Gates Carbon Belt Drive VS Mud/Rain

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[scottedmonds]

I’ve got 1700 miles or so on a gates drive in the last year, no issues and I love not having to clean and lube as with a chain. Gates has an app to “tune” the tension after changing a flat, etc. You pluck the belt like a guitar string and the app measures the Hz. Pretty cool

[skinheads]

I wish more brands make at least one belt drive bike. Seems like a perfect choice for winter commuting

[hananas]

Bought a belt drive cargo bike in January, I love it so much I'm building a belt drive daily as well. Don't want anything else anymore for daily riding. With Shimano Alfine 11, maintenance is just a quick yearly oil change with a syringe too!

[francoispayen]

Love belt drives. I have a flat-barred commuter with a 8-speed hub, and I'm in the process of getting a drop-barred, belt-driven gravel bike with a 14-speed Rohloff hub. 👍

[mitmon_]

I'm a year round commuter and got a Priority 600 in 2019 to ride thru the winters here in the Midwest. It's got a Pinion gearbox and a Gates belt drive. Snow, ice, salt and brine on the road play havoc on regular bike drivetrains. I've cleaned the 600 probably twice since 2019, if that's any indication as to how well it does with crappy conditions. I've also changed the oil in the gearbox once. That's it. No other maintenance.
Last fall, I also got a Priority Apollo gravel bike which also uses a belt drive with a Shimano Alfine 11 speed internal gear hub. It's now my "fast" bike. I use it on everything aside from the worst parts of winter where the 600 with studded tires wins out.
So you could say I'm a belt drive convert. I spent years keeping my chain sparkling clean when I was a weekend road race warrior. More recently, I tried the waxed chain thing on my previous regular chain driven gravel bike, but that still requires a refresh and cleaning every so often. I think I'm done with chains.
The huge drawbacks of belt drives are lack of shifter options for the hubs or gearboxes and the expense of cogs, "chain"rings and belts. But if you find the parts that work and can live without tinkering, the lack of required maintenance is magical.
Also, thank you for the specific review of your belt drive. I really hope that some day, more options will be available for internal shifting systems. Belt drives just make the most sense to use with them. That is, unless a company can really push a chain in a case that's pretty much maintenance free.

[CasioSilver]

My favorite part is just going inside after a wet and rainy day, no more lubes... no more degreaser... less consumption and more sustainability is why I ride a bike to begin with and belt drives just allow me to consume even less.

[NoeAVillarreal]

This is the first video I watch on your channel. I was researching belt driven bikes. I ended up buying a priority Gotham bike. Nice and smooth ride.

[glennpettersson]

I'm of the opinion that derailleurs and chains are all about racing. Light, efficient and easily adaptable to different race conditions. Belts are tied to gearboxes at the moment, do you see a place for them in racing?

[noburt]

No need to maintain is literally my ideal bike
I already do that, but like. Being able to not maintain it and it isn't harmful to the bike is better

[drbobjohnson]

Thanks for the video putting the Gates to the test. I picked up a gates belt drive bike with 8 speed Shimano Alfine internal geared rear hub. About 8 months ago, Have not ridden it in mud, rain etc. but good to know watching the video that I can. So far I like the Belt. What is interesting is the Bike a Masi Soulville Originally came with internal rear coaster brake hub with chain drive. So the frame was never made to accept belt drive. Previous owner cut the rear drop out after drilling a small part of the weld to slide the belt through. Since I pretty much only use it for city riding with minimal climbing, I'm hoping it will last, will keep an eye on it. Planning to relube the rear hub. As an alternative to the high priced Shimano hub fluid have seen videos using a dip in Auto Transmission Fluid.

[Bedievis]

Got over 7000 km on my cdx belt. I ride to work 20km a day, allyear no matter the weather and cleaning a chain every second day is no fun. The problem with my belt that it has developed anoying squeking. And i can't stand bike noises. I even thought my BB was squaking and changed square taper bb to hollowtech and fancy cdx direct drive front sprocket. Still squeks when you put more preasure and especially in a dry. I tried it all, some say, silicone spray works, but not for me. I think the problem is, i had to much neglected my belt and it has some kind of micro particles atached to my belt which wont come off. You have to spray water on it and still wash it periodically. At the begining it was great and i tought i never be back to chain drive for commuting, but now im more skeptical. Especially when you think how much the whole drivetrain including cdx sprockets costs. 100 euros is kind of expensive for a belt, that starts to squek and needs to be changed at about the same time the chain lasts, but yeah, it saved me a lot of time cleaning the chain. For a good weather i think it is absolutely not worth it.

[stuartdilts]

The belt drive on my bike likes to skip when I put lots of torque through it, so you might not encounter skipping gears again after by swapping out the chainring for something smaller.

[pascalbruyere]

If you change the beltring you might also need a shorter belt…
It’s expensive .
bummer, it’s hard to adjust your gear ratio.

[ref]

I am really interested to see what happens with belt drives and gearboxes on bikes. I would take a belt on a commuter bike for sure but I don't know if the tech is there for mtb yet. I am looking forward to the day I don't have to worry about my drivetrain on my mtb.

[jimbo]

I gravel / trail ride a 21 ' Turbo Vado SL , ive got 2500 mi on it and just replaced the cassette and chain because I broke off a couple teeth, im definitely interested in the belt drives, Specialized just came out with one

[MrSandman]

I have about 500 miles on my custom built bombtrak outlaw. I am running a 39 front x 26 rear (~1.5 ratio) on a Shimano nexus 11. I tried the 52x22 setup the bike came with and I am not a fan. I love the bike now even more and I do very little to the belt drive system in terms of maintenance. At most you may get a squeak and some silicone spray for treadmills stops it dead in its tracks and I rarely have it come back. I wonder if its a break-in thing. Either way, I love it and I pretty much neglect my other bikes. Time to make a few posts on FB marketplace I guess.

[omiion]

Great test video. I can certainly see the advantages of going belt drive.
Have you considered making a video compairing traditional oil lubes and a parafin wax lube on an old school chain drive?

[rondvivre]

"Beltring" is the word you seek.

[russellzauner]

If they offered belt transmission with IGH and mid drive, this would crush. But few do, and the ones I know of are more geared towards commuters/low maintenance as opposed to sport/performance/extreme surfaces, so, if 1up made the complete package they should sell very well.

[Jan-bfht]

I do like the idea of the belt drive and I'm thinking of converting a bike at some point. The pricing is what's keeping me for now. Having an old Rohloff gear hub on my commuter with a chain I'm really pleased with the ease of use, as well as maintenance to price ratio. For the price of the necessary parts I guess I can run years and years to come on chains (which are also not wearing off that much with a gear hub). I'm fully aware of the advantages of belt drives but I'm cheap (saying I'm running a Rohloff 🙈😁 … it's 15 years old and was at a really good price when I bought it). Maybe the price would come down if there is more companies but I guess Gates is the company to have the patents 🤷‍♂ … Thanks for the test though, always like your videos :).