Silca Synergetic Lube - whose using it?

Yes, I bought some a month or so back after being directed to the ZFC site on a lengthy lube thread. It is much better IMO than WT-1 or Peatys, both of which I have mainly used over the past year. Runs clean and seems to last well in manky west of Scotland slop. 

I found a few comments from people here, links are in the first post of this thread - https://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/effetto-mariposa-flowerpower-drip-on-wax/

everything I’ve tried recently like wolftooth wt1

Terrible stuff. Perhaps a ploy to sell more drivetrain components from premature wear.

I put mine in the classified as free plus postage, someone actually took it. I did warn in the description how bad it was and referred to the ZFC test. I was expecting to have to recycle it.

Ah great sorry for only just getting back to the thread - I’ll have a read of that see what’s what - I’m really tempted to try I must say

Keen to hear how you get on with it, so please report back. I’ve seen lots of tests of people using it in dry places with good results. But it doesn’t take much for something to work well in those conditions

It is much better IMO than WT-1 or Peatys, both of which I have mainly used over the past year.

Interesting. I've not used WT1, but Peatys (ex Wickens & Soderstrum) is my favourite lube to to date. It's easy to live with and measurably does increase chain life - although not by a great deal without having to take the chain off the bike. Since its now 20 quid plus a bottle, its not much of a stretch to go to 30.

Any more experiences by now? Or with the E version?

There's a good description on their site of the difference.

https://silca.cc/en-gb/collections/bike-maintenance/products/synergetic-wet-lube
https://silca.cc/en-gb/collections/bike-maintenance/products/synerg-e-e-bike-lube

But in the ZFC table the E version does much worse. No detailed text review but there is a video

There are also some comments here

https://singletrackmag.com/2022/11/best-mountain-bike-chain-lubes/

https://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/best-non-horribly-black-and-sticky-wet-lube/page/2/

still using and liking the regular version, best non dry wax lube i have found for gravel and emtb

still using and liking the regular version, best non dry wax lube i have found for gravel and emtb

Interested in this, I'm slowly losing faith in hot waxing as a solution for gravel, even if a noisy chain isn't necessarily a sign that the wax has washed out, it's still unpleasant at the end of a long ride. Have to confess I'd probably put up with a dirtier drip lube if it kept chain running quietly for a whole ride (e.g. Fenwick's Professional which has never let me down).

I guess trade off might be drivetrain life if it's back to the bad old days of gunk and dirt working its way into the links

I’ve been using the Squirt E bike - Green bottle - on my normal bikes.  Seems to last for ages, my chains have had a constant waxy feel with 2 applications since March.

still using and liking the regular version, best non dry wax lube i have found for gravel and emtb

Have you tried any of the drip on waxes, and if so any comparison?

I'm very happy with Effetto Flowerpower but on a wet ride the chain is noisy by the end which doesn't sound healthy.

^^ yes, I use Silca SuperSecret on the road bikes. Can’t fault it on road but the synergetic lasts longer off road and mixed gravel in west of Scotland.

So my post-ride routine other than in dry summer on the MTB is to rinse the chain with water while rotating it until it's no longer brown flowing off the jockey wheel, bounce it then leave for a bit to dry, then reapply drip wax. The drivetrain will look a bit grey dirty after a few rides at which point I pour a kettle over it and gets it pretty clean.

What's it like with Synergetic?

Ive been using Synergetic on my road bike for about 1250 miles since mid April. My routine is to wipe the chain with a dry cloth after each ride, re lube on just the rollers every 250 miles and a deep clean with the chain off the bike at 1000 miles. So far so good. I have done no chain cleaning other than wiping it clean when washing the bike. Chain looks clean, no black gunge build up

Used Squirt for years but sick of little black bits getting all over the floor when I use the bike indoors on the rollers

Gravel and MTB still using rock n roll blue but chain life isn't as good as either of the above so will probably switch to Synergetic when the bottle runs out

What are people using to apply this? I read quite a few reports that the old needle type bottle top was way better for precisely applying small amounts.

The new bottle is fine, easy to control one drop per roller

I have been using it on all road bikes for my team (Me, Mrs BFW and son), I really like it and find after the initial faff of cleaning the chain, its really easy to use and maintain.

I still have so many other lubes in stock I just keep using those on mtb's

I've been a Peatys all weather premium link lube user since it was Wickens & Soderstrum and been very pleased with it, but it's really increased in price so much that Silca Synergetic isn't really that much more, so I'm trying the Synergy-E version that's more aimed at Eebs and terrible (Winter) conditions.

