Fayetteville-based Triboflux aims to keep your drivetrain running smooth for miles and miles.

By Kai Caddy

Bicycle maintenance is a necessary evil. To keep your miles as stress-free as possible, some work has to be done to keep your bike running smoothly.

A Fayetteville-based company is looking to ease your maintenance woes and make your ride smoother and more efficient for 300-plus miles at a time.

Triboflux, run by founder and CEO Samuel Beckford, manufactures a hydrophobic wax-emulsion chain lubricant that promises to extend the life of your drivetrain and keep things running smoothly in the worst of conditions. And there’s no need to dip your chain in a pot of hot melted wax — this lubricant goes on just as easily, if not easier, than traditional oil-based lubes.

Beckford and Triboflux’s parent company SurfTec began conducting research in the world of surface engineering in 2016. Triboflux officially launched this year, but it’s been in the works since 2020.

“We published a lot of articles on the use of nanoparticles to prevent wear on surfaces and to extend the life of some lubricants,” Beckford said. “And somehow, and I don’t know how, some of the founders of Allied Cycleworks read one of our articles that was published in a research magazine related to tribology. They came to us and they let us know they had seen our research, and they wanted us to possibly work with them, to develop a product, for gravel riding specifically.”

A research lab first, the crew went to work testing 20 to 30 of the leading lubes on the market. They came up with 200-250 formulations of their lube and in 2021, brought it to market with Allied as Grax. That test run was vital for the future of Triboflux. After leaving Allied, the product was brought back in-house and continued to be developed into what’s now known as Triboflux.

“I think one of the most interesting parts about developing Triboflux was being able to iterate,” Beckford said. “Change the formulation a little, see how it reduced friction, maybe it wasn’t as water -repellent or allowed for grit to accumulate more, so we had to play around with some things and change the formulation. We were able to repeat that multiple times and use the equipment that we have in the lab, the tribometers, to develop the product.”

Research on the new formulation was completed last year, and that’s when Beckford decided to try and commercialize it.

“We want to make it the official lube of Arkansas. We want to get the name out here and then branch out.”

— Samuel Beckford, Triboflux founder & CEO

Triboflux was selected to be a part of the University of Arkansas’s Greenhouse Outdoor Recreation Program, an accelerator for small businesses in the outdoor recreation space.

“Especially being located here in Northwest Arkansas, we thought this was a product we wanted to take direct to the consumer,” Beckford said. At SurfTec we make a lot of products for the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy. But this was the first project that we were developing to be direct to the consumer.

“We’re really proud of it, really proud of the performance. We want to make it the official lube of Arkansas. We want to get the name out here and then branch out.”

The product is uniquely Arkansan. Its initial development for gravel riding meant it had to stand up to some of the harshest environments a bike chain would have to endure. And the team tested it as so.

In one lab test, Triboflux tested its formula against an OEM-greased chain and chains lubed with four of the leading traditional and wax-based lubricants. The chains were tested in dry and muddy conditions. The chains were run continuously for three hours on a servo-motor-driven drivetrain. Each chain was run at identical tension, speed and runtime.

“One of the key things we did, especially with gravel riding in mind, was to create an environment — the nastiest environment — where you had a lot of accumulation of mud and dust on the surface,” Beckford said. “We collected local soil here in Northwest Arkansas that was high in quartz content because we wanted the soil to be very abrasive. We created a slurry from the soil and applied it to the surface of the chain as we were running our tests. We would measure the watts, expand it and see at what point the watts started to rise.”

Triboflux’s average steady-state drivetrain power loss in clean conditions was 23.5 watts, 27 watts during the muddy test. The other lubes averaged between 24-26 watts loss dry and 28-31 watts muddy. The OEM grease fared the worst, losing 28.4 watts dry and 34.8 watts in the muddy test.

“Especially when we applied the mud slurry, with a lot of lubes, the required power to drive the system shot up almost instantly. But for wax in general and for Triboflux that’s where we saw really good performance and that’s where we derived the 300 miles from before even testing real-world conditions. But now we have tested in real-world conditions to verify.”

But this lubricant isn’t just for those putting in monster miles on gnarly gravel.

“Testing it for gravel was essential because we wanted to put it into the most demanding conditions — long distance, exposure to dust, mud and rain,” Beckford said. “But we also tested the product in high-torque applications — e-bikes and even for motorbike applications, which is something that we’re looking at going into the future. And it performs really well.

The product is uniquely Arkansan. Its initial development for gravel riding meant it had to stand up to some of the harshest environments a bike chain would have to endure.

“It’s a great lube for the average rider or commuter. It’s designed to withstand the harshest environments and show the best efficiency for competitive riders. But anybody can use it. If you want to extend the life of the components of your bike, whether you’re going to compete, whether you’re an avid rider or just picking up riding, this is the perfect product for you. It’s easy to apply, it’s easy to clean and it doesn’t have the complications of applying hot wax or the problems you run into with some lubricants where you apply the lube and it’s hard to remove off the surface and you have a lot of residue that builds up. You don’t see that with our product. So, the ease of use is something we think that makes it attractive for the beginner.”

Beckford is encouraged by sales already and the lube is starting to find its way into bike shops in Northwest Arkansas.

“We did a soft-launch last year and then our e-commerce site was officially launched this year,” he said. “Things are going well.

We’re in four stores in Northwest Arkansas and hoping to grow quickly from there. We’re hoping to be in the majority of stores here in Northwest Arkansas, especially the big franchises.

“We’re starting to see sales and e-commerce grow pretty quickly. We have a decent following as well online, which lets us know there’s a big interest for the product.”

Beckford and his team aren’t resting on this product. A signature blend lube is in the works, and a drivetrain cleaner will join the line of products very soon.

“Triboflux has the benefit of being a research lab, so we’re already working on what we’re launching next,” Beckford said. “We have a new lubricant that we will be hopefully launching in a year from now. We want to have that as a signature blend for some of our sponsored athletes to start off with and then launch that product.

“But we’re always coming up with new things and innovating. We have a cleaner for drivetrains that’s called Fluxclean that works on waxes. Typically, to clean wax or hot wax, you have to take it through a stripping process. It’s very complicated to remove from the surface of your chain. We have a product that easily removes, especially drip waxes, from the chain.

“We’re continuously developing products with the rider in mind. Right now we have the lubricant, the cleaner, we have cleaning accessories like brushes and microfiber towels. We want to be the go-to for your drivetrain care: cleaning and lubing.”