Well, I got myself a latte this morning and went to work on the girl. She looked much better than I thought she would, most of the gears actually looked silver and there was only a bit of hard-to-reach grit in some places. All in all she looks pretty good! The chain could still get cleaner, and I thought about one of those chain-cleaner gizmos, but I think in the end it would be easier to just be able to take the chain off and clean it, then I could scrub at the cassettes to my heart's content without having to worry about shifting to move the chain out of my way.

Anyway, she's looking purdy and is just waiting to dry off before I am going to bring her in from the garage (before it starts to chill up out there) and then I will lube and wipe her off.

I have to say though, i really enjoyed tinkering with her out there (and it smells NUMMY in there, like citrus degreaser!) and am seriously considering the $110 course a bike shop near here offers on hands-on DIY bike tuning and maintenance!

K.