Buying for a motorcyclist looks easy from the outside. The hobby is drowning in gear, the rider talks about it constantly, and every shop is full of things with the word adventure printed on them. Then you get to the counter and realise you have no idea what size they take, what standard their armour meets, whether their bike is a 21-inch front or a 19, or why they had strong opinions about a chain lube last month.
So most motorcycle gifts fail for one boring, structural reason: they have to fit. Fit is personal, fit is protective, and fit is the thing the rider will notice on hour three of a cold day when the seam sits wrong.
The good news is that once you strike out everything sized and everything bike-specific, what’s left is a short list — and it’s genuinely good. Sizeless gear is disproportionately the stuff riders use every single ride and rarely upgrade for themselves. This guide is that list, sorted by what you want to spend.
The one rule: nothing that has to fit
Before the picks, the rule that does most of the work.
Helmets, gloves, boots, jackets and trousers are all sized, and on a motorcycle sizing isn’t a style question — it’s protective equipment. A helmet one size out moves under a rider’s own hand. A glove that bunches at the knuckle creates a hot spot they’ll feel for three hours. Riders also carry opinions about armour standards, brand fit quirks and closure systems that a gift-giver has no realistic way to guess.
The same applies to anything bolted to the bike. Crash bars, racks, screens and luggage mounts are fitment-specific, and the same model name can take different parts across model years. Guessing wrong here means a return, not a gift.
Strike both categories out and you’re left with gear that works regardless of who unwraps it: things that go in a pocket, on a handlebar, or in a pannier.
Disclosure: some links below are affiliate links. If you buy through them we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Prices move constantly — the button shows the current one.
Under $30: the ones riders never buy for themselves
Filtered earplugs
The single best cheap gift for anyone who rides, and the one riders most consistently under-buy.
Wind noise at highway speed is not background noise. It sits at a level that causes cumulative hearing damage over a riding career, and it’s generated by air moving over the helmet rather than by the engine — which is why a quiet bike doesn’t save you. Filtered motorcycle plugs cut the roar while passing through enough of the frequencies a rider needs: engine note, horns, sirens, the intercom.
The MotoSafe Pro set is the sensible gift version because it includes both a touring filter and a track filter, so you’re not guessing which attenuation level suits their riding. They’re reusable, they live in a jacket pocket, and there is no size to get wrong.
Check Alpine MotoSafe Pro on Amazon →
If you want the full comparison of filtered versus foam, and what the attenuation numbers actually mean in practice, our motorcycle earplugs guide covers it.
A chain care kit
Unglamorous and always needed. Any chain-driven bike wants cleaning and lubricating on a schedule measured in hundreds of miles, and it’s the maintenance job riders most often put off because they’re out of one of the three things required.
A kit that bundles degreaser, lube and a brush removes that excuse. It’s a genuinely useful gift for a newer rider who hasn’t assembled the pieces yet, and a fine one for an experienced rider who is quietly running low.
Check the Motul Chain Care Kit on Amazon →
A set of dry sacks
Soft luggage is water-resistant far more often than it is waterproof, and the standard fix is roll-top dry sacks inside the bags rather than trusting the bag itself. A graduated 4/8/13 L set covers the real use case: the 4 L for phone, wallet and documents, the 8 L for a spare base layer, the 13 L for clothing or a compressed down jacket. A full sleeping bag wants a bigger sack than anything in this set — this is the everyday-items tier, not the bulk tier.
This is the gift that quietly gets used on every single trip, and almost nobody owns enough of them.
Check the Sea to Summit dry sack set on Amazon →
$30-80: small things with a real job
A power bank that survives a tank bag
Every rider carries more battery-powered equipment than they used to — phone running navigation, intercom, action camera, headlamp at camp — and the bike only charges what’s plugged into it.
