Guitar Ted Lube-Off: SILCA Super-Secret Lube Update

Disaster area: Yard sale scene at the checkpoint Saturday.

 NOTE: The Guitar Ted "Lube-Off" is an occasional series here on the blog where I pit chain lubrication products against each other to see what- if any- chain lubrication products are good for riding on gravel. These reviews are my opinions only and are not meant to be taken as the final word on any of these products. 

Generally speaking, the "Lube-Off" testing period before evaluation has been honed down to six hours of riding time. Well, the recent Renegade Gents Race had close to 5 hours of ride time alone, so I am posting an early update here- with a qualifier- that should be taken into consideration with this unique circumstance. 

If you read my Gents Race recap, and if you paid attention to the images, you saw the wet, muddy roads we had on that route. The typical Gents Race, when dry, would have provided a scene where a lot of sandy gritty dust would have been in play. However; since things were very wet, I experienced a different sort of issue- wet, gritty sand. Possibly some of the worst kind of crap to be dumping on your chain. 

I would have suspected that this would have led to a crunchy, rough sounding chain, shifting issues, and in bad cases, chain suck. I've had these sorts of issues in mountain biking races, wetter gravel events, and during commutes where Winter sand dumps can cause this sort of issue. 

All the way to the checkpoint, I heard no scrunchy, gritty chain noises and shifts sounded normal, despite the wet, mucky roads. If anything, my shifting was only degraded due to all the crap thrown at the down tube routed cables which run across the traditional cable guide under the bottom bracket on their way to the derailleurs.
 

So, that's really not too bad considering......

......that the roads were really wet and muddy. (Note deep rutting on the side where a bike crossed from the side.)

Further evidence that the Super Secret lube is "super" can be derived from my experience with the aMTBer lube. This was a lube that also purported to be a replacement for waxing the chain. Well, it did not last but 15-20 minutes in the sort of conditions I rode in Saturday at the Gents Race, which - as I said- was well over four hours of ride time. 

At the end of the day, I did a "Touch-Test", (sorry- no image for this) and it revealed a bunch of dried up dirt and grit on my fingers, but the chain looked like it did in the image above. So, I think I will run a micro-fiber cloth across this and clean up as best I can. Then I'll run it for a couple of hours more before rendering a final decision. 

Okay, stay tuned for more soon.