What not to buy a cyclist for Christmas — swerve these shoddy cycling gifts to avoid a festive faux pas

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It’s that time of year again, when people try to hide their regret about having any kind of hobby behind the thin veneer of a grateful smile during the traditional giving of gifts, and it’s even more traditional mild disappointment. 

Whether your pastime is golf, bird watching, fishing, steam trains or just quite liking owls a bit, you will receive something with that on it. It doesn’t matter if this themed gift is actually useful to you, it will have Your Thing on it because that Thing obviously defines the full gamut of your needs and desires as a human being and there’s absolutely nothing else you might like and use.

No one seems to have noticed that these gifts never make an appearance in your day-to-day life after they’ve been politely left about the house for the required period and are gently cleared away with all the other Christmas things to disappear completely. They also never notice the few months of low-level anxiety you experience that they might pass the charity shop and see the present they gave you in the window.

As “A Keen Cyclist” you can never escape this situation, and are forever cursed with the belief that you’ll like anything - absolutely anything - related to bicycles. Anything, genuinely totally anything that can have a bike applied to it. A global warming flood of cycling related mugs, socks, t-shirts, cufflinks, plastic trinkets and general tat is all threatening to surge your way come Christmas Day.

Despite road.cc being kind enough to offer a helpful selection of Christmas gift guides to suit any pocket and cycling discipline for you to pick knowledgeably from, you might still be tempted to go off-piste and buy any of the following as a lovely gift for your cycling companion... but please please don’t. Gift tokens will be fine actually.

Park Tool Pizza Cutter

A product that’s become a Christmas classic, appearing on every single cycling gift guide since about the same time that myrrh fell out of favour as a chain lube.

There are no figures available on what percentage of the Park Tool Pizza Cutter’s annual sales are in the last month of the year, but we’re guessing it’s on a par with Baileys Irish Cream. Every cyclist has at least one of these, many have a third drawer down in the kitchen totally devoted to them, and they really do not need another one. At least Park haven’t released Pizza Scissors (yet). 

Please don’t buy yet another one here

A cheap shiny mini pump

We can entirely see the reasoning behind putting this under the Christmas tree. It looks nice and shiny, and you know cyclists are like magpies with their shiny things, and it’s teeny and light and you also know that cyclists are bewitched by things teeny and light.

Unfortunately a lot of these Lilliputian pumps don’t work, unless you count 'work' in its basic scientific sense as 'energy transferred to or from an object via the application of force', as they tend to demand extreme physical effort with very little to show for it apart from an asthmatic wheezing noise and growing hatred. Anyway, don’t be surprised if after a couple of months this thoughtful present “fell out of a pocket under a hedge somewhere”.

Please don’t buy us one of these here

A comedy cycling jersey

The Lycra cycling top can be a magnificent moving canvas on which to flaunt some amazing displays of art, design and bathroom grout manufacturers, and there are many examples that have become classics; but countless more have become victims to fashion, and have slowly sedimented to the bottom of the drawer or been relegated to out-of-sight Pain Cave use.

Despite all the stylish and flattering designs available, it’s good to see that the wacky cycling jersey simply refuses to disappear and the spandex tuxedo is still available.

Don't suit up for your next ride here

While we were hurting our eyes flicking through the online wardrobe of what else might be available, and we’re definitely counting the return of denim-look Lycra, we physically recoiled at this one. What sort of message does turning up on a group ride with 'Primal Urges' splashed across your chest over a fun Hawaiian print give? Would you arrive to a ride with a fully encircled jersey waist of pockets filled with cans of beer? Japes abound, as do red flags. We’re not going to provide a link for this. 

Something both cycling AND Christmassy

While we’re here, we really don’t need an item of festive clothing you can only wear for a week a year at the most. Oh be still my joyous heart, further enforced fun.

Please don’t scare the children by buying these here

A 'tool for cyclists'

While to the non cyclist’s eyes it looks small, compact, full of useful features, easy to store in a back pocket or tool pouch and the absolute perfect gift, it’s really just a cheap sheet of stamped metal where very few of the tools will work on a modern bike, and those that might are specifically designed to round off, bend or scratch anything they touch on a bicycle, and then take a gouge out of one of your knuckles on the way out for laughs.

While you’re avoiding buying the Park Pizza Cutter, have a look at any of the other Park tools as a gift instead. Choose any one, it will be better than this. Although ironically this does look like it might make a functional pizza cutter...

Don't be tempted by a multi-tool that can’t do anything well apart from draw blood here

'Something with a bike on'

Just because the person you like enough to give something to at Christmas likes bicycles, it doesn’t mean that everything they own needs to have a bicycle on. It might seem to you the way they witter on about bikes All The Time that bikes are all there is to life*, but there’s an entire world of non-cycling-related gifts they might appreciate. Maybe pass on that tie/mug/t-shirt/candle with a bicycle slapped on and choose something completely different instead.

* There’s also cake, buy them some cake, they’ll love it. 

Please don’t buy yet another garment a cyclist would never wear here

Something with mild misogynistic undertones

Even if you know one of those cyclists who still jokingly but with a hint of malice says they have to see if they can “get a pass from the wife” every time the offer of a bike ride comes up... we should be past all this now.

A 'Useful Cycling Thing'

The market is awash with things that have been designed for putting on a bicycle by people who have never ever ridden a bike, but think people that do would benefit from. It’s usually a ‘safety’ feature and indicating gloves are a classic of the genre, as are indicator helmets and indicators on seat posts, or indicators that fit on forks, and rucksacks with indicators, and handlebar mounted indicators… you get the idea.

