Yawp! Cyclery's 2021 Gift Guide

People are telling me that it’s December, which clearly can’t be correct. It’s sunny, seventy degrees, and my internal clock is telling me it can’t be later than June 15th. In any case, I’ve put together a gift guide so that when December does actually roll around—because 2015 will be over before we know it—this list will be ready.

We’ve been making gift guides for a lot of years now, and because we sell products we use and love and believe in, we end up selling many of the same things year after year. You can check out some of our past years’ guides if you need more ideas, because a lot of those things are still in stock and still awesome.

First Ascent Instant Coffee

I tend to be the kind of person who would rather carry coffee beans and a small grinder and a pour-over apparatus and some filters and a baggie for the spent grounds than settle for anything else just because it would be easier. However, this instant coffee from First Ascent is so good that there’s no compromise involved, and it takes up so little space that I can now carry an extra book in my frame bag, which I no longer need because without the pour-over apparatus there’s less sittin’ around time, which means I have to find other ways to make some sittin’ around time. Like by drinking EXTRA CUPS OF COFFEE. Everyone likes drinking EXTRA CUPS OF COFFEE. I may have had EXTRA CUPS OF COFFEE this morning and everything is BETTER.

Fernweh Dehydrated Adventure Meals

You know what it’s like to be in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by only nature without a single human-made thing to see/hear that might remind you of all of the hustling and stress and conflict and bad news that you might be in the wilderness to try to get away from, and then you round a corner and find a few pieces of plastic strewn about, and all of the good feelings you’d had collapse under the weight of the ill feelings about humanity that come rushing back to fill the space you’d finally emptied of them? There’s no guarantee that people won’t litter their Fernweh packaging, too, but it is omnidegradable and compostable. The meals are also 100% plant-based, which means they have a smaller carbon footprint that other meals to begin with. These help preserve for you and for others the unadulterated naturalness that you went outside to enjoy.

pies

No, we don’t sell or make pies, but we do eat them, and we recommend that you and all of your loved ones eat them. Why? If you have to ask why, then perhaps you need to eat some pie to remind yourself that the latticey answer to that question is self-explanatory. Who wouldn’t like getting pies? There aren’t many perfect foods in the world, so why waste time giving anything else? We can’t help but be consumers, and consuming things that make us happy and make our bodies go is a great alternative to consuming things that end up in storage closets and eventually a landfill.

Bivo Stainless Steel Waterbottles

You are probably already aware of the downsides of plastic bottles, being that they are bad for both humans and for the planet. Even “safe” plastic bottles start to break down after a year or two, exposing hydrated individuals to toxic chemicals. Bivo is the first stainless bottle that has an adequate flow rate and also fits in a bottle cage. They’ll last forever, and when your favorite cyclist stops drinking toxic chemicals, they probably will too.

The All-Road Bike Revolution by Jan Heine

This book is full of fun and nerdy research that yields counterintuitive results. It will help you find any incorrect assumptions you might’ve made about bike handling, tire pressure, and so many other things. It’s the perfect book for the bike nerd who likes having their mind blown.

Vargo Triad Stove

If sleeping on the ground were so great, we’d all do it at home. Because sleeping on the ground isn’t so great, eating hot food and drinking coffee outside make bikepacking a little more pleasant. This stove weighs next to nothing and will burn denatured, ethyl, or methyl alcohol, as well as gels or tablets. It’s more predictable than cooking on a campfire (which is getting tougher as more and more more fire bans go into effect permanently), and easier to replenish fuel stores on the road, as a lot of hardware stores and convenience stores carry denatured alcohol (HEET works, too).

Churros

No, we don’t sell or make churros, either. We aren’t a bakery. For goodness sake, though, who wouldn’t like to receive a plate of hot churros, like, right now? I propose that anyone to whom you might give a plate of hot churros who doesn’t love you for it doesn’t deserve to be a friend of yours, or at least to receive gifts from you. If you were to say, “Happy Love Day, Terrance,” and hand Terrance a plate of hot churros, an he were to reply, “But I wanted a Tesla,” then you should take a long hard think about what exactly of import you and Terrance share, in terms of admirable qualities. In my opinion.

Occam Apex Strap

This cool little strap provides a way for riders to carry all of their repair stuff safely and conveniently on their bike. Just about anyone with a bicycle can use one of these—unless they don’t like being prepared.

King Cage Sideloader Ti Cage

Like all King Cages, these are handmade in Durango, Colorado. They’re titanium, so they’re very strong and barely weigh anything. Side loading cages are great for full suspension mountain bikes, or bikes (like the Salsa Warbird) that have two bottle mounts on the downtube. They’re suitable for any rider, of course, provided they like convenience.

Oveja Negra’s 925 handlebar bag

This bag is intended for those who work 9 to 5, but we at Yawp! work 10 to 6 and still this bag is great! It’ll hold a surprising number of burritos, pies, coffee supplies, maps, marbles, crayons, churros, chopsticks, or whatever you need to take to work. Or to “work.”

Bikes for Kids

If some of your favorite bike riders are very small, perhaps they’d like a new bike. Cleary bikes are built to last, and they ride much better than department store bikes. We have them in 16” and 20” sizes, in a few different colors.

