Thanks this was a huge help. I think I'll take a cloth and floss the cogs tonight to get the grit out from my last outdoor ride and leave it at that for awhile. I might try the Simple Green thing when I can start riding outside in Spring, that way I'll have access to a hose to wash it off well and dry it down.

And thanks for the tips on lube preferences/use. I've been using mine to clean the black junk off the chain so that seems to be working ok. It just seems like it gets black again pretty quickly.

Oh and I'm in awe of all of you riding outside in the snow/slush. Being really new at this I can't imagine me doing that right now but I think you're pretty amazing. We have so much snow up here I can't make it to our barn (it's down a little trail from our house) without snowshoes anymore.