Spring cleaning... a bit early.

A clean drive train is a beautiful thing. Now, I'll start the betting on how long this lasts...

Part of my reasoning for not getting out today, at least on the bike was that; well it's clean! Finally! I've been wanting to do some work on the drive train of the CAAD9 for a while but it appears I'd lost the crescent wrench I needed for the cog removal tool. On top of that I needed a replacement pin so I could remove the chain for once and really get all the deep down embedded grit out of it. Or so I thought. After cleaning I finally realized the Shimano Ultegra (presumably) chain included a master link? Ah well; apparently it'd been a long time since I'd really gotten that chain clean!

The outer chain isn't perfect, but inside is what counts. Those still spotless teeth say it all.

I picked up the necessary things along with some heavy duty orange degreaser from Home Depot and set the chain, cogs, chain rings and chain ring bolts to soaking. Scrubbed everything down and left the chain to soak in the third tub of degreaser for a few hours. Some more scrubbing and individual link attention and I decided I had it about as good as it was gonna get.

Unfortunately even commercial grade degreaser can't do anything about derailleur scratches.

One thing that has always happened when I've tried to do a drive train overhaul is when I lube the chain afterwards the remaining grit I just didn't manage to get out would show up on the cogs and chain rings as soon as I started running the chain over them. That has to be one of the most frustrating things when it comes to cleaning a bike. Today, that didn't happen. It seems that extra soak time did the trick.

Who knew there was writing on the pulley wheel?

I always marvel when I see someone on a bike I know is far from new with a shiny clean drive train. Apparently I just never had the patience. Next up? The rest of the frame. Well, that and the Scalpel's drive train... Now that's a REAL train wreck...

Even the spacers tell you it's a 10 speed.