2009 Holiday Gift Guide

Bikes

With the exception of the very fringe (bamboo), bike manufacturing is pretty much not green. Steel, titanium, carbon fiber and aluminum all exact an environmental toll in their manufacture. About the only place that you can be environmentally sensitive is in the finish, with options like the following:

Go bare: Litespeed (or most any titanium manufacturer) can build you a beautiful bike out of bare titanium. As an example, Litespeed’s Icon Road Frameset is constructed from bomber, ultralight titanium to create a workhorse race bike that crushes both climbs and descents. The double-butted head tube, ovalized top tube, and custom butting increase stiffness without adding weight. This strong, featherweight Lightspeed frame also comes with a carbon Easton EC90 SL fork to help get your build started in the right direction.

Go with water: Cyfac developed their paint process with the health of their artisan painters and the earth in mind as well. Their eco-friendly paint process avoids the use of harsh chemical solvents by using a water base. The finish is perhaps the deepest, most lustrous and most “personalize-able” on the market! They feel that it is good for the planet, great for our painters, and even better for the finish quality of their frames. With this process, they are able to match up to 30,000 different paint tints. [Look for existing pics from Cyfac IVS]

Cycling Apparel

Nalini’s Cefalo1 jacket is part of their Pro Winter Team Man collection. This stylish jacket, available in six colors and six sizes, offers wind and weather protection while helping to keep waste out of the landfill. It is made with Nalini’s RE-PET fabric that was developed by MOA SPORT and comes from the recycling of PET bottles. PET-based fabrics have the same characteristics as many polyester yarns, but guarantee lower environmental impact. The use of this fabric respects the environment and contributes to energy conservation and to the preservation of natural resources. The Cefalo1 features a cycling fit, a fleece collar, grippers around the bottom of the jacket to hold it in place, reflective accents and three back pockets. It is suited for riding temperatures from 27 to 43 degrees and also features a transparent wind-proof coating.

Nalini also offers the Pagro long sleeve jersey in the same RE-PET fabric.

SkirtSports’ Runaround Skirt or Runaround Half-Zip are made with Cocona fabric, which uses activated carbon from coconut shells to make a superior fabric that provides effective evaporative cooling, odor absorption and UV protection. They are perfect for casual weekend rides or running errands around town.

Shebeest’s Bellissimia Jersey is made from Ecowic™ Fabric – a soft, yet durable fabric that combines UV protection and recycled yarn. Repreve yarn is produced from 100% post industrial and post consumer waste. This recycled yarn reduces energy production and conserves petroleum, significantly reducing the amount of waste put into landfills, and harmful emissions deposited into the atmosphere. Mynx yarn provides a permanent sun protection rating of 25 UPF that will not wash out. It’s available in sizes from XS to XL and comes in shock pink/platinum, canary/platinum, spice/platinum and capri blue/platinum.

Teko socks: TEKO’s mission is to protect the planet while delivering socks that offer the ultimate in comfort and performance. They accomplish it through the use of recycled materials, organic farming, chlorine-free processing, local (U.S.) manufacture, local material sourcing, using wind to power their factory, purchasing carbon offsets and contributing 10% of online sales to outdoor organizations. They are the first company in the sports industry to use organic merino wool and the first sock company to introduce Ingeo corn-based socks.

Casual Apparel

Cloudveil’s Enclosure Jacket is made with recycled nylon and features Packable Primaloft® One and a slick, 100% recycled nylon face make this puffy ideal for town rambles or touring missions. Compressible 100-gram loft allows it to cram in a pack until a rest break or be worn as a warm midlayer. Waterproof knit underarm fabric acts as an active stretch panel and a passive pit vent, while synthetic fill traps heat even in drippy snow caves or around drizzly bonfires. Features include a lined collar, a bonded draft flap with lined chin guard, hand warmer pockets, an adjustable storm sealing hem, interior pockets and low bulk cuffs. It can be stuffed into its own pocket. Available in men’s and women’s styles for $175. A girl’s version is also offered at $80.

Are you doing yoga to build that all important core strength? If you aren’t, you should be. While you can do yoga in any old comfortable t-shirt and shorts, Yoga-Clothing.com offers a wide selection of yoga clothing for women in eco-friendly, organic materials. They’re offering a 20% off coupon to Bike World News readers between now and Christmas. Just enter “BWN” in the promotion/coupon code at checkout.

Nau is an urban/outdoor recreation apparel company that is defining a new value equation in design: beauty, performance, and sustainability. Nau maintains a 75% sustainability across all of their lines, uses the labor watch dog group Verite to monitor all of their overseas factories, purchases carbon offsets for all their shipping actions, gives 2% of all purchases to charity (and allows customers to allocate their 2% to a charity of their choice), and every single item they produce is fully recyclable.

