Christmas gifts for discerning cyclists — a guide to unearthing the ideal gift for the fastidious fussy cyclist in your life

A bike ride is a great way to escape the world - but these days it’s hard to totally disconnect from the global binfire, traumas of daily life and people wanting to contact you 24/7, as there’s that slab of technology in your back pocket buzzing and bleeping its constant need for attention. Of course, you also need it to sync your route and watts otherwise it never happened.

While it would be great to leave that needy device at home, there’s the element of genteel safety that a phone offers, and the opportunity to call for the team car if really needed, something that has become increasingly and difficult now that public phoneboxes have disappeared (ironically, thanks to the ubiquity of mobile phones). You can, however, tuck the reassurance of a mobile phone without the heavy weight of All The World in your right rear pocket with the Zanco Tiny T1 Phone.

We first saw what they claim is the world’s smallest mobile phone in a cycling context at the Gravel World Championships this year. Measuring 47mm x 21mm x 12mm and weighing only 13 grams, it’s easy to pop in a pocket and completely forget about until it’s absolutely necessary, and you can’t doomscroll Facebook on it either. The Zanco Tiny T1 also has a standby time of up to three days, so if you’re the type of rider who likes to disappear for days on end, its long battery life makes it even more, um, handy in an emergency.

Sometimes you can show your love for cycling without being overtly 'Cycling', and the admiration can come from the beauty that lies within the association and that understanding.

To many viewers, this collection of prints could be merely photographs of hills and roads, but to others they’re images that bring with them pain, history, stories, battles and victory. Photographer David Tedman was once the youngest member of the GB Olympic cycling training squad, and harboured ambitions to climb these mountains and win the Tour de France. That didn’t happen, and the original intention for the creation of his gallery of iconic European cycling climbs was to put to rest the ghost of much-cherished unfulfilled dream. We’re not sure if he’s comes to terms with that yet, but his photographs do make us want to go ride on them, which is a success in our eyes.

Demon have been making drinking vessels out of stainless steel for a while now, but the largest only holds a paltry 380ml, which is no use at all if you’ve got a proper post-ride thirst on. It was unfeasible to make this larger 600ml vessel out the same expensive and heavy material, so 6082 aluminium had to be employed instead.

As with the other cups, the pint chalices are precision machined in small batches and individually hand finished before being hard anodised, which gives them this mid-grey battleship colour. It’s definitely a statement pint, blending art-deco, brutalism and industrial design that lets people know you’re serious about your drinking, whether that’s a beer or a nice hot blackcurrant cordial.

Show the cyclist in your life that you’ve tried a little harder than just picking one of those supermarket wines with a drawing of a bike on the label, with this bottle of Château Pesquié ‘Edition 1912m’.

Château Pesquié is nestled between the villages of Mormoiron, Blauvac and Ville-sur-Auzon on the southern slopes of Mont Ventoux, and enjoys the terroir of a limestone soil in one of the coolest micro-climates in the southern Rhône Valley. 'Edition 1912m' celebrates the height of the Giant of Provence (you may argue the veracity of this after the first bottle) and comes in red, white and rosé. If you mirror the Cinglés du Mont Ventoux by conquering all three in one day you might be a bit tired the next day, but you won’t get a badge...

Nothing says Discerning like being so subtle no one will ever notice, and this little bit of bike bling looks just like any bog standard black tubeless valve - but you, of course, will know better.

The Barbieri Carbonaria tubeless valves are made from “high quality” carbon and are available in a variety of lengths to suit your deep section rim of choice. There are two interchangeable rubber seals to ensure you get the perfect fit to your rim, and the tik-fix anti-unscrewing system (their words not mine) can be tightened to sit aerodynamically in line with the rim. They weigh 4g a valve, which is a tubeless fluid dribble difference to an alloy one, but that’s never stopped anyone before.

Coffee has come a long way since Gold Blend was considered fancy, and being discerning about the drink has unfortunately drifted into increasingly annoying and eye-rolling pernickety caffeine demands and the use of scales. It’s somehow now an integral part of everyday life, and cycling is no exception, with pre- and mid-ride coffees being an essential part of any lifestyle peloton, whilst rattly coffee-making paraphernalia has become a compulsory addition to the kit list if you like to ride around with bags strapped to your bike and sleep in a hedge.

Beautifully bucking that trend, No Normal Coffee comes in a controversial tube, which should be more than enough to infuriate the coffee extremists. The paste inside is crafted from 100% Fairtrade Arabica beans and sweetened with organic Swiss beet sugar. Each tube makes enough for 20 cups of coffee, or it can be used as a spread. You could even just smootch it into your mouth for that instant hit to get you over the last hill, sort of like a dirty gel.