Belt drive. It may be time to admit defeat.

“they have all failed without warning”

No they haven’t. Plenty of people have warned you that they would break.:-)

I don’t think that’s too bad, given that it’s entirely feasible that a chain and sprocket arrangement can also be killed off in that distance quite easily ( there was a thread this week on the 1×11 set ups,showing significant wear after several hundred miles) how much are the rings and belts? Given that you don’t have to spend money on lube and time cleaning them that well I’d view it as evens between chain and belt.

there was a thread this week on the 1×11 set ups,showing significant wear after several hundred miles

But that’s not a valid comparison, the belt replaces a chain only in a single speed or hub gear set up. I get around 3 years on my all year round off road commuter from a chain. It doesn’t get cleaned just more oil added. One chain and sprocket every 3 years and a new chainring every 6 is pretty cheap.

there was a thread this week on the 1×11 set ups,showing significant wear after several hundred miles

And whilst pics on that thread showed cassettes looking a little ropey actually they didn’t have any ‘significant wear’.

An £8 KMC X9 chain bites the dust with just over a month’s use.

Yes, some of the rollers are missing. It had been making odd noises the past few days. 😕
I’ll fit a new one and keep a log of how long it lasts.
Even if a chain does work out more expensive per mile than a belt per mile, the fact that I had plenty of warning and the opportunity to replace it before it failed makes the chain a better option for a mountain bike.

I just don’t get how you do it.

+1

I think a large part of it is the Worcestershire sandstone.
The stone itself is not as abrasive as the grit you get in other areas, but it seems to be held in suspension in water easily, turning the puddles orange.
I commute mostly off road, even if half of it is just canal towpath, and I oil the chain every day, sometimes twice, at home and at work, but I can hear the chain grinding within seconds of riding through a puddle.

I’ve not had much luck with KMC chains, I’d break them fairly frequently, but since I switched to shimano I havent had a breakage yet in about 750 miles.

A quick look on Strava suggests you’ve done about 310 miles in 4 weeks? All on that bike?

No chain should fail in that time, irrespective of grit! Mental.

How can the rollers go missing, or erode like that? I don’t buy this unique mud argument.

I oil the chain every day,

you tried a dry lube and clean chain. Oil tends to attract and hold dirt. A dry clean chain maybe a solution

I’ve found KMC chains to be dire, despite the love on here.

That chain is on the Lynskey and was already part worn when the belt stripped on the Qoroz. I’ve got no record of when I originally fitted it.
I’m currently running the Qoroz Rohloff and the Lynskey SS. I just happen to have been riding mostly SS recently.
I’ll fit a new chain today on the old sprockets as they both look OK and keep an accurate record of how long it lasts this time.

julians – Member

I’ve not had much luck with KMC chains, I’d break them fairly frequently, but since I switched to shimano I havent had a breakage yet in about 750 miles.

Don’t KMC manufacture Shimano chains?

I reckon it’s luck of the draw for the most part.

Seems weird, I’ve had 10x your miles out of chains, the one on my meta lasted 2000+ miles before a rock killed it

I’ve found KMC chains to be dire, despite the love on here.

9000km on a x10sl dlc road chain – well past the 1.0mm wear marker on my chain checker, fitted a new cassette at 5000km, shifted perfect on old cassette, still perfect on new cassette

I don’t get how people to claim to do years with a singlespeed chain. I have recently gone Rohloff on my mountainbike and even of mostly try trails I find chain strech quite bad. Chain binned at just over 1000k second one not gonna last more then 1500 it seems.

MTG, (at the risk of sounding condescending) are you leaving enough slack in that chain?

Rohloff, chainstretch, HA!

If it’s still attached, keep pedalling mate.

MTG does seem to be beating on the drivetrain impressively. I took a Rohloff-equipped bike to Oz and NZ with a shitton of luggage and the chain didn’t break. Hell I rode up the world’s steepest street* with around 40KGs on, pushing so hard in the bottom gear that I was puffing like a powelifter. The strain on the drivetrain was exceptional.

Nothing broke. I only changed my chain affter the trip because I felt like it. XTR 771 spec, Thorn Ally Chainring, Rohloff Rear Sprocket. It did thousands of miles afterwards.

If I didn’t wear it out with this lunacy, I fail to see why a belt is worth the effort.

*Yeah, OK offroad can be steeper, but not by much. I was forced to zig-zag to stop the front lifting off. Bear in mind I’d couriered for a few months and then been riding around the south of NZ for 3 months, I was probably able to generate about as much drivetrain force as as TdF racer [though I didnt have the endurance. Hell I rode so hard into the wind giving my Ex a slipstream my damn Achilles frayed/strained. That sucked.]

EDIT: NB my chain was never tight.

EDIT EDIT:

cynic-al – Member
Is anyone else disappointed this thread is not about turntables?

NO. Belt drive FTW.

PS – when riding up that street I was around 85kg of almost only muscle, and pulling down on the bars so hard they damn near bent. With 175mm Cranks the torque was enough to make the whole gorram frame wind up!

