Holiday Shopping Guide
The holidays are upon us and as if we need something else to stir up anxiety in 2020, there’s the added angst of shopping. To call a spade a spade, it’s been a strange year, so it’s one that seems especially relevant to go back to the basics.
What follows is a mix of the most kickass products made by my sponsors plus lots of stuff that I regularly buy and use, so rest assured that this entire list is things that I genuinely love. These are foundational items for the bike lover — or general dude or dudet — in your life. You can also send this list to your significant other who asks you every other day what you’d like for the holidays.
You may have heard that there’s a bicycle boom going on coast to coast as a result of Covid. To some degree that’s true, but that doesn’t translate to bike shop owners playing Scrooge McDuck swimming in their mountains of cash tucked away in the back of the shop. My first suggested item on this list is to visit your local bike shop and buy a gift card for the cyclist on your list. There’s always something he or she wants and your LBS can help procure it. Pandemics are no fun and neither is turning the closed sign over one last time. We need bike shops and they need us, so pay them a visit (or call and do it over the phone) which will help make the world a better place.
Lately, I’ve been listening to my books a lot more than picking them up and reading them. Call it busy, blame it on parenthood, or just dub me lazy. But that all changed with The All-Road Bike Revolution. Written by one of the most creative minds in cycling, Jan Heine, this book is terrific if you’re new to the sport or have been a cyclist for decades.
Remember when Amazon just sold books? Gosh, those were the days. Staying on topic of the written (and illustrated) word, here’s a pair of books for expecting dads out there. These are the best two among a whole library of parenthood books that were sent my way.
Be Prepared: A Practical Handbook for New Dads and Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters.
These are good even if you’ve had your tiny-tot kiddo already. My friend who recommended SF,SD pointed out that his daughter is in her early 20s and he still finds it a very useful read now many years later. Of course that’s meant for daughters, so let’s qualify my second suggestion to dads of expecting daughters. I did suggest that book last year, but now chasing Hazel around while reading, it has infinitely more relevancy.
The best part about cycling apparel is that with seasonal releases, we get to celebrate Christmas four times per year. Better yet, year over year, Velocio produces the hands down best apparel on the market, so it’s like having your Christmas cake and eating it too.
To start with the basics, Velocio is renowned for their bibs. You likely won’t have a good ride without a happy butt, so this piece of clothing is critical. Their Foundation bib is generously cost-conscious and the LUXE are downright deluxe. Somewhere in their range is the right short for you.
It’s not the first time that I’ve mentioned my favorite jersey of all time is the Merino Concept. It’s extraordinarily soft and comfy, heck, it feels like a hug every time you put it on. Being merino it’s adaptable to most temperatures and it just looks rad.
Who wants socks for the holidays? Every cyclist you know! Why not stay on the topic of wool and let me suggest the Winter Wool Sock. I suggest gray for no particular reason, except that they’re fresh and soft and make my tooties happy, so they’ll do the same to yours.
Your bike needs to get from point A to point B and for reasons X, Y, and Z, you’re not riding it to get there. Saris' MTR 2 rack puts an industrial aesthetic twist on any traditional bike rack. It looks elegant deployed, folded up vertical, folded horizontal, it looks good any which way. It IS for 2” hitch receivers only, so don’t expect to upgrade your Mini Cooper with this rack.
Need to move 4 bikes? Get the 2 bike add-on.
Santa needs cookies and milk. His reindeer need carrots. I need peanut butter pretzels.
I’m pretty equal opportunity, so you won’t find me snubbing any pretzel that’s wrapping its loving arms around a nugget of peanut butter. I also recognize that I’m eating them not just by the handful, but by the bag and I don’t need 7,000% my daily recommended value of sodium. Thankfully my good friend Trader Joe created the No-Salt version.
I’m not gluten free because outside of maple, gluten is my favorite ingredient, but if you’re up that creek then I also find the Quinn’s GF peanut butter pretzel to be pretty spectacular. There’s an especially satisfying crunch to every bite.
You had a kid, eh? So now what are you going to do with li’l miss him or her? Go outside of course!
Colugo became our go-to for carting Hazel around. Specifically the Colugo Carrier in this stylish camo motif is excellent… although upon further investigation, they aren’t carrying camo anymore. Olive is a very nice alternative, or frankly any color you like.
And both of their strollers, the Complete Stroller or the rugged yet handy Compact, are best-in-show when it comes to showing off your little human. (Please note, Hazel is about 1/10 her current age in that photo above, that’s why she looks like a small sack of flour with arms.)
