Well, this is a fantastic vid. It’s a bit of a ‘nerd out’ but there are a few key moments worth waiting for. Well done! Watts Lost = Friction = Wear = Lifetime Chainset Costs. Presentation Tip: put in some placeholders for they key moments for those with short attention spans. You summarise neatly several times, so use those time stamps. Keep up this great work 😀
I’ve gone to synergetic with sram 1170 chains (shimano cassettes) on my bikes and the longevity is definitely there. I work as a service Technician so I can clean my bike whenever but synergetic seems to need reapplication around 400 miles for me
Keeps the bike running great. We don’t sell it at my shop but I highly recommend switching to synergetic for those whom are doubtful. Best bang for buck. Noticeably quieter shifting as well.
I am using silica synergetic and have observed, that there is a sediment of very fine black particles building up on the bottom of the flask. It is almost impossible to shake it up. But if you put the flask in a ultrasonic cleaner, you can see the sediment dissolve in clouds within the base oil. I think that this sediment is part of the lube formula and is missing if it is on the bottom of the bottle. What do you say?
Hi Cristobal! yes i believe the dark sediment is the tungsten disulphide. I need to chat to josh re easy way for this to be mixed as it is pretty difficult, and i am sure silca have received this enquiry a number of times now since product release so i will chase up the answer - stay tuned for a latest news update to cover in the new year
Thanks so much for all the info, Adam! Just made the switch to wax. Went with Silca Hot Melt. Noticed you have made references to just putting a waxed chain that needs to be re-treated back into the melting pot to reset the wax. Why not give it a hot water rinse first so as to avoid introducing contamination back into melted wax?
Hi Bob! A boiling water rinse is a great thing to do post decent wet rides as one is hosing their chain with dirty road water. For dry riding so little contamination penetrates it is not worth the time & electricity, not even close. And, boiling water rinsing every time appears in some cases to be detrimental as water has minerals etc - that over time if done before every re-wax can start to impact wax bonding to chain / start to contaminate the wax itself. Over the years if ever there has been a case of someone not getting the chain lifespan expected on wax, almost always the common theme has been boiling water rinsing every time, so one is killing it with kindness. Definitely best to just re-wax post dry rides, only boiling water flush rinse post wet rides. Dusty rides just spray metho / iso alcohol on microfibre cloth and wipe dust that sticks to outside of chain from static. Otherwise, just re-wax and everything is amazing for a loooonnnggg time.
Hi, would you say Silca Synergertic is as smooth as soemthing like Squirt? I've been using Squirt for two years and whilst it's not the cleanest, it is very smooth and produces almost no noise. I'm apprehensive about it after bad experiences with oil based lubes. Thanks and love your website!
I have never read anything about ambient temperature under test by these different manufacturers. Do you know the effect (efficiency, longevity) of Winter/Summer on paraffin wax products? (e.g. brittle vs. soft for wax - or different viscosity for oils) Maybe, there is an unpublished evaluation or belly-feeling ... ;-) Btw: Great content again, thx!
Pure gut feeling, but winter cold has the wax flaking off a little more quickly. Solution: swap the chain out 1-200km earlier than normal. Mid-summer heat (at least down here in the antipodes) softens the wax quite a bit so it doesn't flake, but crud sticks to it a bit more. Solution: additional hot water wash and swap the chain out 1-200km early. In either case I feel that the wax still does the job of keeping the crud outside the chain instead of inside just fine. It just is a little quicker to lose that oiled silk feeling.
Yes for outright efficiency it is pretty important. There is no data base for impact of temperate / humidity on products (we cant get a consensus data base on lubricants as is!). this would take - a) an accepted standard and results as the base, then b) same test applied by same body at different temperatures and humidity. How much any particular wax / lubricant would be affected would vary quite a bit depending on that particular product from barely anything within a fairly standard deviation range to measurably tangible amount. How much this may change at extremes (snow / baking dry heat / equator humidity) would be very interesting to see, but we sure are a fair way from getting to that kind of data. We need a standard on base data first. We do know some generalities ie Silca SS drip tested and found that their lubricant needs a longer set time in humid conditions vs dry conditions. This would hold true for likely all wax emulsion lubricants where the bulk of the carrier is water that needs to evaporate for the lubricant to set - in humid conditions i believe their latest information recommends a 48hr set time. Others that have not stated such things (squirt / smoov) - simply havent done the testing, or if they have, they have felt it possibly detrimental to sales to update, better to have customers think as is groovy as per normal as 99.99999999% of customers will likely not notice. Some lubricants have specific low temperature formula's, but there is no real data to support that formula's performance in such conditions vs anything else, or even their own standard product. With wax being solid - the top products in a pretty decent deviation should be mostly not affected, but at the extremes they may suffer a lesser lifespan as they become softer / brittle - but again we lack data. To date i have had ZERO customer feedback cases of performance / chain longevity not as expected due to someone often riding in very hot or snow / ice temps, and i sure have a many thousands of waxing customers - so i am pretty confident that short of riding in death valley in the summer or riding around to film march of the penquins in antarctica that msw / hot melt appear to hold strong across a very broad range - but.... overall for any bicycle lubricants there simply is not the testing or data - all we know is that lubricants overall will be impacted to some smaller or larger degree by temp & humidity, and so for outright efficiency testing it is a variable that need to be controlled.
ah yes i need to get to a number of repairs damn i forget the brand now of the last one i bought - some ultra rc bearing racing oil - i dont think we can ever assess one vs the other..... i think all the reputable brand rc racing bearing oil wld be very similar, this stuff has been developed for quite a number of industry applications. bearing greases / oils are a pretty dialed segment - chain lubrication for bicycles not so much. (ie look at the reliability of high speed NMB bearings in motors etc - pretty groovy grease / oil in those to be doing tens of thousands of rpm for a lot of heavy work life. Dyson vacuums up to 100,000 rpm as well and man we have one the hardest working ones ever here and its cracking on for years of hard labour now - two very quick examples of how bearing lubricants are pretty dialed - i dont think it matters much - just get a quality race oil from your fave place.
I do believe the wear rate correlation is a great method. however, and I am just speculating, is there a scenario ion which you can create tough sticky "lubricant" which will protect the surfaces and be slow? Doesn't it at least makle sense to measure the pure efficiency in terms of power?
