And of course the loss of efficiency due to belt drive is also pretty bad.
I am convinced that this will be my last belt drive bike.
Here‘s a (German) Video from a guy with a severely damaged (but still rideable) belt after 4500 km:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=n16gN7RDWEY
In the comments you‘ll find people whose belts snapped at 1050 km, at 1000 km and one at less than 2000 km.
I don‘t know how likely this is, it might be quite rare. But since it‘s non-repairable it‘d make me uneasy on longer bike rides.
Belt damage? They put these belts on motorcycles, it's possible to damage them but they are insanely durable, probably stronger than your typical chain. Somewhere I picked up a staple on mine, I'm going to get it replaced but I've done several hundred miles on it with no issues.
The IGHs are a different matter, they're pretty sensitive and if you get them off a little bit they work but your shifting will be hosed up. Bike shop fixed it all though. My advice? Don't mess with it, get it set up, make sure the little connector on the cable is tightly attached and you probably won't have issues, I had some slip on mine.
I've been running Conti touring tires with some mixed tread and pre-slimed tubes, I've not had flats but I've worn out 3 or 4 sets of tires. It's not a big deal to change it though. It's a commuter bike so it has bolts rather than quick release skewers, I'd use slime and maybe even kevlar liners if you get a lot of flats and just make tire changes a wear issue. It's a heavy bike, it's not a carbon roady by any stretch but it has been as close to zero maintenance as any bike I've had. It's actually required more maintenance on the disc brakes than the drive train, they were getting a little squishy but just rebleed them and they're good again. The only "issue" I've had was when I got a lot of dust on the belt, it was kind of squeaky for a while.
This carbon/ceramic drive shaft is kind of interesting. I always thought that the chain to pully and gear touch point was where the friction loss was, not interlink on the chain itself. For years and years, they've offered bigger pullies for reduced friction. This drive shaft will still have a similar touch point; also seeing as how both pieces rotate, it looks like there could be side to side friction as the cog on the shaft touches the gear on the wheel and they both rotate unless the cog and gear have some very special shaping that I'm not seeing. As the cog rotates, when it first can engage the gear, just the tip will be touching the gear but as it continues it will push more of the tooth on the cog in to the gear, am I wrong on this?
For what it is, I love it, it's not a racing bike though. I'm curious about the mtb uses with a Rohloff hub, it's a fair amount of weight.
[1] https://www.hebie.de/en/protection/chainguard/chainglider/35... ?
Are bicyles a fashion statement, or what?
"Seht her wie geil mein Riemen ist!"
Mine also has the Alfine 8 speed hub, which is kind of suck, but I make it work. I recently had it re-lubed (dunked) at my LBS, which seemed to help. I just wish there were some nice IGH in between the Alfine 8/11 and a Rohloff. I'd gladly pay for something better than the Shimano.
For commuters, I cannot fathom why people would deal with a chain when belts are a thing. Plus, good chains aren't cheap (I like Wippermann) and when you rack up miles you need to replace them enough that your wallet notices.
Tires: +1 for Schwalbe Marathons. Four years and no flats. NB: if you are worried about weight, upgrade to the Marathon Supremes with the aramid (foldable) bead. ~$75USD/each but totally worth it.
Oh yeah: a dynamo hub is a life-changer. My Focus came with a SP PD8 and lights, stock. Never having to strap on a light, or remember to charge it is a revelation.
Ride safe!
However, my bike is my car. I'd no sooner swap out my own bike tire than I'd swap out my own car tire. Not that I can't, it's just not something I enjoy doing. My hub-geared, belt drive, hydraulic-disc bike is incredibly difficult to maintain... but I also just bring it in to my local bike shop once per winter. That one trip is all the maintenance it needs for the 3200 miles I put on it per year, mostly in the rain. I'd never go back to lubing a chain every week, putting new pads on every month, replacing the chain every 3, etc. 6 months after I bought this bike I gave away my repair stand and it was glorious.
In my neighborhood I get a flat every other month. If I had to pay someone else to replace inner tubes it'd cost as much as driving a car.
They can be messy, but I've lost count of the number of self-healed punctures I've had over the years. A small loss of pressure and off you go.
Currently running WTB Venture 47c [changed from Horizons] on a 650b 'gravel bike', fantastic stuff, gets me where I wanna go.
If your bike is your main form of transport and you can’t change tubes, you need to have two bikes. Unless you live next to a 24 hour bike shop...
Oh no not at all! I hate swapping tires. I live in an expensive and cold country. Swapping bike tires costs $50. I couldn’t afford that twice a year (because of winter tires) I have to do it out of desperation which is why it’s more work than the maintenance benefit I get.