That chain is on the Lynskey and was already part worn when the belt stripped on the Qoroz. I’ve got no record of when I originally fitted it.

So your statement about a chain biting the dust with ‘just over a months use’ is actually bobbins, and you have no clue about how old it is…? Have you considered a career writing headlines for tabloids? 🙄

Just to be clear, chain snapping is a different issue to chain wear.

Graham, why not trynone of those floating fully enclosed chain guards? Saw one on a bike in Germany, look very good.

Bobbins is a strong word, I’d prefer guesstimate. 😛
Although I’ll admit that claiming it was a KMC X9 was bobbins; turns out it was a Shimano. 😳

I always thought of my Qoroz as my main bike and my Lynskey as my spare.
If I was racing, I’d set the Qoroz up as either Rohloff or SS and the Lynskey the same to take as a spare bike.
I’m not planning on doing any more races, so when I removed the belt drive from the Qoroz, I thought I’d leave it more or less permanently as Rohloff and the Lynskey as SS.
I also took the opportunity to use up some odd size chainrings and sprockets I had by swapping bits around between both my bikes, Mrs MTG’s bike and the tandem.
Somewhere in the confusion, the Lynskey ended up with the old chain off the rear of the tandem, or possibly the ‘cross bike, which I thought was KMC, but now turns out it wasn’t.
Anyway, I’ve now fitted the Lynskey with the old Shimano chain off the ‘cross bike, or possibly the tandem.

Anyway, it’s got another part worn chain on it, so when that one wears out, I’ll fit a new one and keep a record of how long it lasts.

Well that’s cleared that up then…

Hebie Chainglider

I’d find a different route to work while you’re at it, or try to ride around the puddles.

Well that’s cleared that up then

Do you wanna hear about the tyres? 😀

I’ve seen those Chaingliders before, but always thought of them as a commuter thing to keep chain oil off your smart trousers.
They look like they would just fill up with mud on a mountain bike.

I don’t know, but I’ve always thought that most of the mud gets on the chain from the back tyre and most water from the front tyre.
I’ve thought about making some sort of snow plough shaped attachment, on the set tube where the front derailleur mounts, to divert any mud stuck to the rear tyre off to one side or the other, over the top of the chain and away from the chain stay bridge where it normally collects. A sort of metal rear Neoguard.
I don’t know if that would help or if it’s been tried before.

Have a look at Geoff Apps’ bike – there’s a plate to keep the tyre mud from the chain and the chain is running inside some kind of tubes. If you made a BB mount thing out of aluminium sheet it could act as a flat guard between tyre and chain and a curved guard in front of the chain ring to keep the water off.

They look like they would just fill up with mud on a mountain bike.

Worth a try though? I have a feeling it’d help a lot. I’d use one if I had a SS or hub geared bike.

If I’m honest I think you’re just exposing your drivetrain to the sorts of wear that it would take most folk a year or more to do.

Katz FTW:

Fully sealed chain drive in the swing-arm, to Rohloff wheel. Shame they’ve gone bust. Got to be scope for a similar design with a gearbox up front.

After 350 or so dry miles, after going through it’s first bit of gloopy mud when down in Dorset I now have a nice ornament hanging in my garage to remind me how useless it is.

Clocked up 1500+ miles on it’s replacement chain and cogs with a slight chain stretch and EEB tightening.
If in mud avoid, great for commuting on tarmac

“If in mud avoid, great for commuting on tarmac”

my experiance dealing with trek district warrenty claims from the till side of the desk says otherwise- even with the propper deflection measurement tool for set up – one for the history books.

MTG

Why not run a track chain, surely you won’t kill that?

I may have asked this before but does the frame flex a lot in use?

Could it be subtle enough that on a SS/IGH chains alignment its enough to add more, than can be tolerated, lateral force causing premature wear?

letmetalktomark – Member

I may have asked this before but does the frame flex a lot in use?

For the use of a Gates Belt drive the frame has to be passed by Gates for stiffness to make sure the flex doesn’t cause the problem, so I believe

For the use of a Gates Belt drive the frame has to be passed by Gates for stiffness to make sure the flex doesn’t cause the problem, so I believe

Mike Travers told me that apparently the Angus isn’t Gates certified due to the horseshoe-shape plate chainstay/BB interface
Neither is my Kona A, and there’s no doubt the frame flex through the pivots caused problems, but since getting the centre-track belt and the bolt in hub, its been fine.

For the use of a Gates Belt drive the frame has to be passed by Gates for stiffness to make sure the flex doesn’t cause the problem, so I believe

That’s not really true. There’s nothing to stop you buying gates beltdrive parts and fitting them to any old thing. And yes, if the frame isn’t suited (too flexy/inaccurate chainline) then the experience you’ll have with the system will be poor.

The Gates test exists to make sure designers/builders have access to data to make sure their design will work as expected.

Some vendors want you to submit some of this data before they sell you parts to work with the beltdrive. This is to ensure you don’t build a bike to use the system that then proves to be a bit shonky, giving the whole system a bad name.