Hi - yes indeed, there can absolutely be circumstances where a lubricant can be wear protective, but be very slow - think say running a motor oil indoors where it wouldnt get too badly contaminated and abrasive too quickly. Similarly - heavy grease in bearings vs light fast grease - you cant measure the efficiency via the wear rates. So say two lubricants performing very well in block 1 - i can stay if they are a 3w loss lube an super fast, or 5 to 6w loss lube to higher losses from viscous friction, stiction etc. Where possible it is great to refer to ceramic speed lubricant testing for outright efficiency results. But we do know from lots of testing and ceramic speed/ friction facts testing that it is unlikely for lubricant to be much higher than circa 5 ish watt loss if it has a low wear rate in block 1, and then we also know that high wear rates - which is wear of hardened steel parts of the chain - cannot be low friction. So as contamination comes into play and we have large gaps between highest performers and poor performers - and that gap is caused by abrasive friction wearing metal - we know that the high wear must be high friction - even if we cant assign a watts loss number to it. Hope that helps!
Hi, first thanks for all your work. I have a (stupid?) question. You say that this tension test machine is not accurate because of missing jockey wheels and stuff. But .. what about bikes without jockey wheels, like internal gear hub and fixed gear. Does that mean we need different lube for those because it requires different development methods? As a practical example I've tried first squirt then silica secret on my commuter bike (rohloff hub with eccentric bottom bracket). While it did stay clean as expected it was running dry very quickly even to a point that chain was really stiff - so I switched back to simple oil. However i must admit that I only did an on-bike clean with degreaser before the first squirt application; As commuter the bike is obviously standing outside - but with a chainglider. And last but not least the chain is really worn (like 10% or more!) - but runs fine now with oil again.
Hi Tobias apologies delay reply, just found a better way to see missed comments :) No not at all, this is just talking about how to determine what the efficiency losses are for a lubricant, not whether or not it is a perfectly good lubricant for X component. However some things can be gleaned in that line of thinking however - ie a top wax is brilliant for the sliding surfaces of chain parts, it is not suitable for bearings at all, and it would not at all be suitable for a geared hub. But based on the testing by many - if you wanted to know what truly was the lowest efficiency loss and lowest wear lubricant for your internal geared hub - well - with the current testing environment, that would be tricky. I would still be going with a proven top wet lube like synergetic which in CS testing (the only one i trust) to be very fast, and in ZFC testing (i trust that one too :)) to be extremely low wear, and pressures in the hub gears wont exceed / match the pressures on the very small parts of chain from rider load so it will go most magnificently. However, if prefer longer service times, then there are a lot of top greases (CS all round or long life grease etc). But to main point, if the aim of the game is to extremely accurately measure the efficiency losses of just the lubricant, then the least amount of "noise" in the system is desired, hence we dont want pulley wheel losses included, or needing to be backed out. It is like if you want to accurately measure your seats fore / aft position - you would want to do that on dead level ground, not sloping ground and manually factor out the angle in the measure. When we need accuracy of sub 0.1w minimum to be splitting lubricants in the top 10 or 20, we need the least amount of noise in the system possible (as well as very precise and repeatable warm up and calibration protocols, known losses for test chain etc etc - it is tricky).
Hello, I read the some of the pdf on the website. I was gonna buy Squirt lube until I realized that it is tough to clean, and has a very involved initial application process. As someone who cannot economically import the likes of Molten Speed Wax (or the other one Hot Melt), UFO Drip Wax, or Super Secret Drip. What do you recommend as the next best alternative for dry road conditions? One that can be easily clean after a sudden unplanned wet ride, and is easier to apply?
Hey deadly Ace! it can be a slightly tricky. For dusty riding, really you want to avoid wet lubricants and run a top wax lubricant. Waxes in general can be tougher to clean as most solvents do not work effectively on wax. Squirt has the added issue of penetration issue to try to negate post clean. You have kinda two options - i would either go with effetto mariposa flower power wax - that is a newly tested and OUTSTANDING product - but again that wax needs a wax specific solvent to clean, either ufo clean or their own alpine cleaner is best. Or, you can run one of the highly refined paraffin based wax lubricants like Silca ss drip, where a very good (not perfect, but very good) clean can be done with some boiling water flush rinses post wet rides (not needed at all post dry rides). The paraffin melts above 60dg c so the majority of contaminated lubricant can simply be boiling water melted and flushed out. Squirt has a much higher mineral oil content (we believe it is slack wax based - which is paraffin base but not refined so very oily) - and so the oil wont melt off, and its all locked in the wax, so its just a tougher product to clean - some solvents work ok with a soak - like mineral turps - but overall, not so easy. if you only ride in the dry, then either Effetto or ss drip need extremely little maintenance as not much dust penetrates. a great tip is to spray some alcohol onto micro fibre cloth and wipe chain before re lube to lift off surface dust. Dust sticks to outside of chain from static elec from whizzing through the air, same as dust sticks to your frame. Making sure your re lube does not drag this into chain where it will be pressed into wax layer inside to do damage is a great thing to do, and makes maintenance intervals for such lubricants if only ride in dry very long - ie you would only need to worry about doing a reset every 2000 to 3000km depending on your dust type (how fine, how abrasive etc). Hope that helps!
rock n roll gold is ok - it was a solid choice 10 to 15yrs ago, but things have really improved a lot since then it just doesnt make any sense if using a wet lube to run rnr gold vs synergetic, black diamond, revolubes, NFS etc etc. Extreme i havent tested, every test takes huge amount of time resources i cant work my way though 55 lubes in a few months like friction facts, there needs to be a compelling reason to test vs its just another lube option.
will bathing a chain in silicone spray be fast for short rides up to 20km? it seems to me the lightness of the silicone spray would make for a hell of a fast lube for a race day sprint triathlon type event
no idea sorry but i doubt it will beat the proven fastest chain lubricants as they are developed to have lowest stiction / viscous friction. Silicone is great for some applications but best on a bicycle chain would be a surprise indeed. It probably wont be terrible, for a really short time, but then it will really dirty, and why have something that would need such frequent re setting to hopefully remain low friction when there are proven amazing products that remain low friction for ages (msw / hot melt / ufo drip / ss drip / synergetic etc etc)
Hi, my english Is not so good but the wey i understood the best lube Is ceramic Speed? Am i ok? If it's not can u Tell me the best for you? I use the wet ceramic speed
Hi hope u can help. Just got some super secret chain lube. I’m after some advice I ride a lot in side on a trainer as time is not on my side with work. How often or what sort of km distance can I get out of a single application. Chain will be completely clean and ready for lube and will allow 24hrs to set. Any help would be greatly appreciate. Great videos.
