Well, Tam, I am thoroughly humiliated by how disgustingly dirty my drive train was. I just spent an hour cleaning it, and I'm sure it won't be truly clean (like yours) until I do it a few more times. Honest to god, there were hunks of crud in the rear derailleur--ick! I did the best I could with the brushes I had (rags weren't going to cut it on their own) but I'm going to have to find a better system. Even after all the cleaning and several rounds of Rock'n'Roll, I was getting lots of black crud off the chain. I think I'm going to have to learn how to remove the chain and give it a good soaking.

I hope I never let it get that dirty again. Thank you for showing me the light.