The Best Gifts for Motorcyclists

Riders are gear people. Ask one what they want and you'll get a list — but they'll spend their own money on tires, a chain and the insurance bill instead. That's the gap a good gift fills. The best presents for a motorcyclist are the things that make every ride better and that they keep talking themselves out of: a helmet intercom, a real navigator, armor that goes beyond a foam back pad. You don't need to know their bike. You just need to know how they ride.

Here's the honest part. Motorcycle gear is personal, and a lot of it comes down to fit. Helmets are the classic mistake — head shapes vary enormously, and a lid that's wrong is a lid they won't wear. Jackets, gloves and boots carry the same risk. Electronics dodge the sizing problem but bring their own: an intercom has to fit inside one specific helmet, and the install can eat an evening. Check the return policy before you buy anything shaped to a body.

So we leaned toward gifts that work across bikes and riding styles, and we flagged the ones where you need to know something about the recipient first. There's a wide spread here, from a small kit that fits in a stocking to a piece of safety gear that costs more than most people spend on a present. Our favorite gift here is the Sena 50S, and the Cardo Packtalk Neo is the safe choice when you're less sure of their taste.

This guide is for the person shopping for a rider, not the rider shopping for themselves. Partners, parents and friends land here for the same reason: motorcyclists talk constantly about gear and then spend the money on maintenance. Everything here suits a range of budgets and giver situations — a chain kit or a small accessory works for a club gift exchange or an office swap, while an intercom or an airbag vest is a present from someone close enough to know how the person rides and how often.

We've deliberately left out helmets, jackets, boots and gloves. Fit is too personal and the return dance is miserable for everyone. We've also skipped bike-specific parts, since a windscreen or an exhaust that suits one machine is useless on another. If your rider is deep in a project bike and you have no idea what they need, a gift card to a gear retailer is not a cop-out — it lets them buy the thing that fits their bike and their body, which is the whole problem with gifting moto gear.

We started from what riders ask for and don't buy. Wanted, rarely self-bought: published editorial roundups keep naming intercoms and gear as the categories riders wish-list and skip, so those got first look. Works across bikes: we favored gifts that don't depend on knowing a make and model, and we flagged the ones that do. Safety that counts: NHTSA's crash figures make the case for protective gear on their own, and we weighted products that address a real risk over ones that merely look technical. Fit and sizing risk: we read owner feedback for fit complaints, which is why no helmets or jackets appear here. Used, not shelved: we looked for the pattern where a product's novelty wears off in a month, and dropped the ones that did.

If you want a navigator that beats a phone in the rain: The Garmin zūmo XT2 All-Terrain Motorcycle GPS Navigator ($614.95) — A phone in a handlebar mount works fine until it rains, cooks itself in traffic or refuses a gloved fingertip. The zūmo XT2 has none of those problems. It carries an IP65 weather rating, the six-inch screen is built for gloves, and the routing is written for motorcycles — curvy roads, elevation, off-road topo maps and satellite imagery. It pairs with an inReach satellite communicator for two-way messaging and SOS where there's no cell coverage, which is exactly where a solo rider wants it. The catch is patience: owners say moving routes around in the Tread app takes some learning, and this listing is a bundle of extras like cables and a memory card rather than a mount matched to a particular bike.

If you want something they'll use every single day: The Kriega R25 V2 Backpack ($281) — The R25 V2 is a commuter backpack built specifically for a motorcycle, and the difference shows up after the first hour in the wind. Kriega's Quadloc harness pulls the load off the shoulders and onto the chest and torso, which is why riders who log long days swear by these bags. The main compartment is a genuinely waterproof roll-top drypack that swallows a 17-inch laptop, and there's a separate quick-access pocket for keys, a wallet and a phone. Reflective panels front and back help at night. It's not a touring bag, so it's the wrong gift for a week on the road — but for the ride to work in bad weather, it's hard to beat.

These are the other products our research surfaced — not everything you could buy a rider. Both are good gifts for the right person. They're just narrower than the picks above, so read the match line before you commit.

The GoPro HERO13 Black Extended Power Bundle - — The HERO13 Black bundle is the simplest way to gift a helmet or chin-mount camera that works straight out of the box. It shoots 5.3K, and the stabilization smooths out the buzz a bike sends into every mount. It's rugged and waterproof, so mud and rain aren't a problem. The bundle adds three batteries, a dual charger, a memory card and a case, which solves the actual failure mode of an action camera on a long ride — running flat at the good part. It suits a rider who posts clips or who wants footage on file if a driver does something stupid. It's a narrower gift than an intercom, though, since plenty of riders film enthusiastically for a month and then stop, and owners do grumble about GoPro's app and firmware updates.

The FOBO Bike 2 for Trike Smart Bluetooth ($145) — Read the model name carefully: this is the FOBO Bike 2 configured for three wheels, so it's a gift for a trike, a Can-Am Spyder or a sidecar rig — not a standard two-wheeler. Inside that niche it's genuinely thoughtful. The sensors thread onto the valve stems and report pressure and temperature to a phone, watch or Bluetooth headset in real time, with tiered alerts. Trike owners are the ones who appreciate it most, because the rear tire on those machines is often miserable to reach with a gauge. Underinflation is a real safety issue and most riders check far less often than they should. Two knocks: a minority of owners report sensors going dead after a few weeks, and the app is the entire interface, so it suits someone comfortable with that.

Two things sink moto gifts, and both are avoidable. The first is sizing. Anything worn on the body needs to fit closely to do its job, so if you're buying the airbag vest, get the size from a jacket they already own rather than guessing from how they look. Confirm the return window before you buy, and keep the packaging until they've tried it on. The second is compatibility. An intercom lives inside one particular helmet, and some shells are far friendlier than others — a quick search for their helmet model plus the headset name usually turns up someone who's done the install. Chain products only suit chain-drive bikes. When you can't check any of this without spoiling the surprise, a retailer gift card is the honest move.

For this guide:

• We read manufacturer specifications for every product here, along with published reviews and editorial gift roundups from motorcycle outlets.
• We reviewed owner feedback for recurring themes — installation difficulty, weatherproofing, app quirks — and used those patterns to write the flaws rather than the marketing copy.
• We relied on NHTSA crash data and industry reporting for the safety context, and we have not ridden with, installed or measured any of these products ourselves.
• We read owner reviews on every listing, weighted toward the critical ones, because that is where the recurring failures show up.
• We have a systematic way of automatically fetching the latest prices, so the numbers on this page stay current.
• This is a research-focused guide, so the team may not own every product listed — though we often do own the top winners, which gives us extra context for the recommendations.
• We don't accept free products, and the retailer commission never changes which product we recommend.