> Indicators, solid tyres and curious pedal systems: Where cycling products go to die

Someone trying to make a useful contribution to road safety comes up with a new indicator design and placement idea every six months, seemingly never having done the basic research that a similar bicycle indicator system launched six months ago has disappeared without a trace. You can put “safe bicycle infrastructure” on your Christmas wish list as many times as you like but your auntie will still get you indicators instead.

Don't go thinking that you’re giving us a helpful gift here

Anything made from an old bike part

These are the days of reuse, recycle and repurpose, and it’s a very worthy approach to adopt across all aspects of our lives, there’s definitely no argument here... apart from bike bits that is. There’s a reason why they’ve been thrown away, and it’s because they’re worthless bits of rusty bent metal and rubber.

This doesn’t stop any number of gifts being made available by bright sparks let loose in your spares bin. The reuse, recycle and repurpose practice is a smug delusion, as making something out of an old bike bit merely briefly delays its inevitable journey into landfill. Just ask the last person who received an upcycled inner tube bow-tie.

There's also a new subset to the whole repurposed bit of bike chain genre now, and it’s the repurposed and painted bit of bike chain Christmas bauble. It’s as Blue Peter as you might imagine. That’s meant to be a candy cane, by the way...

Don't spend £5 on a bit of spare chain made into a keyring here

And this...

This thoughtful art piece made out of old bike chains is now a road.cc Christmas classic. 

A build-your-own bike model kit

This is prime Secret Santa material, so prepare your surprised face and fake laughter if you’re The Cyclist in the office. It’s probably been appearing on your algorithm since August so you’ve had plenty of time to practice.

It’s a fun bike thing, it’s about a tenner, you get to put it together, things move, and look! It even comes with a track pump. Surely you’re going to cherish it. Spend seven minutes putting it together while you’re on hold to HR asking if this is a fair reason for resignation, where it can then sit in your desk for a couple of years becoming a place to hang rubber bands before you eventually throw it in a bin when you move floors. And then many decades after your death the mini track pump will have made its way along the refuse chain to float in the Indian Ocean where it chokes a baby turtle. Some gifts do just keep giving.

Think about the baby turtles here

Although, you’re more likely to receive this from the work Secret Santa, because that’s how most people see you. And you’ll have to use it until someone steals it from the kitchen or some other excuse you found...

Don't be a w**ker here

Cycling socks

There are socks for cycling in and socks with cycling on, and it’s important to know the important difference when choosing this most traditional of Christmas gifts.

When perusing the choices, there are pages upon pages upon pages of the former to suit all ride occasions and disciplines... so why you would bypass all of these, which can just as easily be worn off the bike, for something that merely lets anyone who glances at an ankle know that person is a “keen cyclist”? We’d have to have a polite but firm chat about this while I do the washing up and you do the drying. Especially don’t buy this pair as it just spells 'crash', but oh how you’ll laugh at the irony.

Buy absolutely any other pair of socks than these here

A cycling scented candle

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a candle is the gift you give to someone when you have absolutely no idea what to buy them. Although I think a jar of homemade chutneys is making a late charge on the inside.

A staggering 97% of these candles are never lit and just sit there looking like candles, covered in dust. The remaining 3% are either regifted or dumped in a charity shop. While we’re wondering what the perfect cycling candle scent might be, we’re almost certain it’s not this.

Please don't infuse someone else's house with the waft of sweaty chamois here

A beer-view mirror

If ever there was a product where they came up with the name first (probably after a few) and then HAD to make it, it’s this. The effort required to focus on whatever type of rapidly approaching death is reflected in that hopelessly minuscule and enthusiastically vibrating mirror is giving us a migraine.

There’s a reason it’s 'Not On The High Street', and that’s because it’s shit.

Please do not buy this here. Just buy them a beer instead

A cyclist-shaped cactus holder

Why thank you, it’s exactly what I wanted to make me cry a little inside and wonder how long I’d have to keep it in a cupboard and remember to bring it out whenever you came round.

Please don’t make me dread you ringing the doorbell here

Anything with “Pain Cave” on it

It’s the garage or a shed, not a 'cave'. It's pretty monotonous, you’ve got a sweat on because you’re not outside, no one's ever told their legs to shut up, so stop trying to 'epic' your spare time. The 'Live, Laugh, Love' of training.

Please don’t get me a Pain Cave print here, thanks

A bicycle-shaped car air freshener

You’ve got a bike, you’ve got a car, you quite often put the bike in or on the car and drive back from rides a bit smelly, so someone is telling you that you need this.

Deeply shaded in middle of the Venn diagram of 'bike-shaped things', 'can’t think what to buy you', Secret Santa, 'fun present' and 'useless plastic tat', this air freshener clips onto a dashboard air vent, so a pair of hub-mounted fans that rotate on “high quality bearings” can waft an essential oil scent through your cabin. "Add a luxury feeling to your car", it says here. All those years of washing out the milk cartons for recycling and taking your own bag to the supermarket, undone in one piece of plastic dross.

If you're going to buy this nothing we can say will stop you

You, But As A Cushion

You in cycling kit, but as a small cuddly cushion.

This is ready to become sentient in the middle of the night and leave the house to wreak bloody vengeance upon anybody who has stolen your Strava KOMs, maybe by using the Cyclists Tool as a weapon, or maybe by leaving a cyclist-shaped cactus holder on their coffee table for deep psychological trauma. 

Please don’t baffle the local police by buying a Snugzy Mini Me here

Sit on my face and tell me that you love me...

I really don’t know where to start here, but that is indeed a saddle cover with your loved one's face on it. What’s most worrying is that they've chosen a child’s face to promote the product. Please make the endless cavalcade of bicycle-related crap stop, I’m done.

Make it stop by not ever clicking on this

Anything we've forgotten to miss? Let us know in the comments as always.