Eurobike 2017 Bike Check: Nicolai ION-G13 Belt Drive

It rained a lot at Eurobike, torrentially, for around 30 hours straight at one point. One of us took a belt drive commuter bike with a geared hub and full mudguards to ride around between the show and the camp site. One of us took a jump bike with wide tyres, and a seat only slightly higher than the bottom bracket. Guess which one of us was incredibly smug? The answer was none of us, when we all got back and found our tents were leaking. That said though, the commuter bike hasn’t had any maintenance done in the past year, and has been through all kinds of rain and filth without a single hiccup (and it didn’t soak anyone’s entire back and bum through in Friedrichshafen either).

Gates are launching white belts to celebrate their first decade.

Gates Carbon Drive have been supplying chainrings, sprockets and belts for a decade now. Between Gates and various frame manufacturers such as Nicolai and Cavalerie, they’ve made a small ecosystem (relative to the rest of the bike industry) and kept it running. It may be a niche, but it seems to be a healthy one. To celebrate that, Gates have launched some special edition white belts. In itself not so newsworthy, but there was a Nicolai on their stand that very much caught our eye.

From this side, and covered in mud, you could easily mistake it for a non-gearbox, non-belt drive bike.

The ION-G13 is a 130mm, 29er with Nicolai’s GeoMetron geometry, four bar linkage suspension, and a Pinion gearbox. We couldn’t quite see through the mud, but the gearbox is either a Pinion 1.12, or a 1.18 (you can probably guess how many speeds each of those has), respectively giving gear ranges of 600% or 636% – which is a wider range than most 2x or 3x setups. Gearing on the belt is 1:1, with a 39t sprocket at each end. Unlike most belt drive bikes, it also has a little idler wheel behind the gearbox. Of course, the suspension is designed to have no chain growth whatsoever, as the belt has to run at the correct tension. Nicolai say they’ve tuned the frame to work specifically with Fox suspension, but also do it with a Rockshox option too.

It was ridden by Sascha Hasenstein in the Scott Upland Enduro.

Note is has a through axle rather than sliding dropouts – neither the axle nor the brake mount move backwards, so they need another way to keep adequate tension on the belt.

So unlike most, the belt drive also uses an idler wheel for tension.

One of the ways of testing that is with the sound the belt makes when you twang it, so Gates have launched an app that uses the microphone on your smartphone.

If I let a bike with a chain dry off in this state, I’d be *so* ashamed. It’s not a problem for belts though.

The ION-G13 comes stock with 1:1 gearing, though you could theoretically tweak the sprocket sizes to bump the entire gearbox range toward climbing or speed.

Who needs all the travel in their dropper, eh?

Underneath all of that crud, there’s a gearbox and it’s still running.

This G-13 had a pretty strong showing from Lancashire on it – Hope brakes and wheels, plus Renthal handlebars.

Unusually, save for a port in the seat tube for an internally routed dropper post, all the cable routing on this is external.

No zip ties here though; neat anodised, bolt on cable clips hold everything in place.

The suspension is optimised to go with a specific Fox tune, and the frame is available in five sizes from S to XXL.

Pinion gearboxes have a range of 600% or more.

Here’s one more image of that white-belted mountain bike. It probably won’t stay white for long.

What do you think? Would you buy a belt driven mountain bike? Is not being able to fix a broken drivetrain with a quicklink a worthwhile tradeoff for almost maintenance free performance in bad weather and rarely if ever having to clean it?

David Hayward

David started mountain biking in the 90’s, by which he means “Ineptly jumping a Saracen Kili Racer off anything available in a nearby industrial estate”. After growing up and living in some extremely flat places, David moved to Yorkshire specifically for the mountain biking. This felt like a horrible mistake at first, because the hills are so steep, but you get used to them pretty quickly. Previously, David trifled with road and BMX, but mountain bikes always won. He’s most at peace battering down a rough trail, quietly fixing everything that does to a bike, or trying to figure out if that one click of compression damping has made things marginally better or worse. The inept jumping continues to this day.

Comments (4)

The PinksterThe Pinkster September 18, 2017 at 4:25 pm

I really like the look of that.

Got a Gates drive on my commuter, hooked up to an Alfine hub and it’s perfect for plodding to and from work, never put a foot wrong for years now. I should think that teamed up with a gearbox it would be the ideal ‘just get out & ride’ MTB.

wooksterwookster September 18, 2017 at 4:33 pm

What’s a gear box cost though, is comparable to say XT running gear or considerably more STW??

epicycloepicyclo September 18, 2017 at 9:54 pm

If you’re running XT in those sorts of conditions, you’re replacing your entire drivetrain frequently if you do any sort of mileage.
I’d say the gearbox will work out cheaper if you’re the sort of person who keeps a bike for a long period and actually rides it.

wooksterwookster September 20, 2017 at 5:32 pm

True Epicyclo. But when building a bike you can XT it for what £300? It looks like the gearbox adds about £1k. Which is a fair few cassettes etc.

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