First ride out on it last night and the transmission ran a bit nicer than Peatys and was cleaner at the end of the ride (Peatys runs pretty clean anyway). Chain was alot quieter which I wasnt expecting.

Initial signs are favourable.

How are people cleaning their chains before applying Synergetic?

I'm trying to spend the least possible money this winter so if I can just drip Synergetic onto a new chain with factory lube still applied (as Silca suggest you can) then that's great. Alternative is buying some Finish Line Citrus degreaser (is this still the best chain degreaser?) but I would probably still need a chain cleaner as my old ones are knackered or just not very good (why so many brushes for the side plates of the chain??).

Of course I could just use my ancient pot of Putoline but I think I overcooked it ages ago and don't really want to commit to it on a new drivetrain, am only keeping it for the winter road bike as I can't be bothered cleaning it all off and starting anew.

Same as for drip wax for first application I reckon, Zero Friction Cycling method - shake in a container (jam pot size) with a few rounds of white spirit, followed by meths.

No point getting a fancy lube and mixing it on top of with awful factory grease. £20 for the lube then what £5 from Screwfix for the cleaners.

as Silca suggest you can

I guess they just have to say this from a commercial perspective as a lot of the target market couldn't be bothered with any hassle. The test results will be for on a clean chain.

Plenty bristles helps get everything cleaned quicker...if looking to do it properly cheap, 2 toothbrushes stuck together so the bristles are almost touching. Soak rag in degreaser and run chain through it, then dip toothbrush solution in degreaser and pedal backwards with chain between toothbrush bristles. Keep applying the degreaser to the toothbrush bristles for a half dozen times or so.

Still not enjoying the fabled longevity benefits, barely got 80km out of my last application, although was riding some very wet trails...

Does it need repeated applications to 'build up' or something?

Beginning to wonder what I'm doing wrong that I can barely get one ride out of any application of any lube! Fenwick's still seems to be top of the heap but I haven't tested that in winter conditions really.

I've been trying the synerg-E variant. As oils go it's pretty good, but at this time of year anything you add is so contaminated in one ride it doesn't really fair any better than peatys. So, you get half the volume for 50% more the price. The economics don't stack up for me, and it's so viscous it's more of a pain to apply per link.

I'm going to try the super secret drip wax next. It's meant to perform better than synergy oil, and its lack of durability at this time of year doesn't matter if I'm applying it after every ride. It costs the same as peatys premium if you shop around, so should be comparable running cost and hopefully extend chain life a bit.

I still haven't applied my Synergetic. Double applications (drying inbetween) of Effetto Flowerpower is holding up to the wet.

Beginning to wonder what I’m doing wrong that I can barely get one ride out of any application of any lube!

Things that can prevent wax/advanced lubes adhering…

KMC chain

Not removing factory grease.

err that’s about it I think…

Three times the price of Finish Line for half the amount...crikey blooming blimey!

Ok, revisiting thread as I'm starting to get better performance, I think a combination of not pedalling through jockey-wheel deep flooded tractor tyre ruts has helped, perhaps also repeated applications 'building up'.

What I tend to forget is that for a lube which will last 200km of sloppy winter singletrack, it runs so clean! Fingers come away from touching chain with only the faintest dirty tramlines.

Is it worth deep cleaning chain now and then? I'm wary of flushing out any accumulated 'treatment' that might have built up, but don't want to leave lots of contaminant in their grinding away at chain either...

I suppose deep cleaning might help the chain last a bit longer but possibly not enough to make it cost effective. Spend the money on a top quality chain. As it’s a drip on lube it probably takes multiple applications to get it fully into all the rollers so having to start that again after a deep cleaning seems counter intuitive to me. Unlike an immersive wax which will pretty much fill all the gaps in the rollers first application I would imagine.

I would definitely run the chain through a cloth soaked with IPA regularly though.

It's still a wet lube and like all wet lines, it needs to be cleaned and refreshed every so often.

Silca do an interesting video on how to apply any lube for maximum penetration.

It’s still a wet lube and like all wet lines, it needs to be cleaned and refreshed every so often

Yeah, just a balance between removing the good accumulation of particles (presumably the magic grey stuff in the bottle) vs. the bad accumulation of muck. I'm half inclined just to leave it be and enjoy the performance and long application life, and risk the chain wear...

^^ I find a surface wipe with a dry microfibre cloth works well

Sounds great for the crud on the outside, but the issue with oil based lines is that they suspended abrasive particles and mask the noise of that abrasion

ZDDP is a fairly common additive though, and relatively easy to get hold of.  It's the most common additive in oils for classic cars and pre-cat* Harley V-twins as it's great at protecting the cams and followers in pushrod engines.