Ho Ho Ho, Hot Cocoa!
The good people at UnTapped (see what I did there?) are excited to introduce Salted Cocoa UnTapped to their lineup of energy packets! Always erring on the side of simplicity, the ingredient list is just three ingredients long: Pure Maple Syrup, Cocoa, and Sea Salt. If you’d care to know the benefits of real maple, here you go. Real cocoa has a lengthy list of nutritional benefits as well. Sea salt gives a boost of electrolytes.
Meanwhile, an ingredient list from a comparable product reads like a text book and tastes just like one too: Maltodextrin, Water, Fructose, L-Leucine, Sea Salt, Potassium Citrate, Sodium Citrate, Citric Acid, Calcium Carbonate, L-Valine, Natural Flavor, Green Tea (Leaf) Extract (Contains Caffeine), Gellan Gum, L-Isoleucine, Sunflower Oil, Sodium Benzoate (Preservative), Potassium Sorbate (Preservative).
Allow me to knock your socks off for just a second: Zipp reduced the weight of their industry leading 303 wheels, they somehow became sturdier, and the price basically was cut in half. Introducing the Zipp 303 S wheelset. How’d they do it? Magic.
I’ve smashed these wheels into the deepest, darkest potholes New England can dish out and they remain tried and true. I’m truly blown away by how high-performing these wheels are plus the new graphics make me drool just a little bit. If you’re feeling a bit more spendy, the Zipp 303 Firecrest or even NSW will turn whatever Prius you’re pedaling into a Ferrari.
Coffee. Because coffee.
My dear friends Aaron and Kim of Handlebar Coffee Roasters have been churning out the good stuff for nearly a decade. For the entirety of covid, Laura and I have been buying their coffee by the 5lb bag and going through it at an alarming rate. I recommend Guatemala and Brazil, their house coffee is Gibraltar, but quite frankly you can’t go wrong with any of it.
Let’s zip back to Zipp for a second. If you’re anything like me, then you spend an inordinate amount of time making the area around your handlebar clean and clear. An extra inch of hydraulic cable may as well be a mile.
If you’re interested in cleaning up your cockpit, the new Zipp computer mount is perhaps the smartest move you could make this century. It looks sharp as a tack, is easily maneuverable, and works with 99.9% of the cycling computers out there. If it doesn’t work with yours, then buy it anyway and duct tape your computer to the mount. Yup, it’s that good.
Let me guess, you own a saddlebag. (Sorry, correction: let me guess, you have a half dozen saddlebags. You have your favorite — Outvi Possm, bar none — and then you have five others that work, but are pretty well worked.)
This is the first year that I’ve taken the leap into handlebar and frame bags and I can report that aren’t just super hip, they’re also super functional. Your errand rides can go further and more efficiently with the added storage, plus you can fit more snacks along on any ride.
If you’re entering the bag market, look no further than Moosepacks. They have some awesome stock bags plus excellent customization options. I have a merigold plus camo motif that’s a thing of beauty. If you’re taking the deeper dive into something a bit more gnarly, I encourage you to use the utilitarian Apidura bags. They’re waterproof and with loads of size options, they were what I used during the Arkansas High Country Race when I needed to be self-sufficient for five days.
Good, safe roads begin with good behavior on behalf of both cyclists and motorists. There’s a time and place where cyclists are allowed to take up the full lane, but we need to do our part as stewards of the roads and as much as possible, keep safely to the right. The instant a motorist rounds a corner and sees Left Lane Larry swerving around like a yahoo, it gives all cyclists a bad name.
I’ve never been one for mirrors on a bike. Maybe it’s their aesthetic, maybe it’s the added few grams, maybe it’s the aerodynamics. Well that all changed with a recent addition to my bike, the Berthoud Mirror. I only just recently installed it, but I’m truly loving it. It’s oddly fun to peer back from time to time and it’s a very nice additional level of safety to see those cars approaching from the rear giving me ample room. This mirror is very compact and looks sharp on any bike.
Safety is as instrumental to cycling as is the wheel, so this is cycling safety 101.
The formula N+1 describes the preferred number of bikes in ones quiver, where N is the current number of bikes. We’ve all had a chuckle about that so there’s nothing newsworthy there. The news here is that you can have a one bike do it all with the Cannondale Topstone Carbon Lefty.
This struck me on its first ride here where I went out and rode some paved roads to gravel roads then straight to singletrack that I’d never ridden before. At which point I overlapped with some friends who were on their 5” travel bikes and we all rode together for a good long while before going our separate ways.
