It's really not that hard to take your bike apart, provided you have all the tools. If you get that generic all-in-one tool kit that everyone rebrands as their own, which costs about $40-$50 bucks (price of one tune-up), you'll have everything in it you'll need to strip your bike down to the headset and bottom bracket. That way you can clean all the parts you want on your own and learn more about your bike.

If you mess up, you can take it in, but there's really not much to it.

This'll tell you all you need to know:
http://www.parktool.com/repair_help/FAQindex.shtml

Here's that toolkit -
http://www.nashbar.com/profile.cfm?c...eid=&pagename=