You may just remember the Scottoiler, a gizmo inherited from the motorbike world that automatically oiled your bike chain. Well, this is a new development of that device. And, as we all love quirky niche cycling products, we thought we’d give it a go.
As with the Scottoiler, Flaer’s Revo Via is designed to regularly deliver drops of lubricant, pumped from a bike-mounted reservoir, directly onto your bike’s chain via a hose and rear derailleur-mounted dropper.
It has been used by the Orica-Scott pro team, but we’re not convinced there really is a need for such a product, especially considering its price.
Flaer claims the Revo Via can gain you up to 12 watts. The non-stick fluid does seem to lubricate effectively, it’s washable and biodegradable
If it does have an appeal, it's likely to be for a very small number of serious, competitive riders during day-long events in poor cycling conditions, where a regularly lubricated chain may just pay efficiency dividends.
Set up and performance
It takes about an hour or so to set up the device. You can use rubber straps to mount the lube reservoir/pump on the down tube, seat tube, seatpost or you can clip it onto bottle-cage bosses.
You zip-tie the hose to the driveside chainstay, avoiding any sharp kinks and then clip it to the rear derailleur cable. Then you remove the lower jockey wheel axle bolt (keep an eye out for flying washers), using a longer supplied bolt to attach the dispenser.
Then you cut the hose — measure twice, cut once. The illustrated instructions are reasonably clear and there are some good videos on Flaer’s website.
Flaer claims the Revo Via can gain you up to 12 watts. The non-stick fluid does seem to lubricate effectively, it’s washable and biodegradable. But, and it’s a very big but, while we don’t doubt that this does what it sets out to do, those power gains would be the very maximum possible and we reckon the improvement over a well-degreased and regularly looked-after chain would be much less.
Wipe your chain after every mucky ride, re-lubricate with a wet or dry lube depending on conditions, and this will save serious dosh, and is a good habit to get into.
We don’t like to criticise what is a neat piece of kit, but we can’t help but feel it is both expensive — £250 will buy a you an awful lot — and a solution to a problem that doesn’t really exist.
