When putting up your bike for the winter, there are several things you want to do to store it properly. Taking these smart and easy steps will help prevent deterioration from disuse and also ensures that your bike will be ready to ride when it’s time to take it out next spring.

Read the whole article: How to Store Your Bike for the Winter

Related: Is there anything special you do when storing your bike? Comment below.

It's official - the season has started. Christmas trees are up and off we go. Looking for gifts for your fellow cyclists? Here are a dozen items they'll love that won't bust your bank account. All under $25, these products range from the practical (bike wash and wool socks) to the whimsical (bike earrings and ornaments). Take care of your Christmas shopping without ever leaving the house!

Best Gifts for Bikers Under $25.

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I was on a work trip last week that took me to the Palm Springs area, a bit southeast of Los Angeles. While lounging on the bed at the Hyatt and flipping through the facility guide after first checking in, I suddenly saw that the place had bikes available for guest use, free of charge. Schwing!

Holy cow - what did I do to deserve such good fortune? When you travel for business, you can go to some cool places, but most of the time there is really no good way to grab a bike and take a two-wheel tour of your temporary home. But now all I had to do was to decide what conference session I was going to ditch and figure out where to go.

Long story short, I cut out about 10 a.m. and rode an hour and a half, taking in 15 miles of the southern California scenery in and around the Indian Wells/Palm Desert area on a single-speed cruiser Electra Townie. It was great. The route took me through a long flat valley ringed by mountains, where I saw some really cool homes, a bunch of other cyclists, and some people in a park where I stopped for water who were working with easels and oil paints, trying to put the gorgeous scenery around them on canvas.

Finally the hills and the clock got me, and I had to turn back. But that one little ride made my trip.

If you're curious, the route I rode went basically up from Indian Wells/California 111 to the start of the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa Mountains on California 74. Here is a link to a map.

Ever ride this area? Comment below.

Photos: Dave Fiedler

Organizers of the Tour of Georgia, one of three major professional cycling races in the United States, have announced that the race will not be run as scheduled in April 2009. The most obvious reason for the cancellation is the ongoing lack of major sponsors for the race, but planners and supporters of the race insist that by putting it off next year, it will allow the event to become stronger and better in 2010 and beyond.

"We believe that this unique and exciting event will endure," said Tom Saddlemire, a member of the board which organizes the event. "We have decided to use 2009 as a time to plan ahead and properly position the Tour de Georgia to make best use of the new partnerships we forged during the [2008 event]. . . . The planning process for the Tour de Georgia requires a tremendous amount of time and effort and we wanted to give all of our partners enough time to plan and allocate their resources to take full advantage of the event."

The Lance Factor has complicated things too. Early on, right after Lance Armstrong announced his return to cycling, the Tour de Georgia appeared on his list of races for planned participation. Sponsorship possibilities immediately bloomed for the attention both in the U.S. and abroad that the seven-time Tour de France winner would bring. But revised calendars for Lance have him skipping Georgia, and the hopes for him to carry in big piles of sponsorship money in the pockets of those yellow jerseys immediately wilted.

Generally speaking, the event has been very successful since its first year in 2003. Supporters claim 3.2 million spectators have watched the race with a total economic impact over that time of $186 million. But, running these events takes a lot of cash, and with the generally stinky economical situation these days and the number of companies looking to trim costs wherever they can just to stay afloat, I am skeptical that the Georgia folks will be able to come up with a sugar daddy to fund the Tour in 2010. What's worse is that the same challenges face the other two big U.S. races, the Tour of California, which rolls out in February and the Tour of Missouri, which runs in September. Neither have indicated publicly any concern about continued sponsorship, but you have to know that it is on their minds.

Question: do you care about professional bike racing in the United States? Do you follow it in any way? Does it bother you that the Tour de Georgia has been cancelled? Or are you indifferent? Comment below.