INTRO
While some of our friends and family might be easier to shop for than others, we hope our annual Gift Guides can help add a couple of new worthwhile ideas to the list, and maybe provide the perfect gift for someone that they didn’t know they were missing.
For this year’s gift guides, we once again started small(er) with Stocking Stuffers, then moved on to gifts that’d be perfect under the tree, and now our reviewers are offering their suggestions for those bigger gifts that you might need to hide in the garage — though we all know that what we really want is good days in the mountains spent with good company. Happy Holidays!
Evoc Bike Travel Bag
MSRP: $595
Kara Williard: I recently flew my bike around the world to Nepal, and proceeded to abuse it for the following couple of weeks via lots of dusty and muddy trails, long shuttles in jeeps on extremely rough roads, and transferring it from one location to the next in a variety of forms, including airplanes, vans, and strapped atop the vehicle. Before the trip, I was a little nervous about traveling with the bike, but because of the Evoc Bike Travel Bag, I was amazed by how easy and smooth the process was.
Not only does this bike bag make packaging a bike quite easy — all you have to do is take off the wheels and bars of your bike — but it also makes it fairly quick and efficient. The process of taking the bike apart is intuitive, with very obvious straps and velcro to help hold the bike in place, and it only takes a matter of minutes. Not only that, but I also found the Evoc Travel Bag to provide plenty of protection and it proved durable after some pretty significant use.
When it comes to getting the bag around, it has wheels and two handles that make it easy to pick up and roll the bag around; this makes for super manageable navigation around airports, even with other luggage in hand.
For me, the only downside to the Evoc Bike Travel Bag is its weight. Coming in at 19 lbs / 8.6 kg, packing my Transition Smuggler brought the total weight of the bag to just over 50 lbs / 22.7 kg, tipping me just over standard weight for most flights. While I was able to get away with it one of the times, in other instances, I removed my cassette and pedals. Not a huge deal by any means, but something to keep in mind for those of us without mountain bikes on the lighter end of the spectrum.
All in all, I think the Evoc Bike Travel Bag would make for an excellent gift for someone who likes to take mountain bike trips. The cost of the bag is, to me, well worth protecting the bike, and the overall ease of use and effective method for traveling with a bike certainly helps with peace of mind.
Dometic Cooler
MSRP: $799 to $1,399
David Golay: If you’ve got someone in your life who spends a lot of time car camping, an electric cooler is an excellent gift, and I’ve been a big fan of the Dometic CFX3 45 ($949) that I’ve been using for most of this year. First, the basics: Dometic makes a range of coolers in various sizes that can be run off both 12-volt DC and standard AC wall power. They’re quiet, efficient, and a lot nicer to live with than a standard cooler with ice for a bunch of reasons. Not needing to replenish ice is nice, but for my money, the biggest upside is not having a big puddle of water in the bottom of the cooler once it melts, having the things you’re keeping cool fall into it and get soggy, and so on. The Dometic coolers also provide much better temperature control (as low as -7° F / -14° C, so you can use them as a freezer, too) and more even cooling of their contents than a standard cooler and ice, especially if they’re relatively full. And the CFX3 works great as a regular mini-fridge the rest of the time at home, too — I’ve been using mine as a garage beer fridge when I’m not camping.
The CFX3 45 that I’ve been using fits nicely in the back seat of my truck (a 2021 Toyota Tacoma Access Cab) and having the hinge on the short side of the cooler makes it easy to open and access the contents from the side of the truck (though the door is too long to fully open before it hits the roof, so you do need to hold it open). Dometic offers a whole bunch of different sizes and form factors to suit a range of applications.
The CFX3 45 that I’ve been using is reasonably well insulated, but (like any cooler I’ve tried, including some fancy rotomolded ones) isn’t really up to keeping things cold for more than a couple of hours without power or ice, so I’ve bolstered it with Dometic’s PLB40 battery pack ($540) which provides a couple of day’s worth of continuous power on a charge. With everything wired up so that the battery charges off the truck when it’s running (via a standard 12-volt outlet) and then powers the cooler through the battery, I’ve been able to run the whole setup more or less indefinitely if I’m doing a little bit of driving every couple of days. You can run a CFX3 off of the main vehicle battery, too (and there’s a programmable auto-shutoff feature to stop drawing power if the battery level gets too low, so you don’t run the risk of killing the battery and being unable to start the vehicle). My truck doesn’t have an outlet that delivers power when the ignition is off, though, and between that and the extra capacity afforded by the PLB40, it’s been a welcome addition to the whole program.
