Finding the right gift for friends or family is always hard and the urgency around Christmas time always makes it much worse. Even when you know what the recipient's hobbies are, it can be tricky picking out the right gift. The target price and type of gift are also difficult. Is this gift going to be a stocking filler or is it something to really surprise and impress your other half when they open it.
This list will take you through the all-around best gift ideas for bikers, whether they ride BMX bikes or road bikes. This part of the list is for those of you that know your recipient likes bikes but nothing more. If you're looking for smaller gifts, stocking fillers or heavily discounted products then the next part of this article is for you. We have searched the web for the best and cheapest products that you can snatch up before Christmas. Finally, we will go through the bad ideas for presents, and yes there definitely are some. Some cycling products are just best being bought by the riders themselves.
Black Friday BMX and Mountain Biking Deals
Danscomp
Danscomp are one of our favorite BMX brands. They have a huge selection of products and sell throughout the US. They currently have 584 products in their Black Friday sale. Everything from bikes to parts and clothing is up for grabs.
Below is a short list of their best deals on offer this week. I'm specifically impressed at the massive discount applied to the Haro Thread Slope dirt jump bike.
- Haro Thread Slope Dirt Jumper -
$2,749.99- $1,649.99 - Kink Gap 2022 BMX Bike -
$449.99- $339.99 - Stolen Spade 22" BMX Bike -
$575.99- $373.74 - GT La Bomba Pro DJ Bike -
$1,450.00- $959.99
SourceBMX Black Friday
Source are one of the biggest BMX websites in the world. They are a british company but their products are delivered all over the world. Their black friday deals are always impressive.
They are offering up to 90% off on some products! There are also a massive 1,062 products in their Black Friday sale category.
- Vans BMX SK8-HI Shoes -
£94.99- £23.75 - Volume Voyager BMX Frame -
£419.99- £199.99 - Odyssey Warnin BMX Grips -
£10.99- £8.79 - Merritt Final Drive Freecoaster -
£159.00- £80.00
Life Behind Bars BMX T-Shirt
I would be silly if I didn't advise you to buy one of the great Tresna t-shirts if you were looking for a gift this Christmas. You can go over to our shop page now to look at the many different t-shirt and jumper designs.
Most of our designs aren't too similar to other BMX t-shirts. We like to keep our designs just one or two colours and we aren't afraid of getting intricate. Some of our first designs are very detailed and nicely designed to look great even on people that don't commonly ride bikes.
The Life Behind Bars t-shirt design is available in 6 colours and on various styles of clothing. The design itself isn't overly complicated and only features two components. Firstly there's the BMX bars themselves and then the text positioned behind it. This text is worn as though it's been there for a while. I like this styling, it isn't as bold as regular text.
More InformationTSG Riot Sock BMX Gift
- Specialized in sports protection gear
- Rider-owned company focused on quality
- Ideal for shin and ankle protection
- Can be worn under regular clothing
- Limited product range
- Not for high-impact crashes
- Less protection than larger pads
- Mainly for slip prevention, not heavy-duty
TSG or Technical Safety Gear is a great company at the forefront of sports protection. If you've ever watched a snowboarding, biking or skating competition you'll have almost certainly seen some of their padding in action.
Aside from recommending their sock as a great gift, I actually really like this company. They are entirely rider owned and don't wear themselves thin by concentrating on too broad a product range. They have and I dare say always will be dedicated to just making the best protection possible for every type of action sports rider.
I think the TSG Riot sock is a great idea for a protection product. TSG provide great products for shin and ankle guards but a less intrusive, smaller version is a great idea for those BMX riders that probably should be riding with protection but aren't.
The smaller pads aren't designed to absorb huge falls and big crashes, they're mainly designed to be worn under your regular jeans or while you're wearing shorts in order to lessen the damage caused by slipped pedals. Every rider knows the pain of slipping a pedal and have it come crashing into your shins.
BMX Chain Bracelet
Click Here to Check Best PriceThis BMX chain bracelet is the only piece of jewelry on this list. Perfectly designed for men, I would personally love to wear this. Very simple, the meaning probably not even being noticed by those who don't also ride bikes making it a great gift idea for the BMX rider in your life who doesn't like overly striking pieces of jewelry.
Made from genuinely recycled bike chains, authentic leather and available in both black and white, I think this would be a great gift idea for men and women.
BSD M-Cap Bar Ends
$9 from SourceBMXI have included BSD M-Cap BMX bar ends to this list as I would love to receive them as a gift. They're currently being sold at a great price while also being a cool idea for a new product.
Dan Paley is a stylish rider sponsored by BSD. He and BSD have collaborated and made some great parts together. The most recent are these bar ends and I love the ingenious but simple reason he made them.
Basically, Paley said he hated breaking plastic bar ends all the time. Every time he would have a fall or put his bike down it would wear these plastic bar ends down and before you knew it you'd need new ones.