The Nitecore NB10000 Gen3 is the pick that suits motorcycling specifically rather than generically. At 10,000 mAh it’s a full phone charge plus a top-up, but the relevant numbers are the other two: 150 g, which is roughly half what a bank of that capacity usually weighs, and an IPX5 rating, which means rain landing on an open tank bag is a non-event. Most banks in this size class can claim neither.
Check Nitecore NB10000 Gen3 on Amazon →
Riders doing longer trips with a laptop or camera batteries to feed want more capacity than this; our motorcycle camping power guide covers the two-layer approach and where a bigger bank earns its weight.
A battery tender
The most-used gift on this list for anyone who stores a bike over winter, and the least exciting to unwrap.
A motorcycle left standing for months will flatten its own battery, and a flat lead-acid battery sulphates and loses capacity permanently. A smart maintainer holds the charge and stops that happening, which is the difference between a bike that starts in March and a battery that needs replacing. It’s an especially good gift for a rider who has just acquired a second bike and has nowhere to plug it in.
Check NOCO GENIUS1 on Amazon →
Pair it with a corrosion spray if you want the complete winter-storage gift — road salt does its damage while the bike is parked, not while it’s moving.
Our winter storage guide has the full checklist if you’d rather build the gift yourself.
A proper phone mount
Phone-as-satnav is now the default, and the failure mode isn’t the mount dropping the phone — it’s engine vibration destroying the phone’s camera. Apple publishes a support note on exactly this: high-amplitude vibration in certain frequency ranges, of the sort a high-power engine sends through the chassis and handlebars, can permanently degrade the optical image stabilisation and closed-loop autofocus fitted to every iPhone since the 7. Apple’s own advice is a vibration-dampening mount.
A locking mount plus a vibration dampener is the fix. The mount alone is the useful gift; if you know they already have the mount, the dampener is a good small addition.
Check Quad Lock handlebar mount on Amazon →
Worth knowing for an off-road-leaning rider: plenty of them distrust twist-lock tabs on rough ground and run a clamp-style mount instead, which also sidesteps the question of what case the phone is in.
Mount systems are not cross-compatible, so check which one they’re already on before buying — our phone mount comparison covers the differences.
A titanium camp stove
For the rider who camps. A small canister stove is the difference between coffee at dawn on the bike and a cold start to the day, and titanium keeps it to a weight and packed size that disappears into a pannier corner.
This is a good gift specifically because most riders make do with whatever stove they already owned from hiking, which is usually heavier and bulkier than it needs to be.
Check Snow Peak LiteMax on Amazon →
$80-200: the upgrades that change a ride
Heated grips
The highest-value cold-weather gift, and the only heated product that dodges the fit rule entirely — grips bolt to the handlebar, not to a body.
The reasoning is simple: hands go numb first, and they’re the parts operating the brake, clutch and throttle. There’s a point in single-digit temperatures where fingers stop working the levers properly and the ride ends whether the rider wanted it to or not. Grips push that point back by hours and extend a riding season by months.
Check Oxford Heaterz Premium Adventure on Amazon →
Worth knowing before you buy: fitting involves wiring into the bike’s electrics, so this is a better gift for a rider who does their own spannering or already has a shop they use. The rest of the heated category — liners, gloves, vests — is sized clothing and belongs in the do-not-gift pile. Our heated gear guide explains the 12V-versus-battery decision if they’re going further down that road.
A camp chair
Sounds frivolous. Is not. After a long day in the saddle, the alternatives are the ground, a rock, or perching on the bike, and a chair that folds into a 35 × 11 × 11 cm bundle is one of the few genuine comfort items worth its pannier space.
This is a good gift precisely because it’s the thing riders talk themselves out of buying — it feels like a luxury right up until the first evening they use one.
Check Helinox Chair One on Amazon →
Our camping chair comparison covers the lighter and cheaper alternatives if this one is above budget.
An entry-level intercom
Riding with other people without an intercom means hand signals and shouting at petrol stations. Riding with one means conversation, shared navigation prompts and far less stopping.
