September 5th, 2006
Allenawi

Product Review:
Scottoiler Active Fluid System

September 3rd 2006. Fakawi gear testing day. It was a warm Sunday morning, although it has rained the previous night as I headed out to the rendezvous point to meet up with Chief. We are planning to drive together to the bash (Bike Hash for the uninitiated) in Ulu Rening. This bash with plenty of river crossing and steep climbs over muddy terrain seems to be godsend to test the Scottoiler Active Fluid chain lubrication system. Check out their website: http://www.scottoilerusa.com/

We have it in our grubby hands for a few weeks but did not want to waste it until the season and the planets are aligned properly. The witch doctor dictates that 3rd of September is the day! I am getting goosebumps with anticipation!

What sets it apart is not the simply pour on your chain type of lubricant but one that requires careful setup. The pictures below taken before the test shows the step by step surgery done on the jockey wheel and other gizmos complete the whole system.
The contents are graphic in nature so reader discretion is advised.

I am always jittery when it comes to doing anything to my rear derailleur. Having had enough crippling experiences with it, I ventured into removing the jockey wheel with fear and trembling. Thankfully nothing happened and the jockey wheel was successfully removed. Next we have to implant the Scottoiler’s jockey wheel (you have to select whether it’s SRAM or the other brands). This gizmo is really the key to the whole system. It consists of a grooved jockey wheel with grooves radiating outwards, a stainless steel cap to run in the fluid, a little piece of stainless steel piping, no sealed bearings but a washer instead (I don’t know what the exact name for it though). SRAM originally, kept the jockey wheel screw with blue Loctite but Scottoiler gave us superglue instead. To remain true to the project, I applied superglue to the screw and pray that I would be able to unscrew it next time.

The various jockey wheels for various rear
derailleurs that came with the package.
(The top black one is the original SRAM X.9 jockey wheel)

Unscrew the stock Jockey wheel

Clean the cage while you are at it

Special jockey wheel with feeding tube

Rear mech with Scottoiler jockey wheel
and tubing in place.

What amazes me what the whole reservoir, tubing and squid/pump setup looks so neat on my Specialized Epic – as if they were purposely designed for each other. Match made in bike heaven!. Check out the internal routing for all the tubes!

The "squid" under the top tube: simply squeeze it...

Anyway, installation was pretty idiot proof, though you probably need a friend to give you a hand. I think it works better. The installation instructions were OK, but the diagrams could be made a little clearer. Having a step by step diagram would have been better. I think in this respect, Ikea’s installation instructions are one of the best that should be emulated. Note: Ikea is not a sponsor of Fakawitribe.com.

All in all, installation was about half an hour and we are ready to roll. The instruction says we must first clean the chain, and to this they have provided the Scottoiler Cleaning Fluid. Incidentally that smelt exactly like some window cleaning fluid. Don’t know if we are supposed to reveal that but in any case you can take a whiff for yourself.
Anyway, whatever fluid it was, it works! The chain was squeaky clean – minus the squeaks of course. So the whole bike was nicely prepped up for the test. But before that we have the Chief’s bike as a control. We use the same cleaning fluid to clean the chain, but we will not install the active system on the Chief’s bike.

The Active Fluid (yellow bottle) and
Cleaning Fluid (small bottle).

The reservoir secured to the seattube, is connected
to the squid and the jockey wheel via tubing.
This is where all the liquid is stored.

The goals of this experiment are as follows:
1) Whether the system works
2) Whether the fluid itself works apart from the system
3) The difference with using other lubricants

So with those 3 simple goals in mind, we set off for our official test site – Ulu Rening – about 45 minutes from Kuala Lumpur.
Here’s what we did for the ride:
1) Put 16ml of the cool looking yellow liquid (Active Fluid) into the reservoir of my bike
2) Chief will generously put the yellow fluid unto his chain before the ride.
3) As I began to ride I gave the squid/pump a couple of squeeze to start the lubing process.
The fluid itself is non-oily nor does it have a waxy feel, and I love the cool yellow milk color. Top marks for the colour!

The website says that it has a water element and once it evaporates it leaves a film of some high tech unmentionable stuff that will protect your chain. I couldn’t resist but to show off the new gadget to other bikers and the sentence usually ends with the words “first in Malaysia”.
The first kilometer was a climb up a paved slope – nothing that would affect our experiment in any way, but soon after that we hit a river crossing. The water is about 6 inches deep and some parts of it are actually rideable. The whole river crossing section is about 1 km long! This is the first crucial test because whatever lube you have on your chain would have been washed off in the river.

Pedalling in the water

Out of the river

Back into the water

Chief did not have the luxury of the lubrication system so he is stuck with whatever left on the chain. After the river crossing, I would squeeze the squid a few times to replenish the Active Fluid on the chain (on the fly). There were muddy climbs, another river crossing and plenty of mud.
About halfway trough the ride Chief got his first chain suck. And as the pics below shows, the amount of mud on his chain is significantly more that on mine.

The amount of mud on the control chain

The amount of mud on the test chain

And all along the way, the Chief has numerous chain suck whereas I am gliding smoothly away. It is almost as if I was road riding. In the end I used almost 13ml (I just eyeballed it, OK) of the fluid for a total of 20+km of ride, although the conditions were harsh on chains. Imagine fine grain river sand and mud. A few of the bikers we met complained of chain suck also and this is good evidence that the Scottoiler did its job. I can confidently say so, because of the nature of my bike, the chain stay is very close to the wheel and when the chain runs on granny, mud always get deposited unto the chain. But this time it works perfectly.
I don’t pretend to know exactly how it works but here is the short skinny: - IT WORKS! If you are really interested, here is an excerpt from their website:

“How does it work? The system works not only by utilising the lubricating properties of the fluid, but by also utilising the 'flushing' properties of the oiler, enabling dirt and dust to be removed from the chain whilst riding. This is why the manual approach is in some respects better than a steady small drip rate.”

The control chain after the entire ride: DRY as a bone.

The Scottoiler chain after the entire ride: still clean and lubricated

There are also a few things that I like and dislike about the Scottoiler.
Likes:
1) It really works as claimed. Your chain is cleaned and it is lubricated. No questions there.
2) Dirt is washed out all the time and chain remains very clean. Any dirt or mud sticking on the chain can be hosed off. Chain cleaning has never been simpler.
3) Based on the Thesis (Published) by Dr. M. Kidd of Heriot-Watt University there is only a 1% difference in efficiency between commercially available oil, wax, and grease lubricants and ordinary tap-water. Amazing, how much we can protect the environment and say goodbye to greasy hands. More significantly he also found there is a 13% efficiency drop when chain is allowed to run completely dry! This is real cool stuff to me.

Dislikes:
1) The assembly. Although it is simple enough, it takes two heads and we were using far too much grey matter than what we would have liked.
2) The system of tubes and cable ties looks too much like a hobbyist contraption. I really wish there is a better way to deliver the fluid that is in the "squid". Squeezing with one hand on the top tube is not very ideal. There has to be some finesse to justify the revolutionary fluid cleaning/lubricating system. Some other automated delivery using gravity, capillary or dunnowhatiamtalkingabout method would be preferred to squeezing a tiny piece of silicon.

So there you go, Fakawi has just completed its first field test of the Scottoiler. I will leave it on my bike for some long term test. At the moment, I will give it the following rating (out of five):

Value for money: It is worth it in the long run, but since the conversion to RM from pound sterling will set you back quite a bit

Performance: . It really works.

Cool factor: . Tubing can be a snag problem riding in Malaysia. It makes the bike looks like it’s on IV.

-Allenawi