the first time I replaced my rear tire, I took advantage of the situation to clean the chain....with the bike up on a jack and the wheel removed, you can simply let it hang into a pan of kerosene and clean about a third of it at a time....rotate the chain and continue until it's squeaky clean!....I suppose you could cut and replace the soft link in ordr to get the chain right out of there, but dangleing it into a pan of solvent seems at least a bit easier....