No, the Topstone isn’t designed purely for the silky pavement just as it’s not designed to tackle all of the same terrain as a 5” travel bike. But somewhere over the course of the day it’s able to ride it all and stand out from the rest. If you’re truly looking for the ultimate single bike, your N+1 equals the Topstone.
I don’t ever want to be a lackey to technology, so when I say that WHOOP entered my life over the course of the past year and it’s been transformative, I mean that in a very good way. With WHOOP I’m more conscious of my sleep and recovery, I’m aware of when I’m able to take on stress and work harder, and I see with new perspective how we’re not all beholden to a static calendar that says, “Work out on this day. Rest on this day.” Now it’s “Work out on this day because you’re actually feeling up for it. Rest on this day because you’re clearly in need of it.” This is especially applicable to parents.
(Save some bucks and use this site to try your hand at WHOOP if you haven’t already.)
Sunglasses are as an essential part of a cycling kit as a helmet, so it’s hard to comprehend that there was once a time cyclists didn’t wear sunglasses at all. They are a personal choice based on aesthetic or head size or whatever you deem a reason to like or dislike a set of glasses. Conveniently, ROKA has you covered six ways til Sunday especially with their blowout Black Friday sale which is going on now.
Personally, I’m in a constant toss up of my favorite glasses. For the sake of a concrete answer, let’s go with Matador for on-bike sunnies and the simple yet subtle KONA for off-bike. I don’t know if this is an endorsement or something to be wary of, but Laura snakes the Matadors all the time, so let it be known that they’re quite popular for the ladies as well.
It is the season of giving, after all, so these next items are as timely as they are benevolent. DIYgravel was created to provide a global community of getting after it on the dirt this year. Thousands of you joined and submitted rides and it’s definitely been a feel-good moment for me personally knowing how helpful that was for many.
The DIYgravel lineup of men’s and women’s t-shirts, hats, and belt buckles has generated thousands of dollars for a donation to the Krempels Center — the organization benefitting adults with brain injury, of which my dad is a member. Act fast, prices have been slashed for a holiday shopping bonanza!
I’m proud to sit on the board of Mountain Bike Afghanistan, founded by my friend Farid Noori. We as cyclists recognize how empowering the bicycle can be, so Farid is making a huge step by spearheading this operation in order to empower youth, especially girls in a country on the brink. (If you care to do more research, this and this are both terrific articles.)
If you care to do more to support than just read, MTBAfghanistan has a lovely lineup of softgoods to show your support for the cause. Both of the sweatshirts are my particular favorites.
And for the person who has it all, does he or she really have a Jetboil? Okay, maybe they do, but my guess is that they don’t use it enough, so give them Backpacker’s Pantry Three Cheese Mac & Cheese. Sure, they’ll open it up and be bewildered. Sure, it costs much more than Kraft or Annie’s Mac & Cheese. But then you can explain that it comes with Ted’s tastebuds endorsement and sometime later that week you can fire up the Jetboil (…or just use the stove) and make it. You’ll discover your new favorite Mac & Cheese of all time.
One of a kind gifts are hard to beat, especially handmade ones. We wanted something special as our Rooted Vermont prizes and found Vermont wood artisan Ian Compton. We engraved offered wooden axes as prizes at Rooted, which were a big hit.
He’s masterful in his craft and as you peruse his store it’s incredible how he transforms wood into something that looks so silky and soft.
How much do I like the new SRAM Force AXS 36 tooth rear derailleur? Enough to make a gosh darn movie about it! I think because of covid, the academy awards having come calling just yet, but we’re definitely in the hunt.
Seriously, I didn’t think I needed a 36 tooth derailleur. I had an offer to try it, I continued to think that I have the strength and might to power over any climb in my robust 33t cassette, and then the very next day I went for a ride and I was maxing out all 33 of those teeth and I decided on the spot that I wanted something more. And now that I have 36 teeth and this fancy derailleur and I love it.
The ability to mix and match AXS components and downright fun and I trust that as long as you live in a place that has any undulation, the more the merrier when it comes to gears.
And there you have it, the making of a festive holiday season starts with egg nog, cool products and a mix of benevolence and consumerism. (If nog isn’t your thing, I recommend giving this a shot.) Please let me know if there’s something I’ve overlooked that you’re dying to have this season. Unless it’s the Instant Pot slash Air Fryer Combo. I’m very aware that’s a hot item.
I wish a very happy holidays to you and yours,
-Ted