5 easy ways to get cycling deals and discounts at Amazon

^{First Published August 20, 2015}

Amazon has always been one of the best places to buy books, entertainment and household electronics, but the mighty online retailer is also attempting to make its way into other markets — like cycling. Amazon currently carries brands like Garmin, Kryptonite, Knog, Gore Bikewear, Shimano, Sugoi and Wahoo Fitness and its range is growing.

One of the biggest benefits for consumers when a big retailer wants to get into a new market is that they use discounts to try and get your custom; one of the drawbacks is their stock is generally limited and always changing. That’s because Amazon doesn’t just sell its own stock but is also a marketplace used by bike shops big and small to offload excess stock and to compete with the specialist online cycling retailers.

That ever-changing flow of products means you have to dig to find the bargains. They're there if you have the time to find them, but it's like shopping at TK Maxx: you either love or hate it. We’re guessing you’d rather be out cycling with the wind at your back and the sun on your face.

It turns out there are ways to find those Amazon bike bargains without the slog. We’ve sifted and trawled to bring you the best ways to get a cycling gear bargain on Amazon.

Here are four tips on finding the best deals, discounts, promotional codes and bargains on Amazon.

1 Subscribe & Save

For many products that you'll buy over and over again, you can get 5% or 15% off by setting up a repeat purchase with Subscribe & Save, and many products also have 20% off your first subscription. You can cancel the subscription any time, so that's an instant 25% off, say, a 1.6kg tub of Science in Sport Rego Rapid Recovery Protein Shake. Mmm, chocolate.

If you set up five Subscribe & Save items the on-going discount jumps to 15%, and you can get there by adding individual items to your Subscribe & Save order even if they're identical. Want five tubes of Hydration Tablets? Add them one at a time and you'll get a 15% saving.

The catch with Subscribe & Save is that it's set up to deliver at the end of the month (or at least that's when our multiple bags of dog food arrive), so it's not suitable if you need something right now.

Here are some other handy items that are eligible for Subscribe & Save:

WD-40
PowerBar Natural Energy bars
Udderly Smooth chamois cream
Cable ties
Sugru
A Magnum of Champagne

2 Check out deals

If you're thinking about buying an item, but it's not mega urgent, like a cycling computer or some other accessories, check out Amazon's deals section daily, and stalk what deals are coming up and how long they'll be live for. This link is for their outdoors section as they tend to have a narrow view of what kind of product can be used for cycling - you can toggle through the available offers at the top to find the cycle specific stuff, you an also click between currently available, upcoming, and missed deals.

3 Browse the outlet store

You can pick up all sorts of end-of-line clearance gear and general budget kit in the cycling outlet store. 

4 Check out the Clearance Warehouse

Not a lot of people know this, but Amazon have a clearance warehouse for returned goods. Their bargain warehouse is where returned stock and soiled or damaged merchandise is sold off cheap, and new items are added to it every day. You can find the cycling section of their clearance warehouse here.

5 Get free delivery

We hate it when retailers give you mega low prices and then stick £10 for delivery on top of your bill. It's even worse if you need the product at a specific time or place. A lot of the stuff you buy on Amazon comes with free delivery anyway, but if it doesn’t there are ways to get around that. 

If you go to the Amazon cycling products page and scroll down about half way it will list all the products that come with free delivery. If you can't find the product you want on there then simply sign up for the Amazon Prime free trial and get free next day delivery. Don't forget to cancel it before the end of the trial (we set a reminder on our phone) or you will be charged £79.

Now it's your turn

We're on a mission to find as many cycling deals, discounts and hacks as we can and share them with you, but there are more of you than there are of us. If you find any great deals or hacks please post them in the comments below or mail them to deals [at] road.cc and we will do our best to share them with everyone.