North York Central Library Blog

Store it, ride it, put it on an indoor
trainer or spend some quality time with it learning basic maintenance and how
to tune it up.

It‘s about that time of the year when you
start thinking about putting away your bike and pulling out your skis .Or, if
you’re fortunate enough, storing your summer bike and pulling out your winter bike and skis and snowshoes and skates etc… There are a few simple things you should do to
your bike before it disappears behind the shovels, salt, slush and snow blowers.

Storing it

Keep
pressure in the tires (pump them up once a month while in storage), try to get
your bike off the ground but if you can’t rotate the tires a quarter of a turn
every couple of weeks.

Lubricate your chain, lubricate your
cables, armor all the tires and cover the bike with a sheet or bike bag if
you can.

These simple steps will allow you to start
riding right away once spring arrives again.

Training on it

Save the cost of a  gym membership by setting up an indoor trainer. Most are
about the cost of two months at the gym and they can be stored in a closet
during the warmer weather.

If you have a bike computer you can keep track of
the kilometers you ride. See if you can do enough to get yourself across Canada
or maybe just to Moosonee. There are many different types of trainers
and lots of online workouts.

Learn to maintain it

There are lots of books
on this topic.

Where to get tools and expertise:

Community Bicycle
Network workshops

Evergreen Brickworks – bike
works  closed for the season but a
good one to keep in mind

Keep riding

Do it and do it often but do it safely.
Here are some pointers for winter riding.

City of Toronto bike winter
page

Everything you need to know about winter cycling from the
Toronto Star

If Calgarians don’t know about
winter cycling who does?

For inspiration there are lots of cycling
magazines at the library. 

 Toronto also has some excellent cycling
organizations.  

Safe riding!