Hey adam! What a great name :) Treatment lifespans for a lubricant really have a lot of individual variables so aside from giving out really broad ranges which may not be of much use, it is best to learn the treatment lifespan for you. Also, indoor can be very different vs outdoor. Ie some people who do bulk of kms outdoor may not be doing that many high intensity intervals, and save their high intensity work for zwift or trainer. As such the trainer kms can be mostly really high power, and there arent really any free rolling kms on ergo. Ie if one spends 30 mins outside at 250w riding up a hill, they might then have 10kms of mostly roller / very light load- whereas after 30 mins at 250w on an ergo, there is not those free kms after. In short, your power, your power profile on rides & type of training etc will have big impact on treatment lifespan. You should get to know when the chain starts to feel and sound obviously dry, and re lube vs pushing. The good news with ss drip is it is very hard to over apply and get a gunky drivetrain, so if in doubt, re apply - even it is erring on early re kms done. Some cyclists get to know dry feel and time to re lube easily, some do not - if you are in the not - for ergo, assuming it is high intensity - i would err on side of safety and say every approx 100km. If your cycling on ergo has a pretty broad range of intensity, then probs circa 150km - but again if feeling and sounding really dry before those marks - re lube - there is no harm to ensuring the coating is not on its last legs before you smash next zwift race, and unlike some wax lubes or many wet lubes, there is not really a penalty if you end up erring on over lube with ss drip as its very clean / not easily gunk up. hope that helps!
@@zerofrictioncycling992 thank u for such a great reply. I will run chain on there till it feels dry. If u like to know the outcome of km per re lube then I will keep a note over next few months.
What are your thoughts on the CS UFO chain efficiency (~3.7 watts or so) vs the UFO v2 drip efficiency of ~3W? I would've thought that the pre-prepped chains are the gold standard, followed by the drip, which in theory should be an emulsified form of their hard wax formula
Great question Wilson. Officially from CS their wax is still the fastest, but i dont have updated data from them for their latest ufo wax that comes on their UFO chains, vs the latest very fast formula of UFO drip. My best advise would be that overall the UFO wax will be the slightly better choice vs UFO Drip if ones budget reaches that far, they will be within a small fraction of a watt of each other re outright speed, but a UFO wax treatment will definitely last longer vs drip as drip you always have at least 50% of what you apply being carrier, whereas the wax application is 100% lubricant. One can then move to UFO drip when the wax treatment is wearing thin.
The UFO chains are currently on "version 2" and UFO Drip lube (v2) was developed later (so newer 'tech'/recipe). Keep an eye out for UFO chains version 3 soon.
Hey al, many. I have covered this quite extensively in waxing FAQ video (episode 7), and in the waxing FAQ document in instructions tab, and also in instructions tab is a document showing how terrible (likely deliberately dishonest) OZ cycle testing was of his wax vs mspeedwax. In short - SOME people can make a good DIY wax, but mostly oz cycle advice on waxing is pretty terrible. He has previously advocated candles, which are very bad. He advises a batshit crazy amount of PTFE per pound, based on nothing i can gather other than him pulling a figure that seemed it would definitely cover that base out of his butt. I have not watched much of his content as i try not to support poor content - it is possible he has made a lot of great content advice (he sure has a big following), however in this area he has by far, in my opinion, done way more harm than good. i have lost so many hours of my life helping people around the world fix their immersive waxing disasters following oz cycle that it is dismaying. And it just gives immersive waxing a bad wrap. bike store mechanics see these drivetrains and think wow that immersive waxing thing is terrible. Many people who try it following his advice think wow this immersive wax thing is terrible. Whereas is they had tried a proven top product, they all think wow this immersive wax thing is the best decision ive made for a long long time. it is also worth noting that he is a horrific human being. And if people still support him / his channel knowing what he has done - then just wow, what does someone have to do to lose your support? He is currently in jail for torturing and killing his neighbours dog. If you have any morals in you, unsubscribe from him. it will be a bit till his next video as he has to get out of jail first, but he will inevitably be back, and delete as many references as he can to what he has done, and try to brush the fact he is a horrific human under the rug as horrific humans do. www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-05/steven-john-leffanue-jailed-over-killing-neighbours-dog/101209462#:~:text=Steven%20John%20Leffanue%20jailed%20for%20beating%20neighbour's%20dog%20to%20death%20near%20Victor%20Harbor,-ABC%20South%20East&text=A%20man%20has%20been%20jailed,Victor%20Harbor%2C%20south%20of%20Adelaide.
@@zerofrictioncycling992 omg. I was not expecting a response like that. Thanks for the in depth answer. I'll check out episode 7, thanks for your work.
@@al-du6lb ha thanks al, sorry i just re read what i wrote and some lines come across a bit strong perhaps - dont take any thing there as frustrated at your questioning - sometimes if i have answered a bunch of oz cycle stuff already that day from emails i start to type very quickly. Some i can just send to document etc but also i have been a bit shocked re what he did (i love my dogs...) it is hard for me not be a bit stronger as his information has already been very frustrating in this area, and then to know what he has done.... yeah.... less than ideal......
Hey Keagan! DEFINITELY not muc off dry....... Squirt of smoove are both good, at this time i would give the edge to smoove, but i think squirt are coming out with a new formula soon or have released which i havent tested.
@@zerofrictioncycling992 i appreciate the reply mate! i’m in south africa and those are the only 2 “good” options. we do get ufo drip but it’s 5x the price of either of those 2. everything else is muc off, white lightning, rock n roll etc. i still have a bottle of squirt here so will strip the muc off and apply squirt.
