Originally Posted by
tjspiel
Mmmm. I've heard different. I think I read it on Sheldon Brown's site (but it could have been somewhere else) that cleaning your chain often does more harm than good. You end up forcing contaminants from the surface into the workings of the chain.
Which is why a quick squirt off is just as useful as a thorough cleaning. Since you can't really get inside the chain to clean it unless you take off the chain and soak it in solvent. However, a muddy and salty chain rusts very quickly and the rust spreads thoughout the drivedrain. By the way, turning the drivetrain while pedaling with new water, salt and mud spraying on it will just as likely force crud into the inside of the chain as cleaning it will do. Even more so. So there is nothing that you can do to stop it. The only thing you can do is mitigate how much of the bad stuff works it's way into the chain by controlling the amount of crud that is on the chain and cassette. Crud on the cassette is even worse since it is when the chain is in contact with the cassette that most crud is ground into the chain.
I don't see how you can reduce the amount of maintenance you are presently doing. Which, correct me if I am wrong, is not much.