Adventures in greasemonkeyland

[DebW]

You could buy one of
these and clean the chain on the bike.

[Kimmyt]

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.

[Kalidurga]

I ...am seriously considering the $110 course a bike shop near here offers on hands-on DIY bike tuning and maintenance!

Go for it! I would have loved to have taken a similar series of courses offered in my area, except that it was around Xmas time and I couldn't have left work early for it. The more I learn (mostly here at TE), the more fun it is to work on my bike.

As for cleaning the cassette: I remove the rear wheel and sit down with it in my lap with the cogs facing up. Then I slip the edge of a rag in between each set of cogs and "shoe-shine" it back and forth. After that, it takes just a few little wipes here and there on some of the teeth to get the cogs looking brand new. If you're worried about the chain scraping against the chain-stay while the wheel's removed, you can use this: Pedro's Chain Keeper.

[Triskeliongirl]

An even easier way to clean the casette is to remove it and immerse directly in solvent. Its wasy to remove, all you need is a chain whip and wrench. Once you know how to do it you can also swap casettes to your hearts content! FYI, I do use the park tools chain cleaner, it works great. Also, remember, you don't need to get it perfectly shiny clean, the goal is to remove grit and dirty oil, since all you are going to do is lubricate it again anyway.