Tourist in MSN

Rear derailleur jockey wheels, I use dawn dish soap and a tooth brush. Then disassemble and a bit more brushing, then re-grease the innards with Phil grease. If you do that, the upper and lower jockey wheel parts are different, keep them separate. I do one at a time so I can't possibly get the parts mixed up.

Cassettes, I have poured dawn dish soap onto a brush and then aggressively brushed the cassette with it. Wear dirty clothes if you do this, it sprays. When done, spray with garden hose. I do this in an area on the ground where I won't be walking in the near future, I do not want any dirty grease clods to get on my shoes and get tracked anywhere. I do not try to get the cassette spotless, only try to get 98 percent of the crud off and leave the 2 percent. Some cassettes can be disassembled by removing one screw that holds the sprockets and spacers together, I used to take them apart but I don't put that much time into cleaning them anymore. Alternatively you can use some cord to get in between the sprockets, but I never bother with that, my brush bristles are long enough to clean out the crud.

Chain, a local bike charity had some cheap KMC chains for $5 that it received as donations from a major bike manufacturer. When I got back from Iceland I decided to not clean my chain since I could put a replacement chain on the bike for only $5. It was not worth my time to put a lot of effort into the chain for that small cost. I think I might have spent almost an hour cleaning my chain when I got home from my Pacific Coast trip, but then I measured it and found it was stretched to the point it should be replaced anyway, thus I should have just measured it and chucked it first instead of wasting time to clean it.

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How did your super special USB charger work on your trip? Will you post a thread describing how you met your electric needs on your trip?