There's No Faster Lube Than Snake Oil

Well my Cat 6 racing career is about to take a quantum leap forward, because I'm sending all my chains in for customized lubing:

(Via @Pentti_)

You may remember that Ceramic Speed was selling a "race-day-only" chain for like $165.  At the time I naively thought this was a sign that we'd attained "Peak Fred," but now it seems positively quaint compared to "an exclusive personal service" whereby your chain is "hand treated with a unique Speed Film Lubrication:"

Muc-Off is offering an exclusive personal service where you can purchase a Shimano, Campagnolo or SRAM chain that is hand treated with a unique Speed Film Lubrication; NanoTube Chain Optimisation.

The Ceramic Speed is also a relative bargain when you consider the Muc-Off is closer to two hundred (200) American Fun Tickets:

The prices are:

Shimano RRP £135
SRAM RRP £137
Campagnolo RRP £140

Muc-Off?  More like Fuck Off.

So how do they do it?

"Each chain is painstakingly speed graded and run-in under load during which data is taken to find its optimum. Now it’s sonic cleaned in several formulas and hand treated with the Nanotube formula, then nanotube particles are applied. It’s now finally ready for track, triathlon, road or MTB competition straight out of the box. This is perfect for you if you have a major race or event coming up.

Indeed.  By the way, if you're wondering what the proprietary "Nanotube formula is," let's just say it's extracted by hand from an organic source:

Then, once they've got a trough full of "Speed Film Lubrication" (this takes anywhere from one to six hours depending on whether the organic source "entertained" the night before), your chain is lovingly bathed in it:

Eeew.

And while the proprietary $200 Cipo-Jizz treatment will eventually wear off your $200 chain, it does work again after a brief refractory period, just like Cipollini himself:

"Once you are ready to clean the chain then you can still bring your chain back to within 1-2 watts of when it is at its optimum by applying the top up Nanotube Speed Film Lube available on the Muc-Off website. This means you can thoroughly clean and re-treat your chain for many more hundreds of miles of ultimate speed. It won't be as fast as when it was first treated as we use a special technique and processes to ensure the formula is driven deep into each link for 100% coverage (we also apply a powder externally) but you can still achieve significant savings. Don’t worry it will still be one of the fastest chains on the planet!" 

"Driven deep into each link for 100% coverage" indeed.

Just make sure to always handle your chain while wearing latex gloves lest you find yourself inadvertently impregnated.  (You run this risk regardless of your gender, as years of PEDs and male enhancement treatments have rendered Cipollini universally potent.)

Speaking of slime, I received an important press release informing me that someone called Jan Frodeno is now the official brand ambassador for something called pjur ative!

As the most successful triathlete in the world today, Jan Frodeno is now also the official partner and brand ambassador of pjur active! This multiple IRONMAN and Olympic champion is completely won over by pjuractive 2skin - the new gel for the prevention of chafing and blistering: "In the past, I often had problems with sores and blisters. But thanks to 2skin I no longer experience chafing, even during long open water swimming sessions or after endless miles of cycling and jogging", says Jan Frodeno. 

Hey, I don't know who any of these people are, but congratulations to Mr. Frodeno on solving the crotch problems that have apparently dogged him throughout his career:

Hopefully soon we'll see a Hollywood biopic about how Frodeno transcended scranus sores and taint blisters thanks to his own perseverance as well as the brilliant scientists at pjur active...

...or, maybe it will be a Morlan Spurlock documentary about how pjur active is made using inhumane 19th century farming techniques:

Yes, that Cipollini is a one-man unguent factory.

Meanwhile, you've heard of fat bikes, and you've heard of gravel bikes, and you've even heard of dedicated lunch ride bikes, but I've got a feeling that the hot new segment is going to be weather station bikes:

Yes, microclimates are the new gravel:

GPS, fisheye lens camera, barometer, humidity gauge — it’s not a newfangled smartphone, it’s a research-grade weather station mounted on a cargo bike, designed by University at Buffalo architect Nicholas Rajkovich to measure the microclimates of Cleveland.

Which is why you need a dedicated weather bike to explore them:

“If you could start to correlate having trees with increased temperatures, or certain types of pavement with increased temperatures, you can start to write policies about what you want to do in the city to reduce the urban heat island effect,” says Rajkovich. “Most of the time when you take these measurements they are done at the airports or they’re done from satellites taking pictures from the ground. … [The bicycle weather station] gets at the microclimates we experience on a day-to-day basis but that maybe aren’t as well studied.”

Just check out these specs, which will surely have the Meteorology Freds drooling:

Rajkovich’s 25-pound bike is mounted with about 50 pounds of equipment, including instruments to record air temperature, ground surface temperature, bike speed, humidity and solar radiation, plus a GPS device mounted to a 6-and-a-half-foot tower on the back and a fisheye lens camera on the handlebars, pointed straight up, creating a record of tree canopy and other cover. Readings were logged to an onboard hard drive.

Though this guy is never going to make it in the bike industry, because he thinks he can make weather bikes simpler and cheaper:

Now that he understands the bike’s maneuverability, Rajkovich is looking to take weather cycles to Cleveland’s neighborhoods. The original tricked-out weather station bike cost $16,000 to build. Rajkovich thinks he could equip simpler bikes, perhaps with just temperature and humidity gauges, for around $150.

Ridiculous.  In fact Specialized is already working on a weather line, and they're confident they can sell their S-Works Thor ThunderClap Roubaix SL with integrated Doppler radar for at least $25,000.

Lastly, the dream of the '90s is apparently alive in Brooklyn, because here comes something called the Brooklyn Bike Rave:

Bedazzle your bikes, put on your craziest outfit, blast some party tunes and be ready for sensory overload at the Brooklyn Bike Rave, a glowtastic night ride along the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway.

The Brooklyn Bike Rave departs Greenpoint at dusk and takes participants on a 7.5 mile ride along the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway, stops under the iconic Archway under the Manhattan Bridge in DUMBO for entertainment, music, refreshments and lighting design by Ionic Design Group, continues through Brooklyn Bridge Park and finishes in Red Hook. The group rides en masse and ride marshals will set a family-friendly pace (in other words, slow). This is not a race.

Not a race!?!

Well forget it then!

I'm not wasting any miles on my $200 chain for that.