First of all, root - route. Haha. Secondly, How do I backup data via recovery mode? And thirdly, after I backup, can I just factory reset my phone?To remove root I believe you need to remove superuser.apk and the su binary, but since I never tried I can't be too sure. The safe route would be to flash a stock/custom rom.
Edit: Also backup data via recovery if the option is available before flash.