Now, obviously, dan could just buy some metal bar ends that you screw onto your grips or into your bar end and the shelf life would be greatly extended but he doesn't like the hassle of screwing and unscrewing bar ends when he needs them off. To rectify both these problems Dan and the BSD team came up with the M-Cap bar ends that are a mixture of plastic and metal.
The inner part and the ringed section that is pushed inside the bar is made of plastic to allow easy installation. This part then has a metal ring, that looks a lot like a lock on ring around it. This will take pretty much all the force when you put your bike down or have a crash, giving you a much longer lasting bar end.
Shadow Conspiracy Supreme BMX Chain
$65 from DanscompI have written about and experienced the Shadow interlock chain previously. It is by far one of the best chains you can currently buy. Shadow have dedicated so much of their time and money to the research and development of this chain that they've just outdone many most other brands
This research showed them the weakest parts currently plaguing BMX chain breakages. The new interlock chain has been developed with new forging and manufacturing processes that haven't ever been used on a BMX chain previously. The chain uses a new plate and pin design that's completely unique while eliminating all previously known weak points. I've had a chain break on me before and it gave me a nasty injury. I'll now try and product or brand that claim to have made a development with BMX chains.
In many people's opinion, half link chains have a design flaw. This flaw is said to be that they just aren't as strong the normal chains. As Shadow has started to use a better forging process they have increased the strength of their chains massively. The chain can now support over 1500 KG's, making it one of the strongest bike chains on the market.
The downsides of this chain are that it isn't the cheapest out there, priced at around £30. Also, unlike most chains, the Shadow is very wide. Two master pins make the chain very easy to work with and shorten. Although the strength is substantially more than the other chains on this list Shadow have still managed to keep the weight down to under 400 grams, which makes it lighter and stronger than nearly every other chain on the market.
Mini Ratchet Bike Tool Set
Buy from AmazonAs you'll read later in this article, I advise against buying any cheap tools for gifts. They always break easily and rarely do what you want them to. This mini ratchet set is a great idea for a gift though. It's reasonably priced so as to not put too many people off purchasing it. The material and craftsmanship are brilliant, a company actually providing high-quality products that will work for longer than its first ride out.
Pro Bike has designed this tool and all it's parts to fit into a lovely small pouch that can be thrown easily into a small backpack. This case has two pouches, one for the tooling itself and another that can be used for keys or money.
The ratchet tool is also delivered with a magnetic tool extender and a set of tooling. The tooling is a range of allen keys from 2mm to 8mm and a T25, T30, PH1 and an SL4.
Learn more about biking tools
Shadow Conspiracy Invisa-Lite Pro Insoles
Up until I started researching this for this article I didn't actually know that insoles specifically designed for BMX riding was a thing, though now I have read about these insoles I think it's a great idea. Your feet and ankles always take a pounding when you're riding and many of us ride in shoes that are way too old and way too worn out. The vast majority of riding shoes are very flat and don't absorb. They aren't specifically designed just to be ridden in and you may not notice this but over time it will affect your feet.
Shadow is currently one of the only and the leading brand when making insoles. The market isn't flooded with them and they aren't a revolutionary new product but if you're looking to buy for someone who you know rides big jumps or has some old shoes then this might be a great product for them.
Shadow has designed and developed a great ergonomic shape to this insole. The heel is curved deep with added material that surrounds the heel giving it a sort of hug. From the heel the insole then rises as you get to the heel, giving you a great arch support. These two design features coupled together gives the rider a much better weight and shock distribution. Large impacts, especially on concrete, can cause all sorts of damage to your heels and joints when you don't land correctly. Arch support and deep heel padding help to evenly distribute any shock throughout your foot and leg so as to not let anyone part take too much of a hit.
As you can see from the diagram image below, Shadow has included two revolutionary materials in the creation of this insole. Firstly there's Shockfoam, a material that absorbs and distributes force. It's used mainly towards the front of the foot in the pedal capsule area where BMX riders normally place their feet on the pedals. If you watch the video made by Shadow below you can see a test they have performed on this material. A ball bearing is dropped onto the specialised material. The amazing material absorbs nearly all the energy of the ball being dropped. Where you'd normally see this ball bounce several inches back into the air, the Shockfoam lets it bounce just a couple of centimeters.
The second material is Stabalite. This is used mainly around the heel of the insole to stabilize and cushion the foot. These two materials are layered together with different quantities on different parts of the foot to create the best possible insole for a BMX rider.
The Bad Gift Ideas
I would say that buying gifts for BMX and bicycle riders isn't the hardest hobby to buy for. There's a lot of products and options to buy and on average the parts aren't too expensive. Having said this, there are a few things that you should steer away from.
The reasons for the things I have included on this part of the list vary but I will give you some reasons why I advise buying a different product and I have also explained how to go about buying these products if you really need to.
First of all, this list will change depending on how well you know the recipient. If you know for sure their cycling proficiency and style then buying gifts becomes much easier. Just asking a few simple questions nonchalantly will give you a good basis for the type of things you can buy for them.
You'd like to know things like the type of cycling they do, whether its BMX, Mountain Biking or other styles. You can also work out how good and interested they are in the sport by asking or observing how long they ride for each week.
