Originally Posted by
Pratt
My Pinion equipped Tout Terrain ...
I have a chain, but people who have belt drives seem to love them.
I have chain on my Rohloff hub, prefer that too. For riding near home without a load of camping gear on the bike, I use a higher gear range, 44T chainring, 16T sprocket. But touring, I need lower gears to carry a heavy load up a hill, run a 36T chainring, same 16T sprocket, and remove four links. It would be more complicated to do that with a belt drive.
But I concur, those that have the belt appear to have no complaints about them. I met one person that had a belt on his Rohloff bike, he said that he was a bit slower compared to his friends that he was touring with than he had been when he rode with a chain. But otherwise he had no complaints about the belt.
And one couple I met, one had a chain, the other belt, both had Rohloffs. They carried a spare belt because belts would be hard to replace but did not carry spare chain. I carry a couple spare quick links and a few regular links when touring but have never needed them.