*like a lot of metals it's poisonous to catalysts.

You could add some to a hot-wax.  This is enough to treat ~5l of engine oil so I guess about 10-20ml of it would be enough to treat 500g of hot wax which wouldn't be enough to noticeably soften it IME based on how much gearbox oil I've mixed with Parafin wax to try and make it less flaky.

www.frost.co.uk/zddplus-anti-wear-oil-additive/

The trouble I'm having with DIY wax is trying to make it half as tenacious as Putoline is proving difficult. Additives are tricky because there's no way of assessing their impact without going full ZFC on the project. Thankfully effective concentrations of things like WS2, ZDDP, PTFE, Graphite etc are commonly known so aside from cost there's nothing stopping me just chucking in whatever friction modifiers I think might work.  However that's the marginal gains, what I want to crack is how to make it stick to the chain particularly as two of my bikes currently have KMC chains.

I've got a couple of ideas I want to try but they're chemistry (producing a hard grease rather than a 'wax') rather than just physical mixing which would mean committing money to the project beyond my current slow cooker.

That and for MTB use I'd like to make a "green" wax.  The roads are already covered in all sorts of toxic detritus and heavy metals from cars. But I'd like to make a soy based wax (so it would be biodegradable) with only graphite added so that there wasn't the Zinc, tungsten, PTFE etc going into the environment, even in small quantities.

I've been using Synergetic lube for over 1000km of mixed terrain riding. I'm not convinced by it:

I'd previously used Squirt on all of our bikes; that worked well, although it washed off too quickly in wet conditions and left a grey build up of wax in dry conditions. It was easy to clean off though, easy to apply, and I was generally happy with it (probably used for 4 years and 30,000+km).

Currently trying Synergetic on a couple of the bikes as an experiment. Always warmed up a bit, properly shaken-up, then applied to a thoroughly clean and dry drive-chain. The chain runs lovely and smoothly, however, it's wet weather performance deteriorates fairly quickly. Just returned from a 3-day, 200km road/off-road ride (camping). The chain (GX) was clean and lubed before setting off. On return, the chain was a rusting mess, and had become very noisy on day 3. Conditions were only "really wet" on the final day. Clearly, this Synergetic lube needed re-applying on day 3. So that's not really any better than the Squirt that I had been using.

I have a 250km (each way) road ride planned for this weekend. I'll see how the Synergetic fares on that.

That sounds similar to my early experiences, first couple of applications seemed to just about last 70-80km prr application, albeit some pretty filthy wet conditions (riding through flooded sections of trail, river crossings etc where the rear jockey wheel and chain could well have been partially submerged).

Subsequent applications have lasted longer, am now on 200km of snowy/muddy and often very wet riding, and it was still running smooth and quiet when I got home. Much like wax though I don't think it offers much surface coating, so I'm sure to give it a very thorough run through an oily rag after a ride (maybe what was missing on your camping trip?).

For my purposes 200km per application is good enough, and a worthwhile trade off for the performance and cleanliness. A big improvement over waxing.

I’m sure to give it a very thorough run through an oily rag after a ride

interested in this, any oil, or a GT85 type light oil ?

No, just a general purpose oily rag 😆

Actually I think it's the same one I use to wipe off the excess after an application of lube.

In the past I've doused it with Juice Lubes Viking Juice just because I have a bottle of it to use up.

Ultimately I think it's more the effect of removing the surface water, rather than what the rag leaves behind.

I think it’s more the effect of removing the surface water

my thinking also, and why I have been using a dry microfibre one

Ha, yes, now you mention it, using an oily rag to remove water probably isn't quite as effective as using a dry one!

This is my chain after getting home yesterday, hosing it off and running through a rag. There's actually more faint rust staining around the rollers than I had realised but it looks more like residue of dirty water than actual physical corrosion, I expect that will disappear once I reapply the lube (bearing in mind the chain is virtually dry at this point, not much lube left!).

I’m currently trialing Molten Speed Wax topped up with Silca Super Secret after a damp ride and this seems to work a lot better than simply rinsing the road grime off then drying. Only done a couple of short rides so far but no rust….

@stanley

I'm seriously impressed by your rides. I've been using enzalutamide for over 18 months now and it's just sucking the life out of me. Even bought an ebike to keep me going but most days I can see it far enough. Shouldn't complain given the alternative but it's really starting to pi55 me off.