A good tip I have found is that unless you are interested and a part of the sport yourself then don't buy a keen cyclist bike parts that they haven't specifically asked for. The simple reason for this is that bikers are fussy. As you get better at riding you fine tune your bike and riding style a lot and there are only specific products for each part of your bike that will be good for your riding position and style.
Low-Quality Tools
The second gift tip is TOOLS. I will always appreciate being bought tools and will always need them but DON'T buy cheap tools. It's way too easy to just go on Amazon or run into Halfords and pick up the first plastic multi-tool you can find and give that to someone as a gift. These never last very long and when you're going on a long ride you really need tools you can trust.
It doesn't matter if you buy someone fewer tools as a result of a higher price but I assure they will appreciate the higher quality. If you're looking for tools to buy for someone there are some great examples higher up in this article.
Cheap Puncture Repair Kits
People so often think that a puncture repair kit is a wonderful idea for a gift and I don't blame them. Nearly everyone that rides a bike has an inner tube that can get punctured. Unless you're one of the tiny amounts of people that have started riding tubeless bikes, at one point or another you're probably going to need a puncture repair kit.
I'm only advising that you don't buy cheap puncture repair kits that you often get for free from bike shops. Cyclists have dozens of these littering drawers in their garage and they don't need more. The materials used in these kits are normally awful quality and you'll most likely need to repair your innertube again before you get the tyre back on.
Buying a puncture repair kit that comes part of a set with some useful tools like tyre levers and maybe a pump that all fit into a small pack that fits in your pocket is a great idea. I have included a link below to a great puncture repair kit that would make a great gift.
Click Here to Check Best PriceCycle Gear Gift Card
Gift cards are a great gift for any type of hobby. Allowing the recipient to choose their gift is sometimes easier and much less risky than choosing and purchasing the wrong thing. There are a lot of BMX and mountain biking websites that offer a range of gift cards and vouchers.
Source BMX Gift Card
One of the best and most well-stocked BMX companies in the UK. They have every BMX part or bike you could need and at great prices. They have offers all the time, specifically their Black Friday BMX deals. SourceBMX gift cards are sold in £10, £25, £50 and £100 denominations.
Click Here to Check Best PriceChain Reaction Cycles
A very dominant mountain biking company, a gift card from Chain Reaction Cycles will allow the recipient to purchase almost anything they need for their mountain bike.
You can purchase these gift cards in any denomination. You can also add a special message that's delivered at the same time as the gift card. You should also use the email delivery date feature.
Click Here to Check Best PriceTredz Bikes
Tredz is a mountain biking company supplying a wide variety of mountain bike parts. The company began in M&P Cycles, which opened in the ‘80s. Before evolving into Tredz they were Cycleworld, finally achieving their final name in 2006.
The company began with a story in Cardiff, quickly followed by a Swansea store less than a year later. Several years later they opened the largest Giant brand store adjacent to the Swansea shop.
If your gift receiver likes mountain biking or Tredz bikes you should consider a gift card from here. You can purchase various amounts in different styles, if that makes a difference.
Click Here to Check Best PriceCycling Gifts for Dads
It's always tough to buy gifts for fathers. They tend to buy everything they need or want before anyone can get a chance to buy it as a gift. You need to think of things that they haven't thought about that will actually be enjoyable and help them day to day.
That's why I think a bike cleaning kit is a great idea. It wouldn't be a surprise for a father to use some old worn tools and rags when cleaning his bike. Muc-Off is a great brand that has produced some high-quality cleaning equipment.
Their cleaning products are currently on sale and include everything you need to clean your bike. You can intricately clean your chain, hubs, wheels and more with specifically designed tools.
Click Here to Check Best PriceSoulcycle Gift Card
This is a bit of a different suggestion for a BMX and mountain biking website. Soulcycle is a 45-minute cardio dance party. You use stationary bikes in a darkened room with a super inspirational instructor to get your exercise in.
Soulcycle offers gift cards that can be used in their classes throughout the country. You can purchase these gift cards in person or via email.
Click Here to Check Best PriceWhat do BMX Riders Wear?
BMX riders are very much in the style category of “Skater boy/girl”. This style includes a lot of loose-fitting, comfortable clothes, especially jeans and chinos.
Graphic t-shirts, hoodies, cargos and button-downs are very common for BMX riders. Shoes worn by BMX riders are nearly always Nike, Vans or Etnies. Vans are a very popular skatewear brand, recently releasing more products for their BMX lineup.
If you want to buy clothes for a BMX rider then you should look for basically any of the brands in this list and purchase some of their branded clothing.
Best Black Friday BMX and Mountain Bike Deals
SOURCE BMX definitely has the best lineup of Black Friday BMX parts. They have major deals on over 2,000+ products until the end of the Black Friday weekend.
Everything from complete bikes to frames, wheels, pegs, parts and clothes have been discounted, often up to 50%. For example; the Verde Cadet bike has been discounted from £400 down to £200.
Click Here to Check Best Price