This Electronic Chain Lube System Might Be Overkill (Unless You're Racing Unbound)
Faction and Andrew L'Esperance built a 100g electronic chain lube system for gravel racing. It's clever engineering for a problem most riders don't have.
Faction Bike Studio and Andrew L'Esperance built an electronic chain lube dripper that hides in your seat tube and dispenses lube mid-ride with a handlebar button. It's designed for gravel races where stopping to lube costs you time and a gunked-up chain costs you watts. The system weighs 100g, uses a metered dose timed to your cadence (~75 rpm), and positions a custom dripper above the chainring. Unbound 200 this weekend is the first real race test.
Here's the catch: this solves a problem most of us don't have. Unless you're racing 200-mile events in variable conditions where every watt and every second matters, carrying an extra 100g of lube infrastructure is overkill. Previous auto-lube systems (Rohloff Lubmatic, Scottoiler) didn't gain traction, likely because the market for mid-race lubrication is tiny. If you're a dad squeezing in a local gravel century, a pre-ride wax job and a backup lube packet in your jersey work fine. But if you're chasing podiums in the Flint Hills and can't afford to stop? This might be the edge you didn't know you needed—assuming it doesn't clog, leak, or add one more thing to troubleshoot at mile 150.
