Muc-Off’s new Hydrodynamic Lube was developed with Team Sky and is claimed to be 15.5 percent more efficient than the brand’s C3 Wet Lube and 27 percent more efficient than the competition.
The Hydrodynamic Lube (£16 for a 50ml bottle) came to fruition as a result of Team Sky wishing to provide its riders with the most efficient and long-lasting wet (or dry and dusty) lube in the peloton – just one of the team’s famous marginal gains.
To collate the quantifiable data that Team Sky needed before adopting the new lube, Muc-Off built a Chain Lube Optimisation Dyno (CLOD), a chainring and sprocket rig that allows the brand to test chain lubricant in “micro detail”, giving quantitative data on efficiency and performance durability – unlocking comparisons between different formulations.
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Muc-Off's MD, Alex Trimnell, said: “After over 15 formulas and hundreds of hours of lab and real world testing, we arrived at our newest breakthrough… we can now prove with cold hard data that we are leading the way in bicycle lubricant development.”
That development process saw 426 days of formulation development and thousands of miles logged by Muc-Off’s own team before handing the prototype lubes on to Team Sky. A fittingly cyclical process then began with Team Sky riders testing each different formulation, before each lube spent 300 hours on the CLOD to get the data needed for reformulation.
After 11 rounds of testing – and over 18,000 miles in the legs of Team Sky riders – Muc-Off hit upon the winning formula, a high-strength film-forming lubricant, which, according to the brand, is 15.5 percent more efficient than its C3 Wet lube and 27 percent more efficient than an unnamed competitor’s premium option.
Team Sky's head of technical operations, Carsten Jeppesen, said: “Through months of collaborative work with Muc-Off we have managed to produce a world leading chain lubricant which has resulted in providing vital marginal gains for each rider during stage races.”
The Hydrodynamic Lube is designed for use in wet or dry and dusty conditions and is best applied three to four hours before riding. You can check proper coverage with the supplied UV torch to make sure you’re getting the same benefits as Team Sky.
Check out a video of Muc-Off’s Hydrodynamic Lube below. Find out more about it on the Muc-Off website.
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Video: Muc-Off’s new Hydrodynamic Lube
We’ll have some Hydrodynamic Lube in for testing soon.