Cyclists are notoriously hard to buy for. Anything genuinely useful for the bike, he's either already researched to death or will want to choose himself. Personalised cycling cufflinks sidestep that problem entirely. They aren't kit, they're a reminder of the rides that mean something to him, worn on the occasions he's had to leave the bike at home.
Suited, booted and secretly thinking about his next ride
These make sense for the club rider who spends Sunday mornings in a chaingang, the commuter who has clocked up thousands of miles to the office, the mountain biker who comes home plastered in mud, and the retired gent who finally has time for the Tour de France routes he always watched on television.
The moments are easy to find. He's finished his first hundred-mile ride. He's conquered a famous climb, whether that's Hardknott Pass or Mont Ventoux. He's ridden Land's End to John o' Groats for charity. Or he's simply getting married, and you'd like him to have something of himself on the day. For a groom who met his partner on a club ride, a photo of the two bikes leaning together outside the café is hard to beat.
Design ideas from the saddle
- His own bike. A clean side-on photo of the frame against a plain wall. Serious cyclists love their bikes the way other people love their dogs.
- A route line. A GPS trace of a memorable ride, whether a loop, a coast-to-coast or the route of a charity event, reads as an elegant squiggle that only he will recognise.
- The summit photo. Him with the bike held overhead at the top of a pass, or next to a col sign.
- The club. A picture of the group at the café stop, or the club's jersey design (with the club's permission).
- A number and a date. His race number or the date of a big event, set in a bold font on a plain background.
Making a route map readable at cufflink size
Route maps are the design most likely to disappoint if they're uploaded straight from an app, because the screenshot usually includes roads, place names, buttons and a tiny line in the middle.
For a better result, strip it back. Many ride-tracking apps and websites let you export or view the route on its own. Take a screenshot at the largest size your screen allows, then crop so the route fills the frame. A thick line in a strong colour on white or pale grey works best. If the ride is very long and thin, such as an end-to-end, think about adding the start and finish points in text within the same image so the shape still makes sense in a square.
Bike photos follow simpler rules: shoot the whole frame side-on in daylight, away from clutter, and crop close so the wheels nearly touch the edges.
A present for the whole peloton
Club dinners, sportive organisers thanking volunteers, a group of friends who rode a big challenge together: cycling cufflinks work well as a set. Pairs are £15 each when you order five or more, plus a flat £5 shipping per order, so five pairs cost £80. You can put several different designs in one basket, so each rider could have his own bike or his own finishing photo. A single pair on its own is £40 with shipping included.
From photo to cuff in three steps
- Upload your image. A bike photo, route trace, summit selfie or scanned sketch all work.
- Check the live preview on both cufflinks. Drag the image to centre it and zoom until it fills the square the way you want.
- Order. Checkout is secure. We print from your full-resolution original in our Cornwall workshop and send the cufflinks in a gift box, ready to hand over.
Whether he's a weekend rider or a man who counts his life in kilometres, cycling cufflinks give him something he'll actually be pleased to wear once the bib shorts come off.