The real guide to holiday giving for cyclists

It happens every year. The fall riding season comes to a close. The temperature drops. Daylight hours shrink. The trainer comes out. If, like me, you live in Canada, these are immutable realities. Usually by early December I put the road bike away and just resign myself to several months in Zwift. Between the cold, the darkness and the increasingly dirty roads, riding outside just isn’t worth it anymore. And then it happens—an early dusting of snow. While others revel in the beauty of a first snowfall, for me, it signals a beginning of months of darkness in which I can only dream of sunny, warm summer rides.

Fortunately, there’s a slight balm to this misery: the holiday gift time, when I can at least get cycling items I likely don’t need but will nevertheless let me think about going faster, farther or at least feeling like I have 17 per cent more compliance.

Short list of things we don’t want

Since this is the holiday gift guide issue, I thought it was worthwhile to reflect on what cyclists really want for the holidays, and some of the best examples of those gifts.