breakin' it down

I had planned to go out with Winter Larry for the first Sunday-from-Cranbury ride of the season today... but there was fog and mist when I looked out this morning, and The Excellent Wife (TEW) had a worried look in her eye when she saw the wet roads...

... so instead I did what has become an autumn ritual: I broke the Yellow Maserati, my no-name titanium bike (that is not a Maserati, but does have a touch of yellow in this incarnation) down to parts, cleaned and lubed everything, and put it back together with the right torques and everything. Here's how it goes:

• Drop the chain off the inside of the chainrings. Remove the cranks.
• Remove the derailleur cables where they go under the bottom bracket, take off that cable guide, and clean it (and the gunk that gets caught behind it). Any water that got down the seat tube can drain out the hole for the screw that holds the cable guide in place (but I didn't see any).
• Remove the (exo-) bottom bracket. Clean out the inside of the bottom bracket tube with a rag. 
• While everything is apart down there, clean up the area; it's hard to get to with the cranks and chain in place.
• Replace the bottom bracket, grease it, & torque it up.
• Replace the cable guide.
• Replace the cranks (grease where they spin in the bottom bracket). In doing this, I seem to have fixed an annoying, intermittent click that's been occurring over the past few weeks.
• Take off all the cables.
• Remove the front wheel.
• Remove the stem, and drop the fork. Clean the gunk that collects on the inside of the steering tube. Grease up the bearings on the steering tube, reassemble and torque up the stem.
• Replace the brake and derailleur cables and housing (those eight words take about an hour!).
• Remove and replace the seat tube, just to make sure it's not sticking.
• Replace the handlebar tape.

Along the way, my "Built With My Own Two Hands" stickers bought the farm (I'll miss 'em; they caused a certain amount of comment), and I fixed a braking squeal that had developed in the front wheel. I expect we're good for another year, once the cables "stretch" and I can adjust the derailleurs in a day or two.

What I pedal, I wrench. Why isn't it more common?