DropBarFan

Cycling for transportation is becoming more popular in many countries especially in urban areas with heavy traffic. Commuting seems mundane but interesting to see that nicer commuter bikes are actually helping popularize advances like IGH, disc brakes & belt-drive.

Average riders don’t want to mess with cleaning & adjusting chains & derailleurs.

Belt-drive has big benefit of not only much lower maintenance but eliminates greasy chains wrecking clothes & car/transit upholstery. IGH further simplifies maintenance & worries about derailleur damage.

Until 1970’s or so, derailleurs were quite uncommon on average bikes especially in the US. Sturmey-Archer 3-speed hubs popular on the nicer mass-market bikes like Schwinn & Raleigh. But the 70’s bike boom hit & everyone wanted a “10-speed”. Not appropriate for Sunday riders but became the whole market basically.

Ironically the high-end enthusiast components like Rohloff, Pinion & Shimano Alfine might help IGH/belt-drive to filter down to be the standard style for average bikes. Newbie riders ask their biker friends for buying advice who suggest IGH/belt for simplicity & cleanliness. Noobs focus on their skills & fitness instead of fussy maintenance. Non-greasy/dirty belt increases acceptance of bikes on mass-transit, cars & being stored indoors.

& then, heh, the IGH/belt tech could filter down to the affordable touring bike market which in the US is stoutly resistant to tech improvements. Co-Motion Americano Rohloff starts at $3,650, beautiful but pricey bike. IMHO similar bikes could be sold for $2K easily if quality-touring market was bigger than current (?) .2% of market.

no1mad 

Wasn't it like three or four years ago when it looked like belt drives might catch on, but the vast majority of those models are no longer around due to lack of sales.

jade408

I have an IGH on my current bike and my last one. I didn't know it existed as my bikes from age 12 had deraileurs. I ended up spending more on the IGH because I remember how annoying it was to put your chain back on when it came off. The grease never came off your hands.

A chain guard or chain case is probably sufficient to deal with grease on an IGH bike. I didn't have a problem with my partial chain case setup. It was easy not to get grease on my hands.

Personally the big thing for me: feeling safe on the road, having a bike I can wear normal gear and a great looking and stylish bike pushed me over.

The belt drive? Not so sure. Seems way complicated.

Needles

Just out of curiosity, how do you change the belt, if you ever need to? Motorcycle drive belts are 1 piece, but they don't go through the frame like on a bicycle. Does the frame come apart?

John Lesar

Belt drive bikes require a seat or chain stay that can be separated to allow belt installation.

als2775

I have an IGH and belt drive on my bike. It's my first real bike since childhood and I love it. I never have to roll my pant leg up and all my right shoes are greaseless. I am just a casual biker so the combo works great for me. The only downside is the price premium compared to traditionally geared bikes.

12strings

Just rode my brothers belt driven city bike this past weekend...It is just a single speed though, with a very upright riding position. My take away:

-The belt drive worked great, and was extremely quiet.
-It was a very comfortable ride.
-I didn't go that fast, but for riding around town it is perfect...I would be concerned about taking it on any hills...but then, a n IGH would solve that.

fietsbob

Just have to pony up the Money, the Gates belt stuff aint cheap .

corrado33

I would LOVE an IGH commuter (6 speeds ish?) with a belt drive. That would be optimal.

The thing is, while derailleurs are complicated, if you don't mess with them, they'll "work" for a long time. They won't work well if not adjusted, but they will WORK. I had bikes as a kid with derailleurs that worked and shifted for years without adjustments. (Or possibly my dad adjusted them without me knowing?) I also had bikes as a kid whose shifting sucked, and I could only "get" 3 out of the 5 gears or something like that. I never had a second thought about it other than "don't use the gears that the chain doesn't stay in."

DropBarFan

You could be right but in local LBS's I see more belt drive models placed up front. One sees more dedicated commuter bikes on local paths but while riding it's hard to see if they have belt or chain.

There's been a huge boom in urban transport cycling from fixies to the city rental bikes. City bikers will soon realize the advantages of IGH/belt & adopt it enthusiastically & the trend will spread to the bigger recreational market.

DropBarFan

Nice! But can't pants' cuffs still get caught on the belt/sprocket? Belt drive will eventually cost less than chain/derailleur which requires intensive machining.

