I’ve got a hankering to get a Cube Hyde Race as a new commuter so that I can keep my CdF in ‘CX mode’ permanently (whipping off and reattaching full length mudguards and swapping tyres is too much of a faff).

I like the look of the Cube but what’s belt drive like to live with purely for a commuter bike – as maintenance free as is to be believed?

I’ve a belt drive it’s not a commuter it’s a do everything bike. I love the belt drive it’s super clean and silent I was out one day for hours in the rain when I got back I stuck it in the cupboard wet and went on hols for 2 weeks. When I got back I pulled it out and went straight on a ride no cleaning oiling nowt. Mine is very maintenance free tho rohloff dynamo hydro discs and belt drive.
Any excuse for a pic 😉

I was quite keen on trying one until I read this thread http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/belt-drive-i-t-may-be-time-to-admit-defeat

I think the gist of it is you’re fine as long as you don’t need to go through any mud! As my commute is partly off-road I decided not to bother.

^^^ that bike above does look nice! What is the Rohloff/belt combo like when you get a puncture? Or do you run tubeless?

I’ve taken mine through the Mud no problem as have plenty of shand owners and no doubt many other belt drive owners. You gotta be happy with the gear ratio though as to swap and change would be expensive.

Nice Shand Fireatarter.

Do belts need a shed load of tension? Seem to be some people saying they reduce bottom bracket life?

Yeah seem to remember folk having off road issues when I last looked into belt drive a few years back. This’d be purely for urban commuting so no issues in that respect.

I absolutely love mine. Edinburgh Bikes own brand thing. Granted I don’t have a long commute at all (3 mile round trip!) but it does it every day without fail, plus all pub trips and the occasional canal path pootle with the kids seat on the front.
It’s been 100% trouble free the whole time. I wouldn’t go back to a chain on a town hack bike, provided I could find one at the right price when it needs replaced.

I had a workmate who has the EBC one. He absolutely loved it, shipped it back to NZ with him.

It doesn’t need too much tension at all tbh it’s looser than I’d have imagined before I got one

I was quite keen on trying one until I read this thread

MTG was/is a pretty serious killer of all equipment though, not just belt drives!

Do belts need a shed load of tension? Seem to be some people saying they reduce bottom bracket life?

That’s one of the biggest myths with belt drives. If you’re tensioning your belt to the point you’re prematurely wearing bearings (bb or hub) then you’re a doofus and you deserved to be publicly flogged by the belt for being an idiot.

What I’ve seen is people over-tensioning to prevent a skipping belt. In all of the cases of belts I’ve seen skipping, the root cause has been a wonky chainline. The beltdrive is pretty fussy that it’s running in a nice straight line. That means proper setup from the beginning making sure the belt isn’t running at an angle wanting to climb off the sprocket. Even if the initial setup is done correctly, you also need to be aware that with every pedal stroke, the back end is going to flex and you’re chainline is going to become less than ideal.

If the bike is designed for a beltdrive in the first place and can be shown to resist the flex, you’ll not have a problem with the belt skipping and you’ll be able to run the belt at a slacker tension than you may expect.

Another myth I see (not too often though) are belts that just snap with no warning. Sorry, but I’m not buying that. If the belt is running true and hasn’t been twisted and damaged, it’s not going to snap. No matter how big a gear you’re pushing and even if you’ve never skipped ‘leg day’, you’re not going to snap a belt in good condition. It’s impossible.

What is more likely, is that the belt has been damaged (run out of true, bent backward on itself etc…) to a point where it has cracked across the width. This crack will slowly grow and will eventually snap the belt. But it won’t just happen without warning, it’ll create a visible crack and it’ll make a very obvious noise. If you leave this unattended and carry on riding it’ll break eventually. I had a customer who’s belt was damaged in transit (crack about 1/2 way across the belt) and he rode for 150kms until I could get the new belt sent out to him. I still have the belt he returned, cracked at this point about 3/4 of the way across but he spotted it in time and it never stopped him riding.

It’s like running a chain that has lost one side the link, or running a frayed braked cable and then complaining that it ‘just snapped’ with no warning.

I think beltdrives are great. I ride them on the commuter (singlespeed and sometimes Rohloff), mountain bike (29er) and more recently on the Rohloff fatbike. I’m not going back to chains anytime soon.

Thanks for the info shandcycles, sounds reassuring

regarding tension on the Gates belt drive, there is actually a tool to set the belt tension properly, within the correct operating range

too tight and you tend to have premature wear on bottom bracket bearings and freewheel / hub bearings

too loose and you tend to get “ratcheting” where the belt teeth slip over the teeth on the rear cog under load

I dealt with a lot of the early (1st gen) Gates belt bikes when Evans sold the Trek Soho (commuter hybrid) and pretty much all of the issues we saw were related to incorrect belt tension and bad bike build quality, as shandcycles mentioned in their post, poor chainline caused the belt to “crab” (climb sideways under load).

Bear in mind these were just road going bikes, no mud was introduced into the drivetrain so I have no experience of off-road gates use.

Mechanics were uneducated on belt tension (no tool was provided to set tension) and a common issue was the aluminium alloy rear cog splines stripping against the steel freehub body and then slipping under power.

Trek then started supplying the Soho with an updated rear cog with steel core and aluminum alloy paddle. They also supplied some of the bikes with a chainring, rear toothed cog and chain in the bike box, for use as an alternative if problems developed.

regarding belt damage, I saw a couple of bikes comes back where debris (glass / flint / pieces of metal) had gotten into the drive belt whilst under power and caused the belt to split, similar to what you might see causing punctures on a road bike.

I attended a trade show where Gates had a stand and they did say you should never freely bend the belt as its very strong under tension but quite brittle if bent which can cause it to fail later on.