@@zerofrictioncycling992 can you comment on simply mountain viking’s videos where muc off dry came out best? ruclips.net/video/FbFNrnQ4QUo/видео.html he also did another one where he said squirt wasn’t very good at all
@@keagandevilliers2832 Yep - wax lubricants typically struggle on that test - it isnt a test that is applicable to many wax lubricants, it is an industry standard test for oils. In your chain you do not have a high speed spinning cylinder against a static cylinder. In a bicycle chain top wax lubricants bond to the sliding surfaces, and you have two wax coated sliding surfaces. Almost all wax drip lubricants are emulsion so have a carrier to evaporate and wax set. Squirt is one of those. He tested it wet - so what he is testing is probably 60% water. And so again spray pattern test - wtf is that telling someone? it needs to set and have the water carrier evaporate before use. The sand retention test - despite mentioning should allow it to dry - he tests it wet. Again this is just not representative at all of how the product will perform when used as instructed. As a wax emulsion lubricant - once it has set, dry contamination resistance is typically this lubricant demographics strength as they are not wet. So dust has a hard time sticking, and what does stick has no liquid path to travel to get from outside the chain to inside where it will cause wear & increased friction. It is EXTREMELY poor, and EXTREMELY irresponsible to put out testing like this as the masses will not understand these things, and take the testing as a thorough control testing - but walk away with completely incorrect results. If i was Squirt - i would be suing him to take down that test. Overall that is an exceptionally disappointing video that damages and sets back the hard work of others in this space working hard to improve cyclists knowledge. That is circa 300k viewers that need to be corrected with proper information and testing. Perhaps from one that tests on a bicycle chain, on a bicycle drivetrain, so in its actual use case, and following manufacturer instructions....?
Just opinion, I don’t thing just testing friction on a machine equals real world, when dirt and water are introduced the whole game change’s. Just like tire pressures.
yes absolutely, hence why the ZFC testing includes by dry and wet contamination blocks. For a start, when outright efficiency testing can actually be agreed upon, then this should be expanded to test for contamination. If there was an accurate independent test lab i would be able to send chains for testing post the contamination blocks etc to cross correlate the wear rates with efficiency losses. I think the cycling industry will get there but we are very behind pretty much any other large industry with regards to testing.
@@zerofrictioncycling992 Molybdenum disulfide has sulfuric acid issues in high heat places like engine oil. Wondering if the Tungsten Disulfide does better? Molly works good but high heat and water are its biggest drawback. Thanks and keep up the great work!
check the test results on zfc site for that one....... it is as close to running no lubricant that i have tested. I may as well have just done a wee on my chain.
the world needs a couple of ASTM standards here. Honestly its embarrassing. MFG claiming anything they want with nothing to substantiate, or goodness knows what test data to substantiate. Outright efficiency testing is a huge mess of conflict. Testing for what happens outside the lab, it appears to be just ZFC. Whilst thats great for ZFC as im run off my feet, the world is big place and there needs more resources than me for mfg to validate their claims - and so an ASTM standard test along the lines of what i do would be brilliant. If one happens and a major independent test facility can open up to test to a robust standard then i can retire and ride my bikes a lot more :) My test machines really are hobbyist level - they tell us an awful lot about a lubricants performance, but ideally long term ZFC is an interim measure as we push towards proper testing standards for outright efficiency, dry contamination, wet contamination etc - this is proving extremely difficult as honestly i just do not believe all parties are honest - the interest is to test in a manner that makes their product look amazing and competitors terrible. As per video i have absolute trust in CS testing, i really worry about some others - and how an agreed standard will be attained. i dont think i am going to run out of work for a bit yet....
@@zerofrictioncycling992 Too bad my Dad is long retired or we could work one up. He is in 80's now. He sold then taught custom lubrications. He forgets things now so...
All this testing seems flawed to me. It seems to me an electric motor puts a very constant load on the chain. A cyclist puts a very variable load on the chain via the pedal shafts.
correct it does, but that doesnt mean it is flawed at all. The test needs to be very controlled so that the lubricants efficiency (FOR THAT TEST) can be ascertained. Just because a load varies, doesnt mean that within the performance range of the lubricant, that the losses assessed at one load wont be comparable. It isnt exactly linear but lets just say that at 250w load a lubricants loss is 4w, then at 125w load you can expect its loss to be around 2w, and at 500w load around 8w. If its 6w loss at the test load of 250w, then you can simply adjust loss numbers. As you pedal, even if doing say 250w, the peak load forces will be much higher than when driven by a motor, and the low power phase of pedal stroke the forces will be much lower - to equal 250w overall on average. The relative losses for the performance assessed at 250w load will apply as the lubricant is put through higher and lower forces. It isnt exact - many things will impact the real world outcome - ie a heavier lubricant will have comparatively poor losses at lower power, high cadence due to higher viscous friction and stiction vs a very light lubricant, which may struggle at very high loads and low cadence. But - there has to be a benchmark of X load, X cadence - X losses. This is same across basically anything that is tested, and such results are not meant to tell you that that is what you will exactly experience in your use. Hope that makes sense :)
I disagree, my personal opinion is it is not data out of context, but clearly, obviously incorrect data - but it suited a narrative so use it anyway. Bigger concern is was the test deliberately conducted to obtain deliberately incorrect data. this is much more serious than using something out of context
The ”instant” fluctuations (hours of driving apart) are easily explained by layers of different additives wearing off differently. The problem seems to be that the lubricant manufacturers are not very good in getting the additives and wax into consistent structure on the surfaces. Especially so when there is an extra carrier fluid used in applying the lubricant. With modern additives thrown together almost randomly by manufacturers this is exactly the kind of data I would expect to see. Its not oil anymore! Kudos for the company for sharing their very confusing looking data and thank you for sparking discussion about it.
would need A LOT more compelling information. There are just so many such products on the market, and the testing is extremely resource intensive. i can just work my way through 500 wax lubes out there, there has to be a good bit of really compelling information as to why they should be tested.
Juicy video Adam, thanks for all your hard work keeping big companies honest and debunking their dodgy claims.👍💪🔥
Thanks Adam for sharing your knowledge and an accurate voice in the space!
Well, this is a fantastic vid. It’s a bit of a ‘nerd out’ but there are a few key moments worth waiting for. Well done!
Watts Lost = Friction = Wear = Lifetime Chainset Costs.
Presentation Tip: put in some placeholders for they key moments for those with short attention spans. You summarise neatly several times, so use those time stamps. Keep up this great work 😀
Thanks cool and thanks for feedback as that will help me get better over time (I hope ! :))
Thanks for the work done for so long
I’ve gone to synergetic with sram 1170 chains (shimano cassettes) on my bikes and the longevity is definitely there. I work as a service Technician so I can clean my bike whenever but synergetic seems to need reapplication around 400 miles for me
Keeps the bike running great. We don’t sell it at my shop but I highly recommend switching to synergetic for those whom are doubtful. Best bang for buck. Noticeably quieter shifting as well.
