Many years ago, there was a thing called the Rohloff Lubematic. It was a bottle of chain lube that sat in a holder on your seatstay, with a hose running down to the rear mech to dribble lube onto your chain. It was a bit clunky and did tend to make a dribbly mess all over the place, but it had its fans.

Well, now the idea’s made a reappearance. Scottoiler, best known for motorbike chain lubers, have launched a bicycle version. It looks quite cunning, with special jockey wheels so the lube ends up on the inside of the chain rather than the outside and a squeezy lube bottle that mounts at the top of the seat tube so you can lube on demand. And it apparently weighs just 2 ounces.

It’s called the Scottoiler Active Fluid System and is claimed to “dramatically improves the service-life, efficiency and cleanliness of bicycle transmission. Gone are the days of labour intensive and dirty methods of cleaning and lubricating your chain. The Active Fluid System does it for you – simply, without mess, without fuss.”

Bold claims – there’s one on the way, so we’ll see how the reality stacks up next week. In the meantime, you can get more details from www.scottoiler.com