Yawp! Stuff

We have shirts, hoodies, socks, caps, hats, Silipints, water bottles, patches, koozies, and jerseys. If your loved one likes to rep their LBS and also not be naked in public, we have them, uh, covered.

Cakes

As a matter of fact, I posit that just about any baked good would make a more than adequate gift. “All baking is done from the heart,” they say, which sounds unsanitary, but the gist of which I think conveys that even something you burned or forgot to add sugar to is going to be appreciated. Or maybe I haven’t eaten in over an hour and my stomach is writing this gift guide (also unsanitary).

That’s it. Happy holidays!

Getting Used to Weirdness; the State of Our Tiny Corner of the Bike Industry

Somehow, we seem to be nearing the end of 2021, and if you are like many other people, the last twenty months may have felt like an endless tumble down an up escalator. Lots of people are feeling stressed, pessimistic, angry, and confused. It doesn’t sound like it so far, but this post is about the state of the bike industry generally, and Yawp!, specifically, because we’ve been getting a lot of questions from customers about the bike boom, the supply chain, and our sanity. So, I thought I’d either address or fail to address all of these issues in one convenient place. Fair warning—this post makes the situation sound pretty dire. It is dire, but as you read please keep in mind that we’re doing okay. We aren’t going anywhere and we still like operating a bike shop. (Actually, that’s not entirely true. We are going somewhere. We’re closing the shop November 9-11th for a staff trip to Santa Fe. We’ll be back.)

The bike boom happened—or is happening—thanks to the pandemic. Every red-blooded, bread-baking, quarantined American became interested in bikes last year, when exercising outdoors was the prudent thing to do. Many of our customers in the last twenty months bought a bike for the first time, and it was really great to see so many people with so much excitement come through our door (one at a time, thanks also to the pandemic). Is the bike boom still happening? Yes. Ridership is still very high, and this accounts in a small way for the inventory shortages, but those have been caused mostly by supply chain issues.

While I’ve only begun to see news stories about the supply chain in the last month or two, it has been a nightmare for the bike industry for over a year now. It’s an extremely complicated situation, but let’s just say that if the supply chain were a cassette tape, it would be the cassette tape that binds up the tape deck in your car, catches fire, and blows up your car while it’s idling in the parking lot of the firework store (no one was injured in the making of this metaphor). The bike boom emptied manufacturers’ warehouses, while at the same time factories around the world were shut down because of COVID outbreaks. Demand is at an all-time high. Factories are backlogged. Shipping is a disaster. Is it getting better? No! Not at all. It’s as bad now as it’s been. We’ve spent countless hours at the computer to ensure we have small parts for repairs and as many accessories as we can get ahold of. In that regard, our inventory is looking pretty strong. Bikes, however, are few and far between. We—like most shops—are selling bikes months before they arrive in stock. That’s not what we want. We like it when customers can test ride a few models and sizes before making decisions. Are there any signs of recovery? Not really. We currently have a fraction of the inventory we’d like to have, and there’s absolutely no knowing how long it will be before we will once again inhabit the world of endless choice and availability to which we were once accustomed. That world of choice and availability seems as far away as a world where everyone is nice to each other and picks up after themselves.

Running a bike shop these last twenty months has been akin to driving a car in which all of the controls changed operations about once a month. This month, the gas pedal is the brake, the brake is the left turn signal, and the left turn signal is your horn, and the horn activates the wipers. The little button that normally ejects the cassette tape is now the cigarette lighter. Just about the time we get used to the nightmare of driving, the controls completely change again. On top of this disorienting and terrifying sensation, there’s also the way that time has simultaneously become a Groundhog Day-ish echo as well as a blind missile ride. For those of you curious about our sanity, the short answer is, “What is sanity, anyway?” and the long answer is below.

Even in the best of times, working in a bike shop can be taxing. Don’t get me wrong—it’s often fun and rewarding. Sometimes, though, repairing broken things is difficult and frustrating. Rude or condescending customers wander in from time to time. It can even get so busy that there’s no time to record offhand comments that would make a great band names, like Administrative Debacle, or Upset in My Ways.

These last twenty months have been a fair bit harder. We are are socially distant from the community that once gave us purpose. We are constantly disappointing customers who come in looking for bikes we can’t get. Earlier in the pandemic, we witnessed some customer behavior that was truly baffling. I don’t know exactly why, but I think the stress and fear wrought on all of us in those days made some people come into the store and be very weird. If Dennis Rodman had come by to throw cassoulet at us, nobody here would even have blinked an eye. That’s the kind of weirdness we were getting used to. Fortunately, that nonsense has subsided, but many of our present difficulties have no end in sight. This can make us weary. No one likes scrubbing cassoulet out of their jorts.

But the truth is that we’re fine. Everything seems bad, and like it’s going to be bad forever, but in each moment and the next we continue to be fine. We are trying to let go of what we wish were true and accept what is true, and for now what is true is good enough. As restrictions have eased, we’ve been able to ride bikes with you again, and that’s been quite a pleasure. Thanks for being the awesome, inspiring, and friendly customers and readers that you are.

Here are a few photos of some fun times we’ve had together, just because.