Adams numbers on chain durability were spot on which is why i ditched dura ace chains
Thanks for this excellent and very pedagogic video.
I am using silica synergetic and have observed, that there is a sediment of very fine black particles building up on the bottom of the flask. It is almost impossible to shake it up. But if you put the flask in a ultrasonic cleaner, you can see the sediment dissolve in clouds within the base oil. I think that this sediment is part of the lube formula and is missing if it is on the bottom of the bottle. What do you say?
Hi Cristobal! yes i believe the dark sediment is the tungsten disulphide. I need to chat to josh re easy way for this to be mixed as it is pretty difficult, and i am sure silca have received this enquiry a number of times now since product release so i will chase up the answer - stay tuned for a latest news update to cover in the new year
Thanks so much for all the info, Adam! Just made the switch to wax. Went with Silca Hot Melt. Noticed you have made references to just putting a waxed chain that needs to be re-treated back into the melting pot to reset the wax. Why not give it a hot water rinse first so as to avoid introducing contamination back into melted wax?
Hi Bob! A boiling water rinse is a great thing to do post decent wet rides as one is hosing their chain with dirty road water. For dry riding so little contamination penetrates it is not worth the time & electricity, not even close. And, boiling water rinsing every time appears in some cases to be detrimental as water has minerals etc - that over time if done before every re-wax can start to impact wax bonding to chain / start to contaminate the wax itself. Over the years if ever there has been a case of someone not getting the chain lifespan expected on wax, almost always the common theme has been boiling water rinsing every time, so one is killing it with kindness. Definitely best to just re-wax post dry rides, only boiling water flush rinse post wet rides. Dusty rides just spray metho / iso alcohol on microfibre cloth and wipe dust that sticks to outside of chain from static. Otherwise, just re-wax and everything is amazing for a loooonnnggg time.
@@zerofrictioncycling992 Great point about dissolved solids in water! And I wouldn't plan to use distilled water!!!
Hi, would you say Silca Synergertic is as smooth as soemthing like Squirt? I've been using Squirt for two years and whilst it's not the cleanest, it is very smooth and produces almost no noise.
I'm apprehensive about it after bad experiences with oil based lubes.
Thanks and love your website!
I have never read anything about ambient temperature under test by these different manufacturers.
Do you know the effect (efficiency, longevity) of Winter/Summer on paraffin wax products? (e.g. brittle vs. soft for wax - or different viscosity for oils)
Maybe, there is an unpublished evaluation or belly-feeling ... ;-)
Btw: Great content again, thx!
Pure gut feeling, but winter cold has the wax flaking off a little more quickly. Solution: swap the chain out 1-200km earlier than normal.
Mid-summer heat (at least down here in the antipodes) softens the wax quite a bit so it doesn't flake, but crud sticks to it a bit more. Solution: additional hot water wash and swap the chain out 1-200km early.
In either case I feel that the wax still does the job of keeping the crud outside the chain instead of inside just fine. It just is a little quicker to lose that oiled silk feeling.
Yes for outright efficiency it is pretty important. There is no data base for impact of temperate / humidity on products (we cant get a consensus data base on lubricants as is!). this would take - a) an accepted standard and results as the base, then b) same test applied by same body at different temperatures and humidity. How much any particular wax / lubricant would be affected would vary quite a bit depending on that particular product from barely anything within a fairly standard deviation range to measurably tangible amount. How much this may change at extremes (snow / baking dry heat / equator humidity) would be very interesting to see, but we sure are a fair way from getting to that kind of data. We need a standard on base data first. We do know some generalities ie Silca SS drip tested and found that their lubricant needs a longer set time in humid conditions vs dry conditions. This would hold true for likely all wax emulsion lubricants where the bulk of the carrier is water that needs to evaporate for the lubricant to set - in humid conditions i believe their latest information recommends a 48hr set time. Others that have not stated such things (squirt / smoov) - simply havent done the testing, or if they have, they have felt it possibly detrimental to sales to update, better to have customers think as is groovy as per normal as 99.99999999% of customers will likely not notice. Some lubricants have specific low temperature formula's, but there is no real data to support that formula's performance in such conditions vs anything else, or even their own standard product. With wax being solid - the top products in a pretty decent deviation should be mostly not affected, but at the extremes they may suffer a lesser lifespan as they become softer / brittle - but again we lack data. To date i have had ZERO customer feedback cases of performance / chain longevity not as expected due to someone often riding in very hot or snow / ice temps, and i sure have a many thousands of waxing customers - so i am pretty confident that short of riding in death valley in the summer or riding around to film march of the penquins in antarctica that msw / hot melt appear to hold strong across a very broad range - but.... overall for any bicycle lubricants there simply is not the testing or data - all we know is that lubricants overall will be impacted to some smaller or larger degree by temp & humidity, and so for outright efficiency testing it is a variable that need to be controlled.
I see the rc cars in the background. What do you use for bearing oil? I have been trying to find a good oil for long boarding also
ah yes i need to get to a number of repairs damn i forget the brand now of the last one i bought - some ultra rc bearing racing oil - i dont think we can ever assess one vs the other..... i think all the reputable brand rc racing bearing oil wld be very similar, this stuff has been developed for quite a number of industry applications. bearing greases / oils are a pretty dialed segment - chain lubrication for bicycles not so much. (ie look at the reliability of high speed NMB bearings in motors etc - pretty groovy grease / oil in those to be doing tens of thousands of rpm for a lot of heavy work life. Dyson vacuums up to 100,000 rpm as well and man we have one the hardest working ones ever here and its cracking on for years of hard labour now - two very quick examples of how bearing lubricants are pretty dialed - i dont think it matters much - just get a quality race oil from your fave place.
Where can I find the description of your test protocol? I can’t understand what block 1, block 4, etc… mean
I do believe the wear rate correlation is a great method. however, and I am just speculating, is there a scenario ion which you can create tough sticky "lubricant" which will protect the surfaces and be slow?
Doesn't it at least makle sense to measure the pure efficiency in terms of power?