For organic credibility, it’s hard to beat wool. Check out Joneswares, Smartwool and Icebreaker for a full selection of cycling and casual apparel….

Gore Bike Wear’s Phantom jacket is their best selling jacket. Featuring a vest-like section made from Gore’s world famous Windstopper fabric, along with removable raglan sleeves, this jacket is a welcome companion on those cool days. Relish in the warmth of the entire Phantom Jacket package on cool mornings, remove the sleeves as the tempo or temperature heat up, and zip your sleeves back on as evening cools to night. While not “green”, the versatility makes it a great all season choice, reducing your waste by not requiring you to buy several different jackets. $169.99, sizes from S to XXXL.

Bags

The Timbuk 2 Shopping Bag Backpack is perfect for people who bike to the grocery store. Since it is foldable, it can be carried in a messenger bag or a bike basket, filled up and carried home as a backpack. Adjustable straps means it’ll fit anyone – short or tall – and the colorful exterior means you’ll actually want to use it all the time. <np>Like some of the other products mentioned above, it is made from recycled PET fabric. Since the bag is reusable, it can help you eliminate thousands of plastic bags over its lifetime, and choosing products made from recycled PET promotes a more sustainable path for plastic. These bags are built to last, which saves both money and natural resources.

The Healthy Back Bag was designed to alleviate apparent stress from the back, neck and shoulders. A woman, Marge Gaffin, who suffered from back pain after a roller skating accident and subsequent surgery to fix her injury, created the trademark shape. She enlisted her leather craftsman husband, Irwin (a surgeon and chiropractor) to create the Healthy Back Bag. New for 2009 is the Earth Collection, made with eco-friendly, recycled PolyEthlene Therephthalate (PET) and an easy-see silver lining. The bag blends the ergonomic and organizational features of the Healthy Back Bag with state of the art recycled materials.

If you ride your bike to work or to a picnic at the park, the Acme Insulated Lunch Bag is great to stick into a bag or basket, and it will keep your lunch insulated and protected. It is made from 90% post-consumer recycled content and is also 100% lead free. Manufacture is fair labor/fair wage and its backed by ACME’s lifetime guarantee.

Green Guru is located in Boulder, CO and designs and manufactures gear from recycled or reclaimed materials. They work with companies from different industry’s to “upcycle” a variety of items that would otherwise end up in the landfill like bike inner tubes or billboards. Green Guru gives this “waste” a new life in their line of bags and accessories.

Made with truck and bike innertubes, recycled PETE fabric and more, the Vulcar Messenger Bag looks sharp while you comfortably haul your gear around town. Crank down on the quick-adjust, padded shoulder strap and get that body moving. For a more causal carry, sling the Vulcar over your shoulder for easy access to the glorious organization that is your messenger bag. $149.99

On a different tack, Green Guru’s Billboard Deluxe Messenger Bag gets its materials from used highway billboards. This tough waterproof material is used to create one-of-a-kind styled bags. Designed to fit books and organize personal items like cell phones, mp3 players, pens, etc. This bag is built to last. It comes in two sizes: The Small ($99.95) measures 14” x 12” x 2” and is more of a “bookbag” style. The Large ($109.95) is 18” x 12” x 6” and has plenty of space for larger books and computers.

Bottles & Containers

If you’re packing your lunch in your recycled PET lunch sack and carting it to work in your recycled billboard messenger bag, you might as well be conscious of what you’re putting in it. Klean Kanteen’s wide mouth stainless steel bottles are ideal for taking soups and beverages along without imparting off flavors (or hormones like BPA and EA). The bottle works with most hiking water filters, and the slim design fits comfortably into bottle and cup holders – great for on-the-go. The wide mouth is perfect for filling the bottle with ice cubes and makes it extremely easy to clean. Available in sizes from 12 to 64 oz. ($16.95 to $32.95)

If you like the idea of keeping hormones out of your water bottle, but don’t want to stick a steel bottle into your bottle cage, Hydrapak’s Purebot is the first plastic water bottle that has been certified as both BPA and EA free. ($9.99/24 oz.)

Right in line with Kleen Kanteen’s bottles are a line of stainless steel food and beverage containers from Innate. Innate food and beverage containers are a durable, safe and responsible option for those who are concerned about product safety and social responsibility.

Their MC2 collection is designed for both backcountry and on-the-go food storage. All of the containers in the collection combine a premium stainless steel bottom with a proprietary silicone lid that collapses flat for packing, but expands into a microwaveable bowl.

Nutrition & Body Care

ZYM Sports Tabs: Lemon-line ZYM Endurance was introduced two years ago by BE Innovations. A year later, ZYM launched the berry-flavored ZYM Catapult, a powerful energy boost infused with 100mg of natural Guaraná caffeine. Both ZYM Endurance and ZYM Catapult fight off dehydration, fatigue, muscle pain, and lactic acid build-up while being completely preservative free.

