’s something to be said for upgrading the ones you already have.
But even things as simple as pedals, tyres or bottle cages are subject to a surprising amount of personal preference.
It might seem hard to go wrong with a set of road bike tyres, for example – they’re slim, made from rubber and have slick tread, so they’re basically all the same, right? Wrong.
I have my favourites and shudder at the thought of using anything else.
Likewise, whichever member of BikeRadar’s staff contributed Silca’s Sicuro titanium bottle cages to our gift guide felt bold enough to suggest “there isn’t a roadie on the planet who wouldn’t delight in these”.
Well, again, perhaps I’m the exception that proves the rule because I don’t like them one bit.
Their classic style and round tubes would also look woefully out of place on my Giant TCR Advanced Pro – a modern, angular, carbon fibre race bike.
What’s more, it’s not as if any of my bikes are assembled from random parts.
Each component has been analysed, assessed and approved or discarded. The idea that they could be improved by anyone but myself is insulting.
A book by a champion cyclist
Books are a timeless Christmas gift in all walks of life and understandably so.
However, I’ve read enough books charting the lives or careers of famous cyclists to know the story is nearly always the same.
Our eponymous hero discovers cycling at a young age and the joy it brings. Eventually, they enter a few races and shine (but not too much). They love it, so they work hard – harder than anyone else, in fact.
There are challenges and setbacks along the way, but eventually they overcome all the odds and triumph.
Naturally, this success does not change them, though – deep down, they’re still just the same kid who loves riding bikes.
It’s a classic Hero’s journey (as set out by Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces).
There are, it’s fair to say, many excellent books about cycling.
They tend to be written about more esoteric subjects, though, and I don’t expect any of my friends or family to know I’d like to read Paul Jones’ End to End, Andy McGrath’s God is Dead or Daniel Friebe’s Jan Ullrich, The Best There Never Was.
Tools
Without fail, you’ll see them recommended on every cycling website, every single year, but I really do not need any more Allen keys.
Even as someone who isn’t a tool fetishist (I’m no Oscar Huckle), I have at least two sets of L-shaped Allen keys, two torque wrenches (one big and one small) with associated bits and at least four or five multi-tools scattered around the house. Then there are the countless examples that seem to have spontaneously generated from the primordial soup of accumulated bikes and parts.
As many experienced cyclists do, I have a general tool kit with the essential tools required to adjust and maintain bikes.
There are many tools I don’t own, of course, but usually for good reason – they’re either prohibitively expensive or the jobs they’re designed for are too complicated for my limited skills.
Bicycle-shaped pizza cutters
While they have some (extremely limited) novelty value, I would like to make it very clear that I do not want a bicycle-shaped pizza cutter.
Not for Christmas. Not for my birthday. Not ever.
I love bikes and I love pizza (who doesn’t?), so I can understand why people make the connection.
That fact is, though, bike-shaped things do not make ergonomic handles.
In reality, such trinkets typically sit unused in a drawer until eventually being discarded into landfill. No thank you.
How the Grinch stole cycling Christmas!
If you’ve made it to the end of this rant, you might be thinking something along the lines of “Wow, what a Scrooge”, and perhaps that’s fair enough.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m always grateful to receive gifts on any occasion – it’s the thought that counts – and, ultimately, this is simply meant as a humorous counter to the multitude of gift guides populating the internet at this time of year (which I also contribute to, naturally).
Nevertheless, I stand by every word.
Of course, many won’t be as fortunate as I am, or will simply be much less fussy than me. In that case, don’t take my petty grumbles as a sign you shouldn't get the cyclist in your life a bike-related present this year.
But if they're a seasoned rider with years of accumulated stuff and very particular tastes, then it’s also fine to get them something completely unrelated.
If the cyclists I know are anything to go by, we will always appreciate simple things such as nice coffee or chocolate – and you can never have enough of those, especially at this time of year.