Hi - yes indeed, there can absolutely be circumstances where a lubricant can be wear protective, but be very slow - think say running a motor oil indoors where it wouldnt get too badly contaminated and abrasive too quickly. Similarly - heavy grease in bearings vs light fast grease - you cant measure the efficiency via the wear rates.
So say two lubricants performing very well in block 1 - i can stay if they are a 3w loss lube an super fast, or 5 to 6w loss lube to higher losses from viscous friction, stiction etc. Where possible it is great to refer to ceramic speed lubricant testing for outright efficiency results.
But we do know from lots of testing and ceramic speed/ friction facts testing that it is unlikely for lubricant to be much higher than circa 5 ish watt loss if it has a low wear rate in block 1, and then we also know that high wear rates - which is wear of hardened steel parts of the chain - cannot be low friction. So as contamination comes into play and we have large gaps between highest performers and poor performers - and that gap is caused by abrasive friction wearing metal - we know that the high wear must be high friction - even if we cant assign a watts loss number to it.
Hope that helps!
Hi, first thanks for all your work.
I have a (stupid?) question. You say that this tension test machine is not accurate because of missing jockey wheels and stuff. But .. what about bikes without jockey wheels, like internal gear hub and fixed gear. Does that mean we need different lube for those because it requires different development methods?
As a practical example I've tried first squirt then silica secret on my commuter bike (rohloff hub with eccentric bottom bracket). While it did stay clean as expected it was running dry very quickly even to a point that chain was really stiff - so I switched back to simple oil.
However i must admit that I only did an on-bike clean with degreaser before the first squirt application; As commuter the bike is obviously standing outside - but with a chainglider. And last but not least the chain is really worn (like 10% or more!) - but runs fine now with oil again.
Hi Tobias apologies delay reply, just found a better way to see missed comments :) No not at all, this is just talking about how to determine what the efficiency losses are for a lubricant, not whether or not it is a perfectly good lubricant for X component. However some things can be gleaned in that line of thinking however - ie a top wax is brilliant for the sliding surfaces of chain parts, it is not suitable for bearings at all, and it would not at all be suitable for a geared hub. But based on the testing by many - if you wanted to know what truly was the lowest efficiency loss and lowest wear lubricant for your internal geared hub - well - with the current testing environment, that would be tricky. I would still be going with a proven top wet lube like synergetic which in CS testing (the only one i trust) to be very fast, and in ZFC testing (i trust that one too :)) to be extremely low wear, and pressures in the hub gears wont exceed / match the pressures on the very small parts of chain from rider load so it will go most magnificently. However, if prefer longer service times, then there are a lot of top greases (CS all round or long life grease etc).
But to main point, if the aim of the game is to extremely accurately measure the efficiency losses of just the lubricant, then the least amount of "noise" in the system is desired, hence we dont want pulley wheel losses included, or needing to be backed out. It is like if you want to accurately measure your seats fore / aft position - you would want to do that on dead level ground, not sloping ground and manually factor out the angle in the measure. When we need accuracy of sub 0.1w minimum to be splitting lubricants in the top 10 or 20, we need the least amount of noise in the system possible (as well as very precise and repeatable warm up and calibration protocols, known losses for test chain etc etc - it is tricky).
Hello, I read the some of the pdf on the website. I was gonna buy Squirt lube until I realized that it is tough to clean, and has a very involved initial application process.
As someone who cannot economically import the likes of Molten Speed Wax (or the other one Hot Melt), UFO Drip Wax, or Super Secret Drip.
What do you recommend as the next best alternative for dry road conditions? One that can be easily clean after a sudden unplanned wet ride, and is easier to apply?
Hey deadly Ace! it can be a slightly tricky. For dusty riding, really you want to avoid wet lubricants and run a top wax lubricant. Waxes in general can be tougher to clean as most solvents do not work effectively on wax. Squirt has the added issue of penetration issue to try to negate post clean. You have kinda two options - i would either go with effetto mariposa flower power wax - that is a newly tested and OUTSTANDING product - but again that wax needs a wax specific solvent to clean, either ufo clean or their own alpine cleaner is best. Or, you can run one of the highly refined paraffin based wax lubricants like Silca ss drip, where a very good (not perfect, but very good) clean can be done with some boiling water flush rinses post wet rides (not needed at all post dry rides). The paraffin melts above 60dg c so the majority of contaminated lubricant can simply be boiling water melted and flushed out. Squirt has a much higher mineral oil content (we believe it is slack wax based - which is paraffin base but not refined so very oily) - and so the oil wont melt off, and its all locked in the wax, so its just a tougher product to clean - some solvents work ok with a soak - like mineral turps - but overall, not so easy. if you only ride in the dry, then either Effetto or ss drip need extremely little maintenance as not much dust penetrates. a great tip is to spray some alcohol onto micro fibre cloth and wipe chain before re lube to lift off surface dust. Dust sticks to outside of chain from static elec from whizzing through the air, same as dust sticks to your frame. Making sure your re lube does not drag this into chain where it will be pressed into wax layer inside to do damage is a great thing to do, and makes maintenance intervals for such lubricants if only ride in dry very long - ie you would only need to worry about doing a reset every 2000 to 3000km depending on your dust type (how fine, how abrasive etc). Hope that helps!
Hi. How do you rate rocknroll gold and extreme lubricants?
rock n roll gold is ok - it was a solid choice 10 to 15yrs ago, but things have really improved a lot since then it just doesnt make any sense if using a wet lube to run rnr gold vs synergetic, black diamond, revolubes, NFS etc etc. Extreme i havent tested, every test takes huge amount of time resources i cant work my way though 55 lubes in a few months like friction facts, there needs to be a compelling reason to test vs its just another lube option.
will bathing a chain in silicone spray be fast for short rides up to 20km? it seems to me the lightness of the silicone spray would make for a hell of a fast lube for a race day sprint triathlon type event
no idea sorry but i doubt it will beat the proven fastest chain lubricants as they are developed to have lowest stiction / viscous friction. Silicone is great for some applications but best on a bicycle chain would be a surprise indeed. It probably wont be terrible, for a really short time, but then it will really dirty, and why have something that would need such frequent re setting to hopefully remain low friction when there are proven amazing products that remain low friction for ages (msw / hot melt / ufo drip / ss drip / synergetic etc etc)
Hi, my english Is not so good but the wey i understood the best lube Is ceramic Speed? Am i ok? If it's not can u Tell me the best for you? I use the wet ceramic speed
Why did you not test squirt? They claim and has been shown to have very low friction?
i have tested squirt. It is on lubricant test page data. And detail review.
