With time fast running out, you might be wondering what to get a cycling-obsessed loved one for Christmas. Step into a bike shop at this time of year and your gaze will be met by a bewildering array of cycling knick-knacks at prices designed to fulfil your increasingly desperate need to tick someone off your present list: lights, locks, gloves, hats, glasses, overshoes, multi-tools, energy bars, replica jerseys …
The trouble is, what’s useful and what’s not? What will be genuinely welcomed and what greeted with a slightly fixed smile, soon to be collecting dust at the back of a shelf? Well, the good news is that it’s actually not that hard to avoid the bad choices. Your assumption must be that anything that could be considered an essential item the cyclist will have bought already.
The bad news is that, where bike-related stuff is concerned, cyclists have a very inclusive sense of what is an essential purchase. Even if you think you know your cyclist has quite a funky little brushed aluminium mini-pump, it’s pointless upgrading it to the carbon-fibre version. The risk that your cyclist has already done so – while concealing the fact of that expenditure from you – is just too great. And there is enough potential for guilt and grievance over Christmas without you letting yourself in for more.
Multi-tools are very enticing as gifts: toysy yet satisfyingly practical and – you assume, even if the appeal is utterly lost on you – surrounded by that sexy “hardware” aura. But unless you can enter the mindset that only the best (that is, most expensive) brand is worth having, you almost certainly won’t spend enough on it. You would probably need to move the decimal point at least one place to the right.
So best avoid technical kit altogether. In which case you need to be looking for non-essentials, the little luxury items even a cyclist could not quite justify spending on. On any sane budget, this is not easy. I was once given a cheap and ingenious little gadget to screw on to my handlebars that would show the gradient via a mini spirit-level – well-intentioned but completely pointless. Unlike the state-of-the-art heart-rate monitor I bought myself, which cost 20 times as much and tells me how much altitude I’ve done on a ride. Now that’s really handy to know.
In short, cyclists are capricious, devious and selfish – perhaps you should reconsider giving them anything at all. But there is one item that a cyclist would always be glad to receive and will thank you sincerely for: waterproof socks. A cyclist will always be grateful for waterproof socks. They never are waterproof, of course, but never mind: as long as they say they are, that’ll do for Christmas.
Finally, even if the colour scheme is actually not horrible, and the discount fabulous, never, ever buy someone a replica team jersey. Nobody wants to be wearing what last year’s dope-cheat was riding in.
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