Bike Stop's Christmas Gift Guide 2018
November is nearly behind us, and the end of the year is nearly in sight, which can mean only one thing, it's Christmas soon! If you're looking for ideas for your biker friend/other half/relative, or even yourself, you're in the right place.
Buying gifts for the average biker can be a tricky business, and often you'll need to fish for clues for what might go down well when it's opened on the 25th; there's nothing worse than seeing a strained smile of thanks and knowing that the gift is either never going to be used and gather dust, or making its way to eBay post haste! When it comes to proper gear, or expensive luggage, it certainly will pay to do your research as it needs to fit the rider and the bike, so it's worth finding out whether they've been after any particular bits for a while, but generally speaking a bike themed gift that isn't safety or function critical will go down well.
Without further ado, here are the top biker gifts from Bike Stop for this year...
All year round Bike Stop has t-shirts available, and there's a good range to choose from, with Dainese, AGV and Red Torpedo (Guy Martin's brand) examples available to buy for both men and women. I've personally got several Dainese t-shirts and they've proved to be of excellent quality, lasting tens of washes while wearing and fitting well. We also stock Bike Stop t-shirts, so you can show that you love the shop as much as we do! Our range of t-shirts range from £9.95 to £45.95.
While on the bike in winter, generally speaking your head is nice and warm thanks to your helmet, but once off it's another story! A good quality beanie hat won't take up much space and looks the part off the bike when you've pulled over to admire others' bikes and have a cuppa, and is especially handy for those who aren't endowed with too much hair up top! Much like t-shirts, Bike Stop stock Dainese and Red Torpedo items ranging from £15 to £19.95.
As rare as it may be, it does occasionally get sunny in winter, which also means this gift can be handy in the summer. Ultimately though, it may well be more use for hiding helmet hair, or even a complete lack of it, than guarding against sunlight! The humble baseball cap has many uses for a biker, and Bike Stop has several Dainese versions to keep the biker look intact, ranging from £27.95-£29.95 with several colours and designs to choose from.
If you know the biker you're buying for better you might consider splashing out a little bit more, and technology to enhance rides are a good way to gift effectively.
Often when you're riding it's hard to get across what you see as a rider as the viewpoint is completely different to other road users', not only that but you can see an awful lot more from the saddle when you're riding around, whether that be on holiday or just commuting. Beyond taking a dedicated camera and stopping every few hundred yards to take photos or video when going through somewhere pretty, there are few ways more convenient for capturing the moment than a high quality helmet camera. The Drift Ghost is one of the best options for a helmet camera, with a sleek design and high resolution, well balanced, wide angle video. It allows for a remote viewfinder so you can easily line up a shot and has a battery life that a GoPro can only dream of. Beyond simply capturing the moment, it's a useful tool for the commute in the event of an accident, or simply to show YouTube how terrible that driver was that pulled out on you, while staring you right in the eye!
The next gift requires a bit more investigation for suitability as it'll need to fit their helmet, a Sena intercom. Almost every rider that gets their intercom exclaims that they've been missing out, as they truly can enhance riding tremendously. There are 3 headline features that most intercoms can achieve that make riding that bit easier and, arguably, better. Simply being able to talk to your fellow rider without having to stop and shout at one another, or frantically gesture at a turning when someone goes the wrong way is a revelation and makes riding with one or more mates a breeze. It also makes pillion rides much more enjoyable. When it comes to directions, you can also link your phone by bluetooth which can give you sat nav directions to your ears, as well as let you take, or even make, phone calls with just a few words using voice recognition. Following that, you can use your phone to play music while you're riding; around town it's personal preference as some won't like the distraction, but for solo motorway rides it makes all the difference - there's nothing like busting some moves on the M25 when you get into a song! Sena makes headsets that fit directly into Arai, Shoei and Schuberth helmets, but can also fit other models with a generic fitment. They're also compatible with Scala intercoms, which could otherwise be a dealbreaker if they weren't!
Moving onto something more practical; luggage. Kriega is renowned as being one of the finest soft luggage manufacturers, with their ubiquitous modular form factor, if your biker buddy already has a tailpack, it's easy just to add another pack to it, such as the US-10 or US-20. If you're looking for something more specific they have several high specification rucksacks which'll please the biker who is just using a normal one for their rides. Finally for the biker that hates taking luggage (looking at you sportsbike riders) then the R3 Waistpack could be of huge use to them; unlined sports leather jackets are generally pretty sparse when it comes to storage.
So that's the top gifts from Bike Stop - however there is a final extra gift that may make your life easier. If you're really stuck then a gift voucher may be the answer, and to make it even better it's possible to get the gift voucher packaged in an empty helmet box - that way they can either buy the exact helmet size and shape they want, or even something completely different. If nothing on this list is what you're after then view our other Christmas gifts here.