An entry-level unit is a better gift than a flagship for one specific reason: intercom systems from the same maker pair most easily with each other, so buying into the ecosystem the rider’s usual group already uses matters more than raw specification. If you don’t know what their friends run, this is a category where asking is better than surprising.
Check Cardo Spirit on Amazon →
Our intercom comparison breaks down mesh versus Bluetooth and which units talk to which.
Over $200: the proper gift
A satellite communicator
If you’re spending real money on someone who rides remote roads, this is the one. It’s also the only gift here that changes where they’re willing to go.
A satellite messenger works on the Iridium satellite network rather than cell towers, so it sends a check-in or an SOS from places where a phone shows no bars and does nothing at all. For adventure riding — which by definition involves being somewhere without infrastructure — that’s the difference between a mechanical problem and a genuine emergency.
Two things to know before you buy. It needs an active subscription to function, so either budget for that or gift the first months alongside the hardware, otherwise you’ve given someone a paperweight with a nice screen. And plan tiers limit message counts at the cheaper end, so the right plan depends on how they actually ride.
Check Garmin inReach Mini 2 on Amazon →
A mesh intercom
The step up from the entry-level unit above. Mesh networking lets a group stay connected without the daisy-chain fragility of older Bluetooth intercom groups, where one rider dropping out could break the chain for everyone behind them.
Worth it for riders who travel in groups regularly. Overkill for someone who mostly rides alone and wants music and navigation prompts.
Check Cardo Packtalk Edge on Amazon →
A dedicated satnav
The gift for a rider who has decided their phone is the wrong tool for the job — and plenty do, after the first wet day with a touchscreen and gloves.
A purpose-built motorcycle unit is glove-operable, sunlight-readable and waterproof by design rather than by case, and it doesn’t stop navigating because a call came in or the battery got hot. It also isn’t consuming the phone they need for everything else.
The case against is honest too: it’s expensive for something a phone approximates, and a rider happy with their phone setup does not need one.
Check Garmin Zumo XT2 on Amazon →
Whether a dedicated unit is worth it at all is a real argument, and we’ve made both sides of it in Zumo XT2 versus a phone.
A good sleeping pad
The most under-rated expensive gift for anyone who camps off the bike. Sleeping pads are where people economise and then regret it, because the pad — not the sleeping bag — is what stops the cold ground pulling heat out of you all night.
An insulated air pad that packs small is genuinely transformative for a rider who has been making do with a cheap foam mat, and it’s a category where the price difference buys a measurable improvement rather than a badge.
Check Therm-a-Rest NeoAir XLite NXT on Amazon →
Our sleeping pad comparison covers the R-value question and which pads are quiet enough to actually sleep on.
What not to buy
Worth stating plainly, because these are the aisles a gift-giver naturally walks down.
Anything sized. Helmets, gloves, boots, jackets, trousers. Covered above — this is protective equipment, and it’s a return waiting to happen. If you want to buy sized gear anyway, a gift card to the shop they already use is the honest version of that gift.
Anything bolted to a specific bike. Crash bars, racks, screens, exhausts. Fitment varies by model and model year.
Novelty items with a motorcycle printed on them. Mugs, keyrings, signs, socks. Riders receive these constantly and use approximately none of them.
Tyres. They look like a great practical gift and they’re a minefield: size, speed rating, load index, tubed versus tubeless, and a strong personal preference about the on-road/off-road balance. Get any of those wrong and it’s unusable rubber.
A second helmet “for a passenger.” Same fit problem, now applied to someone who isn’t there to try it on.
If they ride and they have a dog
There’s a decent overlap between people who ride remote roads and people whose weekends involve a dog on a trail. If the rider you’re buying for falls into both camps, our sister site has the equivalent list for the dog half of that household: gifts for adventure dog owners.
The same rule applies there, incidentally, and for the same reason — harnesses and boots are sized to the animal, so the giftable items are the ones that aren’t.
How to not get this wrong
Three questions worth answering before you buy anything above.
Does it have a size? If yes, put it back. This single filter removes most of the bad gifts.