Good information
Hi hope u can help. Just got some super secret chain lube. I’m after some advice I ride a lot in side on a trainer as time is not on my side with work. How often or what sort of km distance can I get out of a single application. Chain will be completely clean and ready for lube and will allow 24hrs to set. Any help would be greatly appreciate. Great videos.
Hey adam! What a great name :) Treatment lifespans for a lubricant really have a lot of individual variables so aside from giving out really broad ranges which may not be of much use, it is best to learn the treatment lifespan for you. Also, indoor can be very different vs outdoor. Ie some people who do bulk of kms outdoor may not be doing that many high intensity intervals, and save their high intensity work for zwift or trainer. As such the trainer kms can be mostly really high power, and there arent really any free rolling kms on ergo. Ie if one spends 30 mins outside at 250w riding up a hill, they might then have 10kms of mostly roller / very light load- whereas after 30 mins at 250w on an ergo, there is not those free kms after.
In short, your power, your power profile on rides & type of training etc will have big impact on treatment lifespan. You should get to know when the chain starts to feel and sound obviously dry, and re lube vs pushing. The good news with ss drip is it is very hard to over apply and get a gunky drivetrain, so if in doubt, re apply - even it is erring on early re kms done. Some cyclists get to know dry feel and time to re lube easily, some do not - if you are in the not - for ergo, assuming it is high intensity - i would err on side of safety and say every approx 100km. If your cycling on ergo has a pretty broad range of intensity, then probs circa 150km - but again if feeling and sounding really dry before those marks - re lube - there is no harm to ensuring the coating is not on its last legs before you smash next zwift race, and unlike some wax lubes or many wet lubes, there is not really a penalty if you end up erring on over lube with ss drip as its very clean / not easily gunk up.
hope that helps!
@@zerofrictioncycling992 thank u for such a great reply. I will run chain on there till it feels dry. If u like to know the outcome of km per re lube then I will keep a note over next few months.
What are your thoughts on the CS UFO chain efficiency (~3.7 watts or so) vs the UFO v2 drip efficiency of ~3W? I would've thought that the pre-prepped chains are the gold standard, followed by the drip, which in theory should be an emulsified form of their hard wax formula
Great question Wilson. Officially from CS their wax is still the fastest, but i dont have updated data from them for their latest ufo wax that comes on their UFO chains, vs the latest very fast formula of UFO drip. My best advise would be that overall the UFO wax will be the slightly better choice vs UFO Drip if ones budget reaches that far, they will be within a small fraction of a watt of each other re outright speed, but a UFO wax treatment will definitely last longer vs drip as drip you always have at least 50% of what you apply being carrier, whereas the wax application is 100% lubricant. One can then move to UFO drip when the wax treatment is wearing thin.
The UFO chains are currently on "version 2" and UFO Drip lube (v2) was developed later (so newer 'tech'/recipe). Keep an eye out for UFO chains version 3 soon.
Any opinions on oz cycling homemade PTFE wax?
Hey al, many. I have covered this quite extensively in waxing FAQ video (episode 7), and in the waxing FAQ document in instructions tab, and also in instructions tab is a document showing how terrible (likely deliberately dishonest) OZ cycle testing was of his wax vs mspeedwax. In short - SOME people can make a good DIY wax, but mostly oz cycle advice on waxing is pretty terrible. He has previously advocated candles, which are very bad. He advises a batshit crazy amount of PTFE per pound, based on nothing i can gather other than him pulling a figure that seemed it would definitely cover that base out of his butt. I have not watched much of his content as i try not to support poor content - it is possible he has made a lot of great content advice (he sure has a big following), however in this area he has by far, in my opinion, done way more harm than good. i have lost so many hours of my life helping people around the world fix their immersive waxing disasters following oz cycle that it is dismaying. And it just gives immersive waxing a bad wrap. bike store mechanics see these drivetrains and think wow that immersive waxing thing is terrible. Many people who try it following his advice think wow this immersive wax thing is terrible. Whereas is they had tried a proven top product, they all think wow this immersive wax thing is the best decision ive made for a long long time.
it is also worth noting that he is a horrific human being. And if people still support him / his channel knowing what he has done - then just wow, what does someone have to do to lose your support? He is currently in jail for torturing and killing his neighbours dog. If you have any morals in you, unsubscribe from him. it will be a bit till his next video as he has to get out of jail first, but he will inevitably be back, and delete as many references as he can to what he has done, and try to brush the fact he is a horrific human under the rug as horrific humans do.
www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-05/steven-john-leffanue-jailed-over-killing-neighbours-dog/101209462#:~:text=Steven%20John%20Leffanue%20jailed%20for%20beating%20neighbour's%20dog%20to%20death%20near%20Victor%20Harbor,-ABC%20South%20East&text=A%20man%20has%20been%20jailed,Victor%20Harbor%2C%20south%20of%20Adelaide.
@@zerofrictioncycling992 omg. I was not expecting a response like that. Thanks for the in depth answer. I'll check out episode 7, thanks for your work.
@@al-du6lb ha thanks al, sorry i just re read what i wrote and some lines come across a bit strong perhaps - dont take any thing there as frustrated at your questioning - sometimes if i have answered a bunch of oz cycle stuff already that day from emails i start to type very quickly. Some i can just send to document etc but also i have been a bit shocked re what he did (i love my dogs...) it is hard for me not be a bit stronger as his information has already been very frustrating in this area, and then to know what he has done.... yeah.... less than ideal......
@@zerofrictioncycling992 lol. No worries. I didn't take it personally. I found it quite entertaining.
squirt or smoove? or muc off dry?
Hey Keagan! DEFINITELY not muc off dry....... Squirt of smoove are both good, at this time i would give the edge to smoove, but i think squirt are coming out with a new formula soon or have released which i havent tested.
@@zerofrictioncycling992 i appreciate the reply mate! i’m in south africa and those are the only 2 “good” options. we do get ufo drip but it’s 5x the price of either of those 2. everything else is muc off, white lightning, rock n roll etc. i still have a bottle of squirt here so will strip the muc off and apply squirt.
