Originally Posted by
biketrouble
...ircclean's story about the sprocket is interesting. Having had the drivetrain apart on mine, ISTM the spline on the Alfine might be designed such that the sprocket breaks before the hub internals do in the event of too much torque. It basically has three fairly shallow rounded splines, rather than many square splines. It's possible that the alu Gates sprockets that worked great on a singlespeed hub with a conventional spline ran afoul of this on the Alfine hub.
I might give the belt another try when the CenterTrack stuff becomes more widely available - I kind of see CenterTrack as something of an admission that the first version of this system was flawed (especially combined with the materials change for the sprocket.)
I'm sorry to hear that your experience with the belt drive was negative. While I do find that mine creaks a little, overall it's quieter than my chain-driven bikes. As for single speed cogs,
AFAIK they are the traditional 9-spline design and are therefore inherently stronger than the IGH offerings. Also, traditional rear cogs for IGHs are made of steel and their 3-spline design has withstood the test of time. Apparently, however, aluminum versions of said design will not handle the torque created by a rider of my stature.
I am also hoping to eventually retrofit my bike to the CenterTrack system.