Not at all: the chain goes through a closed triangle in the frame by connecting two loose ends. The belt comes as a closed loop and needs a frame that can be opened. Additionally, frames build for chain gearing (instead of internal gears or single-speed/fixed) lack tension adjustment by either a horizontally adjustable dropout or a bottom bracket excenter mechanism.
Sliding dropouts are undoubtedly preferable, but any modern frame with a BB30 or PF30 bottom bracket can be trivially converted to an eccentric bottom bracket.
I'm surprised there are retrofit kits. With a belt drive, usually one of the chain stays has a gap in it so you can get the belt on and off (you accomplish the same with a chain by taking a link out to install/remove the chain, but this is not an option with a belt).
See page 63 for efficiency and 64 for longevity.
The graph on page 64 is confusingly labeled, but the numbers indicate "watts expended before wet dirty run" - "watts expended after".
But it's 3-5x the price of chain equivalent setup.
My understanding is that the tradeoffs are:
1. Weight
2. Cost
3. Lack of user serviceability.
It definitely seems like a good tradeoff in some circumstances - particularly in rainy environments.
My understanding is that you can't maintain the hub shifter at all. It's sealed so it's generally pretty low maintenance, but if/when it eventually breaks you have to send it to the factory for repair.
The internal gear hubs have been perfected before derailers even became a thing; it's a very mature tech.
You can[1] do some maintenance on them. I don't have any experience with that, as all my internally-hubbed bikes were stolen long before such a point :-) :-(
One big tradeoff you missed is efficiency. The belt drive is efficient, but internally geared hubs are currently less efficient than traditional derailleur setups. Losing watts to drivetrain loss is a major reason that internal hubs are not as popular with human powered bikes. The durability and maintenance need to be WAY better to get someone to switch over.
I bought a Ghost brand bike at REI (they're a German brand, but REI is the exclusive US distributor). The model is an "Urban" of some sort, can't remember which. It has an 8 speed Shimano Alfine internally geared hub. I really wanted a Spot Acme (made in Colorado) that was absolutely gorgeous, 11 speed hub, Gates Carbon drive, brooks leather saddle, etc. But that $2k+, and the Ghost was on sale from 1300ish to $850 if I recall correctly. It didn't have a dyanamo so I bought a Shutter Precision hub and had a local bike shop build up a wheel with a dynamo so I could run lights.
The Ghost came with a Continental belt drive instead of the Gates. Instead of having the center groove of the Gates, the continental just... stays in place. Hopefully. The right side of the crank had a flange, and the left side of the hub gear had a flange, but the belt could technically fall off the 'other' side of either one. And it did, occasionally.
Belt tension is regulated by how "tight" you make it by adjusting the rear wheel in place. The Ghost frame has angled dropouts sorta like a normal road bike (not horizontal dropouts like a motorcycle or like the Spot bikes I saw). It's a COLOSSAL pain in the ass for the average person to hold a heavy geared hub wheel in place with one hand, thread the nuts on with your second hand, use a wrench to tighten the nuts with your third hand, and deal with belt tension with your 4th hand. Not to mention keeping the wheel straight. And if you don't get the tension right (how many lbs of tension for a 1 inch drop, again?) the belt will fall off. Repeatedly.
Another problem is that you need to unhook the shifter to remove the wheel. It's not that hard, but when you're a novice to these bikes, it's tricky because some models recommend you shift to the lowest gear; others to the highest. You need some needle-nosed pliers and some finagling to get the cable out.
A problem specific to the Ghost was that the rear disc brake rotor ran into the caliper as you tried to slide the wheel out. So you ALSO have to unbolt the caliper to remove the rear wheel. Overall, it's a vastly bigger pain in the ass to remove the wheel on that bike than on a "normal" bike. God help you if you have a flat on the side of the road. I went through a bunch of different tube/tire combinations before I ended up with slime tubes, which i now HATE because the valve stem gets gummed up and leaks constantly, but I've spent a year or more dealing with it (adding air every week or so) because I'm too lazy to go through the hassle of removing the rear wheel to take out those godawful leaky slime tubes. (but at least I found a tire that's great and puncture-proof!)
Anyway, back to the drive belt. After owning the bike for roughly 5 months and 1000 miles, while trying to cross a busy street, the belt snapped. I tried to source a replacement, but couldn't. I took the biek back to REI, where it sat for the better part of a month while they tried to find parts.
To their credit, Ghost had discontinued use of the Continental system in favor of Gates, and as a goodwill gesture, they replaced the entire drive system of my bike with the Gates drive system.
Knock on wood, the Gates system has been perfect, doesn't squeak like the continental system does, apparently isn't as picky about belt tension, won't slide off (because of the center groove).
The shifting is less than perfect but I like the fact that geared hubs can shift in reverse, so you can downshift at a stoplight while waiting for a green. The spacing between the gears is a bit uneven, but I think it's a pretty good low-maintenance solution for a commuter bike.
But it's not perfect.