Thanks for the cleaning suggestions, everyone! I'm going to sacrifice some of my grungier towels to bike maintenance and move them out to our garage, and invest in one of those chain cleaning snap-on thingies -- saw one today when I was at REI picking up shoes & pedals (but that's another story) and almost bought it -- it can probably wait a few more rides though, so I'll shop around and see if I can find a deal on one.