Does it need something else to work? Satellite communicators need subscriptions. Heated grips need fitting. Intercoms need a compatible partner unit. Mounts need to match the case system they already own. None of these are reasons not to buy — they’re reasons to buy the missing piece alongside it, or to ask first.
Do they already have one? For consumables and redundant kit the answer doesn’t matter — a second power bank, another set of dry sacks and a spare pack of earplugs are all genuinely welcome. For everything else it matters a lot.
The reliable move, if you’re unsure, is to buy the boring consumable rather than the exciting upgrade. Chain lube, corrosion spray and earplugs are not what anyone hopes to unwrap, and they’re what riders actually run out of.
And if the rider is in their first year, the calculation changes — they are missing whole categories rather than running low on one, and the useful gift is whichever gap has not bitten them yet. Our gift guide for new riders works through those in the order they turn up.
If you’re shopping the late-November sales for any of the above, what’s actually worth buying on Black Friday covers which categories reward a discount and which ones quietly don’t — the sizing problem gets worse in a sale, not better.
Frequently Asked Questions
What should I not buy a motorcyclist?
Anything that has to fit. Helmets, gloves, boots, jackets and trousers are all sized to the individual, and the fit is protective equipment rather than a style preference — a helmet a size out is worse than no gift at all, and a glove that bunches at the knuckle causes exactly the hot spot the rider will notice for the next three hours. Riders also tend to have strong opinions about brands and armour standards that a gift-giver has no way to guess. The second category to avoid is anything bike-specific: crash bars, luggage racks, screens and exhausts are all fitment-dependent, and the same model name can take different parts across model years. If you want to buy sized or fitted gear anyway, buy a gift card from the shop the rider already uses.
What is a good gift for a motorcyclist under $30?
Earplugs, chain care and dry bags are the three that get used constantly and that riders rarely buy for themselves at good quality. Filtered motorcycle earplugs are the standout because wind noise at highway speed is loud enough to cause permanent hearing damage over time, and the filtered kind cut that roar while still letting the rider hear the engine and traffic. Chain maintenance kits are the classic 'boring but always needed' gift for anyone with a chain-driven bike. Roll-top dry sacks in a set of sizes solve a problem every rider has and few solve properly, because soft luggage is rarely genuinely waterproof on its own.
Is a satellite communicator a good gift for an adventure rider?
It is the strongest big-ticket gift on this list if the rider goes anywhere with patchy phone coverage — which is most of what makes adventure riding adventure riding. A satellite messenger works on the Iridium network rather than cell towers, so it sends a location check-in or an SOS from places a phone is a paperweight. Two caveats before you buy: the device needs an ongoing subscription to do anything, so budget for that or gift the first months alongside it, and check which plan structure suits their riding, as the cheaper tiers limit message counts. If they already own one, a mount or a spare charging cable is a better use of the money.
Should I buy heated gear as a gift?
Heated grips yes, heated clothing carefully. Grips bolt to the handlebar and are not sized to a body, so they sidestep the fit problem entirely, and they fix the worst cold spot on a motorcycle because hands both freeze first and operate the controls. Heated jackets, liners and gloves are sized garments, which puts them back in the do-not-gift category, and they also split into 12V bike-powered and battery-powered versions that suit very different riding. If the rider has a small-displacement bike, there is a further catch: a high-draw 12V liner can outrun what a small alternator can spare, so the gift may not even be usable on their machine.
How do I buy a gift for someone who already has all the gear?
Buy the consumables and the second one of things they already carry. Experienced riders are well equipped in the obvious categories and chronically short on the unglamorous repeat purchases: chain lube, corrosion spray, fuel stabiliser, spare dry bags, replacement earplugs. The other reliable angle is redundancy — a rider with one power bank is genuinely glad of a second, and a rider with a battery tender in the garage often has nowhere to plug the second bike in. These feel like unimaginative gifts on the shelf and land far better than another jacket they will quietly return.