dchsueh

Hello,

I'd like to hear from people who ride a Gates carbon drive bicycle. Question is if you find the belt to be a hassle for changing flats or removing / replacing the wheel, given the belt cannot be twisted or mistreated for fear of breaking some of the carbon fibers.

For flats I'd prefer just to swap a new tube in and patch holes at a table rather than at the road side. This requires taking the wheel off the frame, and when replacing the wheel, you need to ensure the belt is positioned and tensioned correctly, all without overbending or twisting the belt.

Anybody carry and use the Gates belt tension gauge around to check your belt?

Thanks.

coldfeet

Jumping on your thread here, those riders with belt drive, have any of you got significant miles on them? like 5,000+ miles?

vautrain

I only have a couple of hundred miles on this bike, but I had the same question. Apparently it's no problem to pop the rear wheel on and off. The tension is set by the position of the removable dropouts, not by the position of the rear wheel. There is no need to loosen the tension at the dropouts when removing the rear wheel, just loosen the skewer and pop the wheel off. It makes sense when you look at the arrangement, but I don't know if it's really that simple in the real world, as I haven't tried it yet. Hope that helps.

PaulRivers

Um...I think you have to take out your multitool and unscrew some stuff to physically open a hole in the frame to get the rear wheel off, don't you?

vautrain

No. Why would you think that? You don't have to take the chain off when you fix a rear flat on a chain-driven bicycle. You don't have to remove the belt on this bike just to remove the rear wheel.

PaulRivers

Because that's the reason you can't slap a belt drive system on a traditional frame - you need to be able to break the frame (you know, open a gap in it at the back, not really "break" it) to change the belt.

If you wanted to put a whole new tube on there, wouldn't you also have to "break" the frame to remove the rear wheel?

vautrain

I took a photo for you, but it might be best to go take a look at it in person. You need to be able to break the frame open, but *only* if you need to remove the belt. No need to remove the belt when removing the rear wheel, just like you don't need to remove a chain just to remove the rear wheel on a chain-driven bike. The belt will come off the rear cog and hang on the chainstay exactly like a chain does.

PaulRivers

You know, I assumed that since I had to remove the chain/belt from the wheel to get it off the frame "break" thing would be required to remove the wheel...but what you're saying makes a lot of sense. Huh.

Well - thanks for replying and posting the pic! :-) What you're saying makes a lot of sense...looks like I was wrong.

vautrain

No problem! The frame "breaking" thing freaks a lot of people out, and it freaked me out for a while until I rode a friend's District. It's really a smooth and quiet ride. I *think* the setup should hold up well and be relatively easy to maintain, but time will tell.

EndUser2016

I have a 600x and I am wanting to swap my wheelset to a Dynamo ones from hunt...

The part I cannot figure out is what I need to do to make their wheel compatible with my pinion gear box .. right now I took the less annoying route and just replaced my front wheel but ugh I hate having one brand wheel up front and another one in the rear .. but shipping a hunt from uk to the us is pricey so it's not something I can just experiment with on the fly

Anyone have insights to share ?

commo_soulja

Pinion bike? I assume your bike has one cog. In that case just get a wheel with the appropriate single speed hub and axle for your bike. You're overthinking it.

Darth Lefty 

EndUser2016 start a new thread in the Mechanics subforum

fredlord

My more mechanically-minded buddy helped me to take the back wheel off to change the tube on my Marin Fairfax belt-drive with Nexus 8-speed IGH. No frame-splitting required. We did it at home rather than in the field. Didn't have to do anything special regarding tension. Just gave the belt a pluck; seemed ok. Wheel and belt have worked flawlessly since.

When I have some spare time I may try taking off and putting on the back wheel a few times by myself for practice. Probably gonna get a beefier tyre too.

This belt drive bike is my favourite bike, by far. Reliable, ultra-low maintenance, and fun to ride in almost all situations (nothing too mountainous ).

Joe Bikerider

Re: Frame splitting. That’s been a big roadblock to me getting a belt drive. I do like my IGH (shimano 8 speed) that is quiet and low maintenance with a chain drive but a belt would be better. Why can’t anyone make a belt that can be split? Is it because the belt makers don’t think out of their box? It seems simple enough. Now someone go do that! Please.

phughes

Because it wouldn't be strong enough, and seriously, the issue is basically a non-starter. The only time you will have to deal with it, is when you replace the belt, which lasts a very long time. The problem came when people got the misconception that you had to split the frame to remove the wheel to fix a flat. The the hand wringing ensued, all based on a fallacy.

Darth Lefty 

Thinking back to the belt drive bike that I had, I really do think it would have been better with a tensioner idler. As designed now the frame has to be really stiff to keep the tension positive on the lower run so it won't skip, and dialing in the tension with the dropouts was indeed a pain.