Badger Balm offers their USDA Certified Organic Sore Muscle Gift Set for cyclists and any athletes that get aches and pains. The gift set contains three .75 oz portions of their most powerful Sore Muscle Rubs: Original blend with cayenne and ginger, Sore Joint Rub with CO2 extracts of powerful Arnica and Black Pepper, and Cooling Blend with white Camphor for cooling relief. These rubs are said to work well, smell divine and leave your skin soft.

Enervit: All Enervit products are made at their facility off the shores of Lake Como, 800 meters above sea level in a clean, pristine, and unpolluted area. They also do not use any preservatives and are OGM free.

Zip’s Natural Sport offers a complete line of body products including muscle rubs, soaps and wound salves containing such good ingredients as rosehip oil, calendula, balsam of Peru, menthol and gotu kola. You’ll have some Zip in your step while you soothe, smooth, waft, soak, relax, restore and clean your way to a sportier new you. Zip’s products are available to buy on line or at high-end natural food stores like Whole Foods.

Village Tea Company offers Roobios and Green Teas. The health effects of these all natural teas are well known. Roobios tea contributes to immune system health and is also known to have anti-viral properties. It’s a rich source of anti-oxidants and has also been shown to be effective in treating liver disease. Green tea is also efficacious for liver disorders and studies have shown that it can be an effective part of a weight loss regimin. Finally, it has been shown to lower total cholesterol, raise HDL (good) cholesterol levels, help guard against tooth decay and reduce inflammation that may cause arthritis. Packaging is made from recycled materials and the tea containers are robust enough to be reused.

Bob’s Red Mill Natural Foods produces more than 400 products, including a full line of certified gluten free flours and an extensive line of certified organic goods.  With its dedicated gluten-free manufacturing facility, Bob’s has emerged a leader in providing safe and delicious products.  Throw in a little Hemp Protein Powder and Hulled Hemp seed for 20 additional amino acids of perfection and you will be the toast of the morning.

DZ Nuts: The fancy clothes you wear when you ride won’t be worth a lick if you’re thinking of the pain to come from straddling the saddle. DZ Nuts protects the family jewels with tea tree oil’s antifungal and antibacterial properties and evodia’s anti-inflammatory and healing effects. For more information, see www.dz-nuts.com.

Small enough to fit in a backpack, Adventure Medical Kit’s Travel Medic contains the basic essentials for short trips in a carbon-neutral bag. Made of recycled craft paper laminated onto a woven polypropylene, the Travel Medic bag is durable and refillable so travelers can continually reuse their kits when they run out of supplies. AMK also used a special printing method that enables it to print the kit contents directly on the back of the package, thus, eliminating the need for a wasteful cardboard hangtag.

Okele Stuff: An ointment that really works and stops the cringing feeling of getting back in the saddle, taking another stroke or pounding the pavement for one more second. With Okole Stuff you can put all your focus back into your riding, racing and training whether it’s for one hour or 24 hours. It is superior for more reasons than one. The first reason is that it works and the second reason is that it includes lanolin, allantoin, tea tree oil and aloe to help heal your skin and keep you riding longer. This stuff will save your stuff. ‘Nuff said.

How about giving a little back?

The International Mountain Bicycling Association is a non-profit educational association whose mission is to create, enhance and preserve great trail experiences for mountain bikers worldwide. Since 1988, IMBA has been bringing out the best in mountain biking by encouraging low-impact riding, volunteer trailwork participation, cooperation among different trail user groups, grassroots advocacy and innovative trail management solutions. Check out their web site for a number of ways that you can support their cause.

Bikes Belong works to put more people on bicycles more often. From helping create safe places to ride to promoting bicycling, they carefully select projects and partnerships that have the capacity to make a difference. Their effort are concentrated on Federal Policy and Funding, National Partnerships, Community Grants and Promoting Bicycling

Launched in August 2005, the Safe Routes to School National Partnership is a fast-growing network of hundreds of organizations, government agencies and professional groups working to set goals, share best practices, secure funding, and provide educational materials to agencies that implement Safe Routes to School programs. Their mission is to serve a diverse national community of organizations that advocates for and promotes the practice of safe bicycling and walking to and from schools throughout the United States.

The Save the Children’s Holiday Catalog gives supporters the chance to buy a bicycle for Community Health Worker. Only $130 will purchase a bicycle for a community health worker to reach hundreds of children in hard-to-reach places. These children are usually unable to get to hospitals on their own because of the distance and the difficult terrain.

Gifts

In addition to gifts such as posters, frames, jerseys, tees and more, BicycleGifts.com offers a wide selection of gifts made from recycled bike chains, chainrings and rims. All items are available for purchase on their website.

Everyone can use a t-shirt. Guffly’s Bike Burnout tee is made from 100% recycled cotton and is printed with water soluble and eco-friendly inks.

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