Coming out of winter, a good (...essential) job to now do on your rear wheelset is the cassette + freewheel removal to clean/lube the pawls, ratchet and bushing following wet weather use - if you're running Mavic's see my good buddy, John, the Rogue Mechanic, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5arUG3iy0Q
and his blog at http://roguemechanic.typepad.com/roguemechanic/2006/05/how_does_a_mavi.html. Just a reminder, I've now got cassette removal tool and chainwhip to get Shimano gears off if anyone wants to borrow.

Note: according to the mechanic at Velohub (Lee), once you cleaned everything out thoroughly, you have to use Mavic's proprietary lubricant for this - since its Mavic, French and tres speciale, its beacoup expensive (....about $60.00 for a 100ml bottle - enough for a lifetime of wheels), he kindly lent me a few precious drops (....we have a beer contra deal going). There is a alternative product, Pedros Road Rage and I'll look into getting this if any wants to borrow at any point (or maybe someone already has?).

Additional note from Guru Adrian...

"Got a bottle of this for $25 a couple of years ago from BSC, but would not have been anywhere like 100ml, you only use a few drops so it lasts years. However many bike shops use their own version of appropriately weighted oil. Since they use it in a lot of places they just buy stuff from auto shop that is right weight for the job rather than the trés expensive Mavic stuff (what used to be best one of the best shops for mechanics mixed up all their own stuff as they did a lot of mountain bike fork servicing as well as hydraulic brakes so had a particularly exotic collection of different weighted oils). The key issue is to ensure the oil is the correct weight, too heavy and it sticks the springs on the pawls so they won't engage since they stay flat. Too light and it doesn't actually lubricate. So, you can buy other oils, but if you're like me and the only mineral oil you ever need is for your Mavic freewheel then it's just as easy to get a bottle of the stuff, but any high quality mineral oil will do, including sewing machine oil, Shimano's mineral oil, etc."

The above is really essential if you want to get max. life out of Mavic hubs - not doing this task at least once a year will accelerate wear on both the bushing and the hub boss - while the bushing (nylon) can be replaced (with the freewheel body), if you wear our the hub body (alloy) you're really up for a new wheel.

Now back to my exciting, stimulating life......

Thank you to Anthony and Adrian.

The resident mechanics.