I’ve written several about “kit” as equipment or gear, most recently here. Lately, the California-based bicycle equipment company Thousand has been putting this ad(vert) in my Facebook timeline.
“Kit” Marches On
I’ve written several about “kit” as equipment or gear, most recently here. Lately, the California-based bicycle equipment company Thousand has been putting this ad(vert) in my Facebook timeline.
notoneoffbritishisms.com 
The polo helmet is a dead giveaway that we’re in NOOB territory. 🙂
Maybe, but this usage doesn’t strike me as explicitly Br.E. Describing a collection of things that go together as a ” kit” is pretty common here. In my work, we refer to “teaching kits” for example. A riding kit seems to fit that usage pretty neatly. “Kitted out” is self-consciously NOOB-ish, but that’s a different thing entirely.
I was going to say the same thing. This is kind of half and half for me (anglophile American). The “completed your…” makes it sound to me more like OED’s sense 3 (“colloquial. A number of things or persons viewed as a whole; a set, lot, collection; esp. in the whole kit. […] U.S.”). But “riding kit” and using it just for clothing gear is kind of like additional sense (2022) (“The special clothing and equipment needed for a particular sport. Often with modifying word specifying the sport, activity, etc. […] Not in North American use.”)
I think the difference is in U.S., “kit” would only be used for things sold or presented as a complete package, as in the teaching kit. Also a collection of parts with which you can make something, often for kids, as in a make-your-own radio kit. “Drum kit” would appear to be an exception. The idea of completing “*your* [bike] riding kit,” in the ad, is not idiomatic American English, in my opinion.
Yes, I agree with Ben. The classic one is First Aid kit. It’s an assemblage of items for a specific purpose. There is no circumstance– yet, anyway– in American usage in which individual items of sports gear or equipment are called “kit.” And even as a “kit,” I can’t think of any that don’t seem contrived: fishing kit? bowling kit? frisbee kit? volleyball kit? Even rugby kit; would any American say that unless s/he was consciously adopting British usage, in the way that American soccer/football announcers have decided they have to replace perfectly serviceable American terms with British vocabulary?
British usage rarely covers single items; it would be termed a “piece of kit” or more casually a “bit of kit”.
To help manage hair loss from chemo, I bought a “Scalp Cooling” kit.
Raised in Scotland, when we took PE we were always instructed to hurry and get into your kit which consisted of shorts and a tee shirt. I still think of a sports kit as a uniform.
Sports kit for a team is clearly a uniform but, unlike Americans, I don’t think Britons refer to it as such. We do, of course, have school uniform for everyday wear.
Sports kit in Britain is sportswear so I think it would only include the helmet and gloves from the ad.
Looks like cycling kit to me, not riding kit.