The Chainlink

Belt Drive Perception

You may have seen my bikes at the bike swap and saw that my new model is compatible with Gate Carbon Drive and the step through bike I built for NAHBS had the belt drive on it. 

Well, at the bike swap I got a lot of people that didn't even know it existed, even some attendees at NAHBS didn't know or had never seen it. Before I built with it, I had never ridden one, but I knew it existed.

Gates has made them for a few years and are on their first major revision that eliminates the problem of slipping off the cogs. They have designed a great product that is superior to chains in most ways except price and frame setup requirements.

Has anyone had any experience with them? Good, Bad, Ugly

Do you think they will take off? Gates is making a big push with this new Center Track technology.

 

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Permalink Reply by djm on March 15, 2013 at 4:28pm

Jeremy said:

Belt drives seem like the perfect fit for commuting somewhere flat in not great weather, i.e. winter in Chicago.  Someday I might try a conversion kit on a beater bike....


Unfortunately most conventional bikes cannot be easily converted to belt drive because the belt must pass through the frame — it is not separable as is a chain.

Permalink Reply by Dave Grossman on March 15, 2013 at 5:46pm

I have a Civia Bryant with Gates and Alfine 8 and Avid mechanicals.  I have commuted on it year round for nearly two years.  It is the real deal.

While rear wheel removal and tensioning is tricky, it is basically smooth and maintenance free.  I highly recommend the application.  Also I can wear any kind of pants I want without a guard and not get stuck or grease on my legs.

Permalink Reply by Dave Grossman on March 15, 2013 at 6:24pm

There is also an application for your smart phone from Gates for belt tension.....

http://www.gates.com/news/index.cfm?location_id=752&id=11512&am...

Permalink Reply by Joe Guzzardo on March 15, 2013 at 11:15pm

This looks really cool. I'm gonna have to check this baby out.

Permalink Reply by Paul Michael Ignacio on March 15, 2013 at 11:35pm

We've had a few at the shop.  It really does make for an ideal everyday commuter setup.  One thing that hardly gets mentioned is how eerily silent belt drives are.  You never realize how loud even a well-adjusted chain-based drivetrain is until you ride a belt drive.

Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on March 16, 2013 at 10:42am

My $.02 is that they are neat and a belt drive is a great idea although there are some major hurdles for them to overcome, mainly price.

  • They pretty much require a special frame unless the technology changes with today's endless belts.  That is expensive as it precludes using used/vintage/current frames and retro-fitting.  Low-volume special-purpose frames are always expensive.
  • They are not compatible with derailleur geartrains.  I'm a big fan of the Internally Geared Hub and would like to see it make a comeback, but they are not cheap right now on the whole.  Decent 7-8 speed hubs cost as much as many mid-level bikes.  Again, this drives up costs.  IGH's are still too low-volume at this point in time to be accessible to the general bike-buying public.
  • They are not very compatible with current cranksets since they are so wide it requires a huge change in the chainline and if one tries to retro-fit a chain crankset  with a belt chainwheel (also very expensive these days) one ends up with a Q-factor/tread that borders on the ridiculous and bothersomely wide for some folks. So basically a builder needs special cranks which right now are low-volume and very pricey.
  • The belts themselves and the cog/wheel sets are prohibitively expensive.  Again this is a volume thing where this design has not even come close to even a niche adoption rate or any mass-production economies of scale.

None of these things are deal-breakers on this technology going forward.  It's just a matter of belts showing up on more mass-produced models to get the issues I outlined above fixed with regards to high prices.  When we see belt-driven bikes showing up at Walmart and other big-box stores the technology will driven by volume.  

There is no real reason why manufacturing belt-driven bicycles with IGH's needs to be any higher than today's derailleur-based chain-driven bikes.   In fact, I think it should be cheaper as the tolerances don't need to be nearly as tight.   The only really hard thing is ironing out the standard in removable sections of the chainstay or the dropout lugs to allow the insertion of the endless belt or somehow solve the problem of making a link for the belt so that isn't necessary.

I jsut don't see this happening any time in the next few years.  It'll be a slow adoption and the early adopters are going to pay bleeding-edge prices for it.

I am impressed by just how quiet they are.  But a well-adjusted chain is pretty darn quiet too. 

Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on March 16, 2013 at 10:52am

I have one of these Kricket belt tension gauges that I use when working on cars. It's not perfect and is easy to use incorrectly but it is still way better than doing it by "feel" or buying a special belt gauge that costs thousands of dollars.  Maybe someday I'll use it on a bicycle.  I'd love to add a belt-drive bike to my stable someday when they come down into my price range.


Dave Grossman said:

There is also an application for your smart phone from Gates for belt tension.....

http://www.gates.com/news/index.cfm?location_id=752&id=11512&am...

Permalink Reply by Joe Guzzardo on March 17, 2013 at 4:45pm

So I poked around the web looking for belt drive bicycles. It seems that the ultimate touring/commuter drivetrain would be a Gates carbon drive belt coupled with a Rohloff 14 speed hub. I've seen the Co-Motion Pangea and the Americano, both of which will set you back around $5,500.00. You can also get a Tout-Terrain Metropolitan and Amber Road for around the same price, I believe, from peterwhitecycles.com. If you visit that site, check out his WMD page. I picked up some plutonium at a good price. Just need a few more kilograms and I'll be ready to rock and roll.

Permalink Reply by Seri97 on March 17, 2013 at 9:45pm
My new bicycle has both the internal hub and belt drive.
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Permalink Reply by Christopher Wallace on March 22, 2013 at 7:46pm

Talk with Phil Wood machinist, they have made parts for these for years and have great input on issues

Permalink Reply by Thunder Snow on March 22, 2013 at 9:53pm

Diego-- thanks for the clarification.  I've never needed to change belts and I've never seen one packaged.  I got the impression they were packaged coiled tightly, since the Gates instruction video (below) devotes a big chunk of time explaining how to safely uncoil it while opening the package.  (See especially 52 seconds in).  The video is a couple years old, so maybe Gates stopped shipping them coiled up, if they had too many damaged returns.  Sorry if I led you astray, your picture is the first replacement belt I've ever seen.  Knock on wood, I'll go a few more years without needing a replacement, as they sound pricy.

Permalink Reply by paulcycles on March 23, 2013 at 11:33pm

I still have a 1974ish Panasonic folder that uses a belt, very similar to the Gates product.

I only retired it due to rust in the steel rear hub.  That hub contains a drum brake that frozen from humidity as I keep it in my garage prone to excess humidity (poor vending) in the very rainy months of our summers & too much time on bike racks outside, and uncovered.

With some hard maintanence or a new rear wheel/hub it's still ready to go-- just replaced by ither steads including a folder with a bag for my West line rail commutes- Wheaton to LOOP.

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