I saw my neighbors neglected drivetrain a couple weeks ago and his chain was "caked" with road grime and was pretty sticky. He ended up getting a new chain and had some work done on other parts. I'd like to avoid that and keep my drivetrain in good shape. I was at the bike shop today and got some Finish Line Speed Bike Degreaser and White Lightning lube.

I have about 350 miles on my bike, with close to half of those miles on a gravel trail. So there is a bit of dirt and grime build up already. The chain should be pretty easy to clean, but what about the gears and chain rings? Should I just blast away at them with the degreaser?

What would be a good interval for degreasing, or just lube every so many miles in between a degreasing session?

Good questions! I'm glad you brought this up because we never see chain maintenance mentioned on here . . .

On my cassettes, I simply remove them, soak in a container of hot water and favorite heavy duty liquid detergent (Mr. Clean etc.)
Let it soak for awhile and then hit with a bristle brush.
Some of my cassettes are loose cogs which makes it very simple.

You don't want to do that with a free wheel though.

I ride about 40 miles a day.. I degrease every 2 weeks or so and I lube my chain almost daily..

I actually followed your advice and cleaned a cassette this way this afternoon. Worked fine!

To the OP: The search function on this site is inexplicably sucky, but if you do a Google search for "chain maintenance bike forums" you will find about a million (probably more) discussions about this. Sheldon Browne is considered a pretty reliable source and is the "go to" guy for many of us here.

Chain care, wear and skipping by Jobst Brandt