RTIC 52 QT Ultra-Light Cooler
MSRP: $199 (on sale for $149-$179 as of publishing)
Luke Koppa: Like David, I think a good cooler can make for a great gift for people who do just about any outdoor activity. However, I’m someone who very rarely goes camping for more than a long weekend, and I’m also notoriously stingy when it comes to the creature comforts while camping, so a highly insulated, but non-powered cooler is more up my alley. I’ve used my friends’ YETI Tundra roto-molded coolers and they’re awesome, but given my typically short and not-that-frequent use cases for coolers, I figured I could get away with something a bit cheaper, lighter, and less rugged.
For the past couple of years, RTIC’s 52-quart Ultra-Light cooler has been great for just that. I wouldn’t trust it to hold up to, say, a bear, and I’m not sure I’d pick it for a week-long rafting trip. But it’s kept ice frozen for 4+ days during shoulder-season trips to Utah, and that’s likely the most I’ll ever ask of it. I do wish the RTIC latches were a bit tackier, a la YETI’s, and the 52-quart size is probably a bit bigger than I need; if it had been available when I bought mine, I’d probably go with the 32-quart version since the 52 takes up a good bit of space in my not-super-big Rav4. However, in addition to not being as heavy as roto-molded coolers, RTIC’s UltraLight series also takes up a bit less space relative to their internal volume.
All in all, RTIC’s Ultra-Light line seems pretty ideal for a lot of outdoorsy folks — it’s still drastically better than any cooler I’ve tried from a big-box store in terms of ice retention, but it also doesn’t feel like overkill for most of my weekend trips in the way that many of the more expensive, bulkier, and burlier alternatives sometimes do.
Cargo E-Bike
MSRP: prices vary
Kristin Sinnott: Since first seeing cargo e-bikes in Copenhagen years ago, I have coveted one. And when I became a parent, I started scheming how to get one and how my family and I would be able to use it. I don’t think they are compatible with every location and that was definitely the case when we lived on the outskirts of Taos, NM. But this past summer, my family and I relocated to the Gunnison Valley and we now have ample bike paths and elevation gains that warrant a pedal assist. Plus, local e-bike rebate programs made the decision to purchase our bike even easier.
After talking to a few of our reviewers (Simon Stewart and Justin Bobb), we decided to purchase a Benno Boost E Class Etility Ebike with a Bosch Performance Line Sport motor and 400Wh battery. This model has the higher 28 mph speed limit, and 4 different pedal-assist settings. When I’m in the highest pedal-assist setting, the bike scoots and I’ve hit 28 mph on flats. On my climb home, the highest power output makes for a quicker ride but it does drain the battery. My 6-mile commute with 800 feet of elevation gain / loss uses up 20% of the battery if it’s in the highest gear. I typically charge the battery before every ride because I’m always tempted to use the highest setting, and once it’s down to 40% battery life, the battery does seem to drain quickly. Especially on a steep uphill.
Beyond purchasing and building the bike, we also purchased a number of accessories including the Dual Kickstand, high rail plus, rail pad, front tray, and utility pannier bags. All in all, it’s been a wonderful addition to our daily life, whether for running errands without getting in a car, spending time with our son, or simply getting outside.
GearDryer Wall Mount 12
MSRP: $959
Dylan Wood: GearDryer’s Wall Mount 12 has been a staple in Blister HQ for almost a year now, and frankly, it’s hard to imagine how we managed things before it. This vertically oriented gear dryer has 12 separate ports that use two fans to blow 200 cubic feet per minute of air through all vents. It has attachments for boots, gloves, and even helmets, and can be used to dry just about any small piece of wearable gear. It has the option to use either ambient or heated air, and the heated air is not hot enough to damage heat-molded boots.