@@zerofrictioncycling992 can you comment on simply mountain viking’s videos where muc off dry came out best?
ruclips.net/video/FbFNrnQ4QUo/видео.html
he also did another one where he said squirt wasn’t very good at all
@@keagandevilliers2832 Yep - wax lubricants typically struggle on that test - it isnt a test that is applicable to many wax lubricants, it is an industry standard test for oils. In your chain you do not have a high speed spinning cylinder against a static cylinder. In a bicycle chain top wax lubricants bond to the sliding surfaces, and you have two wax coated sliding surfaces. Almost all wax drip lubricants are emulsion so have a carrier to evaporate and wax set. Squirt is one of those. He tested it wet - so what he is testing is probably 60% water. And so again spray pattern test - wtf is that telling someone? it needs to set and have the water carrier evaporate before use.
The sand retention test - despite mentioning should allow it to dry - he tests it wet. Again this is just not representative at all of how the product will perform when used as instructed. As a wax emulsion lubricant - once it has set, dry contamination resistance is typically this lubricant demographics strength as they are not wet. So dust has a hard time sticking, and what does stick has no liquid path to travel to get from outside the chain to inside where it will cause wear & increased friction. It is EXTREMELY poor, and EXTREMELY irresponsible to put out testing like this as the masses will not understand these things, and take the testing as a thorough control testing - but walk away with completely incorrect results. If i was Squirt - i would be suing him to take down that test.
Overall that is an exceptionally disappointing video that damages and sets back the hard work of others in this space working hard to improve cyclists knowledge. That is circa 300k viewers that need to be corrected with proper information and testing. Perhaps from one that tests on a bicycle chain, on a bicycle drivetrain, so in its actual use case, and following manufacturer instructions....?
Just opinion, I don’t thing just testing friction on a machine equals real world, when dirt and water are introduced the whole game change’s. Just like tire pressures.
yes absolutely, hence why the ZFC testing includes by dry and wet contamination blocks. For a start, when outright efficiency testing can actually be agreed upon, then this should be expanded to test for contamination. If there was an accurate independent test lab i would be able to send chains for testing post the contamination blocks etc to cross correlate the wear rates with efficiency losses. I think the cycling industry will get there but we are very behind pretty much any other large industry with regards to testing.
I think there is obviously “the right lube” for different people and different situations.
I'm surprised that there is not a Molly based lube.
Im sure their are. For long time mspeedwax had moly as main friction modifier, now changed to tungsten disulfide
@@zerofrictioncycling992 Molybdenum disulfide has sulfuric acid issues in high heat places like engine oil. Wondering if the Tungsten Disulfide does better? Molly works good but high heat and water are its biggest drawback. Thanks and keep up the great work!
Finish line ceramic
check the test results on zfc site for that one....... it is as close to running no lubricant that i have tested. I may as well have just done a wee on my chain.
You need asm standard.
the world needs a couple of ASTM standards here. Honestly its embarrassing. MFG claiming anything they want with nothing to substantiate, or goodness knows what test data to substantiate. Outright efficiency testing is a huge mess of conflict. Testing for what happens outside the lab, it appears to be just ZFC. Whilst thats great for ZFC as im run off my feet, the world is big place and there needs more resources than me for mfg to validate their claims - and so an ASTM standard test along the lines of what i do would be brilliant. If one happens and a major independent test facility can open up to test to a robust standard then i can retire and ride my bikes a lot more :) My test machines really are hobbyist level - they tell us an awful lot about a lubricants performance, but ideally long term ZFC is an interim measure as we push towards proper testing standards for outright efficiency, dry contamination, wet contamination etc - this is proving extremely difficult as honestly i just do not believe all parties are honest - the interest is to test in a manner that makes their product look amazing and competitors terrible. As per video i have absolute trust in CS testing, i really worry about some others - and how an agreed standard will be attained. i dont think i am going to run out of work for a bit yet....
@@zerofrictioncycling992 Too bad my Dad is long retired or we could work one up.
He is in 80's now. He sold then taught custom lubrications. He forgets things now so...
All this testing seems flawed to me. It seems to me an electric motor puts a very constant load on the chain. A cyclist puts a very variable load on the chain via the pedal shafts.
correct it does, but that doesnt mean it is flawed at all. The test needs to be very controlled so that the lubricants efficiency (FOR THAT TEST) can be ascertained. Just because a load varies, doesnt mean that within the performance range of the lubricant, that the losses assessed at one load wont be comparable. It isnt exactly linear but lets just say that at 250w load a lubricants loss is 4w, then at 125w load you can expect its loss to be around 2w, and at 500w load around 8w. If its 6w loss at the test load of 250w, then you can simply adjust loss numbers. As you pedal, even if doing say 250w, the peak load forces will be much higher than when driven by a motor, and the low power phase of pedal stroke the forces will be much lower - to equal 250w overall on average. The relative losses for the performance assessed at 250w load will apply as the lubricant is put through higher and lower forces. It isnt exact - many things will impact the real world outcome - ie a heavier lubricant will have comparatively poor losses at lower power, high cadence due to higher viscous friction and stiction vs a very light lubricant, which may struggle at very high loads and low cadence. But - there has to be a benchmark of X load, X cadence - X losses. This is same across basically anything that is tested, and such results are not meant to tell you that that is what you will exactly experience in your use. Hope that makes sense :)
So they took data out of context for marketing gimmick. That is not surprising but they will stretch the truth for monitary gain.
I disagree, my personal opinion is it is not data out of context, but clearly, obviously incorrect data - but it suited a narrative so use it anyway. Bigger concern is was the test deliberately conducted to obtain deliberately incorrect data. this is much more serious than using something out of context
@@zerofrictioncycling992 YES fraud instead of misrepresentation.
The ”instant” fluctuations (hours of driving apart) are easily explained by layers of different additives wearing off differently.
The problem seems to be that the lubricant manufacturers are not very good in getting the additives and wax into consistent structure
on the surfaces. Especially so when there is an extra carrier fluid used in applying the lubricant.
With modern additives thrown together almost randomly by manufacturers this is exactly the kind of data I would expect to see. Its not oil anymore!
Kudos for the company for sharing their very confusing looking data and thank you for sparking discussion about it.
Try Chepark wax lub
would need A LOT more compelling information. There are just so many such products on the market, and the testing is extremely resource intensive. i can just work my way through 500 wax lubes out there, there has to be a good bit of really compelling information as to why they should be tested.