Has anyone on here bought a Gates belt drive to retro fit to a bike? As opposed to buying a bike with a belt already fitted.
Where did you buy it from? I've emailed Universal Transmissions but not heard anything back.

I've done a few conversions and I've bought from them.

They don't seem to be responding to email at the moment.

Cheers. Just tried knicolai@gates.com too. Hopefully someone might reply. But i suppose it is europe and it is august…
What conversions have you done? Any tips?

I bought mine with a Van Nicholas frame. It is excellent.

I needed a different rear sprocket and Steven at Shand Cycles sorted me out with sprockets and the correct tools for removal. A different tool/adaptor is needed for each sprocket size. I'm sure he can get the other bits too.

An alignment gauge will be worth while but they're circa €130 but with belts being expensive it's probably a good investment.

This one and this one and this one and a few other I haven't got pics for (not Gates belt drives).

BTW the first 2 are in vertical dropouts – they're magic ratio setups 🙂

Do the belts stretch at all and end up ruining your magic ratio?

Not yet. Maybe some winter grinding mud will do that with sprocket wear.

It is claimed the belts will not stretch under the loads they will be submitted to on a bike.

Love the ultraniche! What's the first one? I had an idea about doing that to an e-stay frame, but i've got a kona A instead.

Don't do it to an elevated chainstay bike unless you have a snubber for the belt. The frames are too flexy and you need the snubber to prevent the belt riding up on the cogs. It is much simpler to add belt drive to a bike with elevated chainstays though. It's dead easy to make a snubber out of a skateboard wheel and a piece of flat steel.

It's better to convert a conventional bike – but first make sure it has stiff chainstays and sufficient clearance at the BB for the larger sizes of the belt cogs.

I was looking for a Kona-A to convert a while back – they look promising for conversion.