My wife and I just got from a cycling trip in the Netherlands. It's a great place to ride! Very flat, but really beautiful and different than anywhere else that I've ever been. The cycling culture there has to be see to be believed.

Anyway, on our last day, with 1.6 miles to go to our hotel, I passed a bunch of cyclists in the big ring and then got stuck at a light and forgot to downshift. When I went to take off at the light, I stood to really crank on the pedals and get us going while in way too high a gear and the Gates timing belt snapped!

Early in the week I noticed that the belt had an abrasion on the outside. I think I banged it into a curb or cement step. It didn't look like any real damage, just a surface scuff, so I didn't think anything more about it.

However, for the several days prior to the break, the belt had been driving us crazy making a lot of noise. I tried pouring water on it and that helped for an hour or so. Another trick someone told me was to rub a dry soap bar along the belt, so I tried that and it quieted the belt for a few hours. Gates once told me you can spray the belt with silicone, but I didn't have any.

I didn't really think the noise and the scuff had anything to do with each other. But with the break, now I think the scuff led to the break, and there must have been some internal damage that was contributing to the noise. Although why the water and soap tricks worked even briefly if the damage was causing the noise does not make sense.

The belt had about 8,300 miles on it and this is our travel bike. It's been on about 15 flights during that time, meaning that many assembly and disassembly rotations.

Anyway, we're going to be carrying a spare when we go on trips now.

Anyone have any similar stories of Gates belt breaks?