Silca Synergetic Drip Lube

Your results are similar to what I get using Dumonde Tech, which is some sort of Polymer lube that takes about 3 to 5 applications to coat the chain in that polymer, but once that coating is established I can run roughly 500 miles before I have to reapply it, and I don't have to clean the chain before applying.  According to the instructions, I do have to wipe the chain down after every ride.  It isn't as clean as the wax lubes, but the Dumonde Tech holds up to rain extremely well.  

Dumonde Tech was recommended to me by people who do a lot of bike touring, saying that of all the lubes they've tried that one not only lasted the longest, but the chains lasted a lot longer than when using other lubes.  So far after 5,000 miles, there is no chain wear happening?!  That surprised me too.

I use that Dumonde Tech on all my bikes now, but I have never used the Silca synergetic lube, I might try it on my road bike to see how it works just for kicks.

It is not clean. It will turn your drive train black and gunky, just like any other wet lube I've ever used. It might be ultra efficient but for this reason it still gets relegated to my winter hack.

I shall stick with Squirt wax for my other bikes.

This performance comes close to what I get from good old WD40. 400-500 km per application Chain replaced every 3-3500 km and drive train in tip-top condition.

I started using Silca's immersive wax last year and I will never go back to a drip lube. However, for my indoor Zwift bike,  this seems like a good option. 

I migrated to Silca Super Secret Chain Lube to reduce chainset grime rather than eek micro-watts advantage or a few km extra life out of my components, benefits given testimony in videos and academic papers that are at the limits of my grasp.  

The absence of grease, grit, and sand caking up my drive chain is something I do understand and don't miss. I can rotate the chain rollers between my fingers, and my derailleur wheels actually rotate.... unlike some I see parked outside cafes on my rides.  

The only adjustment required is lubing post-ride rather than pre-ride....and every month or so I pop the chain off, clean it, and immerse it in the wax, let it dry and go back to silent running.  

Bought - I'm all for anything than can help reduce maintenance.

I hate to sound like sour grapes on such an EXPENSIVE oil, but according to the editor he said that there are 50 applications for 12,000km, well I live in America so let me put that into our measurement system then you all can put that back into your measurements.  So basically if you divide 12,000 km, or 7,456 miles into 50 you get 150 (rounded up) miles per application for $44 per 2 ounce bottle.  So here's the weird thing, I use Dumonde Tech Lite lube, now this stuff you have reapply once after the first application and ride with the stuff on the chain, then reapply again about 100 miles after the second application, after that I only reapply it every 600 miles, and I could have gone longer because the chain isn't making noise! Then all you have to do is wipe the chain down between rides. Dumonde Tech Lite is only $16 for a 4 oz bottle.  

Dumonde holds up excellently to rain, I was bike camping and it rained all night on my bike, then I had to ride it in the rain the next day, that early afternoon when it stopped raining I heard no noise from the chain.

Silca has a way with fancy words, which they have to since they have to have some sort of excuse to sell very expensive products that you can find similar for less than half the price elsewhere, and so it's true with their lube.

On the colour of the review lube pictured vs the dark grey bottles you might see online / buy, this just in from Josh Poertner at Silca:

As the WS2 is a heavy nanoparticle that wants to fall out of suspension, it initially proved very difficult to keep consistent color with our bottling equipment as tiny changes in percentage made a notable change to the color, it only needs to be a light grey to get the job done, but a little extra can dramatically change the color.

We then had dealers and consumers sorting through the bottles assuming the darker ones were better (more is better right?) and ultimately made the decision to more than double the quantity of nanoparticle to achieve a more consistent dark grey color, so newer bottles are much darker than original bottles.

Having said this, there is no measurable performance advantage to this higher percentage, though there could be some performance decrease to having too few of them, so we have adjusted the formula to always err on the side of too much - which also provides more consistent coloration.  Shake well!

Looks like I don't even understand the basics here !

If you wipe the chain completely clean how do you stop the metal chain wearing against metal sprockets?

Or put another way - what is the main objective of a chain lube ?

I'm on my first application of Synergetic. I've only done about 150km so far but it's definitely quietened the drivetrain noise. I bought it off the back of ZFCs recommendation (that site is well worth a visit) as I'd tried waxing but it was just too time consuming amd messy.

If you buy this, remember to shake the bottle vigourously before application, the lube should turn black when it's been shaken enough.

Well it's certainly not cheap but I can see the logic of the economic arguments presented. Whilst I agree with the idea that the lube needs to be on the inside of the rollers and not on the out side of the chain in practice, if you ride throught the winter on salted and gritted roads the outside of the chain needs protection as well otherwise it rusts. The lubing procedure here is pretty much what I do, i.e. one drop per roller, spin the chain backwards a few times and wipe off excess lube. But in winter I do need to wipe the outside of the chain with an oily rag to prevent rust. I use and get good results with Muck Off Wet Lube which seems to last a long time between applications. I recently replaced the rear drive chain on our tandem with 5600 km on it without the need for a new cassette. This bike gets ridden several times a week for leisure and commuting (and touring) come rain, snow or whatever. Bearing in mind the extra load on a tandem's rear chain I think this is very impressive (it certainly impressed me). I feel I must give a shoutout to Shimano's HG54 chain here. I stopped fitting Shimano chains back in the late 80s when they started supplying them with their single use connecting rivet. I had always favoured Sedisport (now SRAM) chains anyway. However when I needed to replace the chain on our tandem the HG54 was the only one I could find at the time that had 116 links. Needless to say I have replaced it with another one.

I've no doubt the reviewer is greatly impressed by this stuff and it may indeed be the best.  But excuse me if I say I've heard all this before, many times.

We've had any number of miracle lubes over the last fifty years.  Some were the product of the space race, some were derived from the stuff that kept oil rigs functioning.  A few were liquid Teflon whilst others were from Australia, as if that were a recommendation.  One was so secret they wouldn't release the formula for Christ's sake.  

But, apart from the ever escalating prices, they all have one thing in common, they have disappeared into the crowd, merged into anonymity to be replaced by the next wonder gloop.  If it's still top-of-the-pops in a couple of year's time I'll try to wangle a bottle for  a Christmas present.