The Wall Mount 12 can dry your gear for anywhere between 30 minutes and 24 hours, and this is controlled via a sleek knob and digital display that have earned our Wall Mount 12 the nickname “TARS” (Interstellar, anyone?). It can either be mounted to a wall, or used with their Rolling Wheel Kit / Freestanding Base Kit (we’ve been using the latter, and it’s very stable).
Skiing, riding, or doing anything with wet gear sucks, and the Wall Mount 12 is very effective in drying gear. I find that 4-8 hours of drying is more than enough for a typical mid-winter ski day, whereas I will opt for a longer drying period of 12-24 hours for those wet and slushy spring days. I also like to blow some heated air into my gear for 30 min or so before I get out to ski on cold days. With more reviewers and staff than ever before coming and going through Blister HQ, our GearDryer Wall Mount 12 has been clutch in keeping our gear warm and dry, and it will make for an excellent gift to any family or group of people who regularly deal with wet gear.
(And if you’re looking for more of a personal boot-drying solution, rather than a group one, we’re still big fans of DryGuy’s Travel Dry DX.)
Blister Summit 2024
MSRP: $300 for Blister Members / $400 for non-members
Luke Koppa: Gifting an experience — especially one you get to share with the giftee — is often more memorable than any single thing, and I’ll shamelessly throw in our Blister Summit as a gift idea in that category. There’s no shame because it genuinely is an amazing event for any skier or snowboarder — especially those who are interested in trying tons of new gear from dozens of brands, and who want to get an inside look into the industry via laps and panels with pro athletes, nightly talks with designers and engineers, and more.
Blister Summit 2024 takes place from February 4-8 at Mt. Crested Butte, Colorado, and the earlier you register your giftee and/or yourself, the better the deals are on lodging and lift tickets.
Yakima StageTwo Bike Rack
MSRP: $749
Luke Koppa: After years of throwing dirty mountain bikes inside my car, I finally got a chance to try Yakima’s StageTwo hitch rack this year, and I’m a very big fan. As Dylan Wood discussed in our full review, this rack is extremely easy to use, keeps bikes very stable with no frame contact, and is pretty easy to live with when not in use.
Especially for people with smaller cars, I think a high-quality, tray-style hitch rack is about as good as it gets in terms of bike transport.
You don’t have to lift a bike on top of your car, you don’t have to worry about hanging your bikes by delicate components, and the bikes stay quite stable on the moderate 4×4 roads I’ve hauled them on. I can get two bikes on and off the StageTwo (by myself) in less than a minute, and when I don’t have bikes on it, it pivots up or down to maintain access to my hatchback-style trunk. I just finally took it off my car now that it’s been covered in snow for weeks, and doing so was similarly easy — I can carry it myself, and the hitch system is very straightforward.
GFC – Go Fast Camper
MSRP: $7,700 and up
Kristin Sinnott: My husband and I spent years considering the pros and cons of different styles of campers. For a while, we were close to purchasing a truck-bed camper, but we ended up moving away from that type because it would take up most of our storage space. And we generally don’t pack light, especially now that we are a family of three. We also didn’t need anything for winter camping since we knew that wasn’t something we were interested in( though I do know people who have rigged their GFC for winter).
Anyway, what I love about the Go Fast Camper is that (1) the truck bed is still available to us and we can pack it full if needed, and (2) I only need to bring a queen comforter, pillows, and a bag of extra blankets for particularly cold nights.
All of this fits into one bin and we keep them stored in the back of the truck in case we end up with an unexpected overnight. That was the case when we visited fellow reviewers Simon Stewart and Sascha Anastas and their sweet boy. Our quick stop lasted hours because none of us wanted to leave and who can blame us, they are a fun family. Late that evening, we decided to pop up the tent, throw in the comforters and pillows, and crawl into bed. We finished our road trip the following morning.
We purchased our GFC in the spring of 2022 and the mattress it came with is fairly firm. It’s also not a standard bed size so you can’t just add a mattress topper. We purchased additional foam padding and flannel fitted sheets made specifically for our GFC. We all sleep much better since adding them. The newest version comes with a new mattress that looks even more comfortable than our setup. If you’re looking to upgrade your road trips or someone else’s and have been thinking about getting a camper, check out GFC to see if one of their products is right for you. We are very happy we made the investment.