Brakes demystified by watching Delboy's caliper cleaning on utube. that I can undertand where the manual is too techinical excluding important items they assume you know.
Anything to add to that? Clean the rotors?
does it make sense to remove and clean the pads? What's the best way to clean around the exposed pistons? Any other grease of lubricant needed?

ride in the rain?

Is this: (Delboy's Garage, Essential Winter brake caliper cleaning. - YouTube) the video you are referring to?

They don't need to be cleaned unless they're cruddy and sticking or likely to stick.

Our strom calipers are different from those in the vid. Half the caliper slides to make the contact. These sliding points do need to be clean. Lubricate the sliding points with a very small dab of the moly lube for brake calipers...buy this in any auto parts store. The wrong lube will either hold dirt and gum things up or bake in the heat and gum things up.

Where he shows slightly extending the pistons by pressing gently on the brake lever...he's done this before. I'll bet that like all of us, the first time he tried this one piston moved out, the rest stayed put, and that one piston moved too far out and brake fluid went ev-er-y-where. Note--to clean parts that are in the fluid side of the brakes, use only clean brake fluid. Brake cleaner is only for metal parts that are not in the fluid. Brake cleaner won't hurt the friction materials, but if the pads are oil soaked, brake cleaner (nor anything else) won't adequately de-grease them--junk them.

He put Copaslip (a British brand of anti-seize paste) on the pin that holds the pads. Good. And he put Copaslip on the caliper holding bolts. Maybe bad. Clean the threads and use a drop of blue Loctite.

That helps, will be digging in tomorrow, finally. tires chain sprockets, brake fluid, and clean up. and yes that was the video