DropBarFan

True yes & pre-indexed derailleurs were even more forgiving of adjustment issues. A peeve about derailleurs is the wheels that are hard to clean/lube. Works best if bike is laid on it's side but that can be a problem. Gritty/greasy derailleur wheels can cause a lot of drag. Alfine needs correct cable adjustment but Rohloff has automatic internal adjustment.

profstack

I had belt drives on three of my motorcycles (my current MC, a Moto Guzzi, has shaft drive). The belt drives were quiet, clean, and never needed maintenance. A rock embedded itself in one of the belts, but since it was in the middle, was no problem. That's what the tech said and he was right, for 20k miles, and beyond for the present owner.

A belt on a bicycle would last the life of the bike for 99.9% of us. I am looking for a new bike with belt and IGH, perhaps remembering the 3-speed IGH in my Schwinn from my youth. Heh, I would also like level ground, but Seattle isn't made that way.

Dave Cutter

I had high-hopes for belt drives and [maybe lighter weight] internal geared hubs. But it didn't happen. I have to assume the market just isn't there.

CliffordK

I'm not sure about the belt drive. Perhaps it needs better marketing with the Fixie crowd.

As far as internal gearing, it seems to be hitting a few groups.

Cruisers (often 3-speed, although 7 speed isn't that expensive of an upgrade).
MTBs?
Tandems?

I doubt the internal gearing will be widely adopted by the road bike crowd as the derailleur bikes are slightly more efficient.

However, we are rapidly approaching a state where 1x10 or 1x11 configuration for traditional bikes will be more common, and with that, perhaps there will be more emphasis on internal gearing and sequential shifting.

One of the issues, of course, is that the city bikes and cruisers are heavily dominated by the department store bikes with everyone trying to build the cheapest junkiest bike possible.

shrtdstncrdr

I think it has less to do with the mechanicals of a bicycle than it does the seating position. The bikes I see people riding (around here) are much more upright. What those bikes happen to be apparently makes no difference so long as the people on them are sitting upright.

People in my immediate area appear to be riding for fun and/or family time. Someone wearing lycra is a little unusual but you do see them.



Harv

rydabent

A bike with belt drive and a IGH would seem to be a good idea for limestone trails. No sprockets and chain to pick up the dirt and dust.

dynaryder

Two biggest issues with belts;changing gearing and removing/installing. Belts can't be lengthened or shortened,so if you change your pulleys,you generally need a new belt. And you need a special frame for belt drives;with chains,you can use a regular frame with a tensioner. So there's added expense and complication with belts. Love the belt on my Harley,but I've got a belt bike I'm trying to sell because it's not worth putting the money into it to change the gearing.

DropBarFan

A friend used to ride motorcycles & when she bought a new moto I tried hard to convince her to splurge for a Harley but she opted for a Kawasaki cruiser instead. I did chain clean/lube for her, quite a PITA considering no center stand included etc. BTW it was interesting to see on moto forums the wide diversity of opinions on chain-cleaning/lube issues. One guy swore that he used nothing except WD-40 for both clean & lube & got super mileage from his moto chains!

True about the gear swap belt problem though I think it's not a huge obstacle. Worst case is to buy a new belt eh? Campagnolo used to get knocked for their old rear horizontal dropouts that included stop screws but I always thought they were pretty handy. Average bicyclists would probably be satisfied with stock IGH/belt gearing anyway. German-made Pinion drive has an 18-gear touring-oriented system with super-wide range even greater than Rohloff. & Rohloff itself has a fairly awesome range so it's doubtful that Pinion/Rohloff buyers would need to change sprockets.

CliffordK

The fixie riders may tinker a bit with the "perfect gearing".

However, I wonder about the typical 1 spd, 3 spd, or 5 spd cruiser... my guess is that for the few times they are taken out of the garage, nobody cares about the gearing.

So, I think there is a market, as long as it can be price competitive with other bikes.

Clean, simple, long belt life, and etc are great marketing criteria. However, the majority of bikes probably never get beyond a single chain and the original tires.

DropBarFan

Real roadies will stick with derailleurs but in my area I see a lot of old fat guys twiddling around on carbon Cervelos & such. They might be inclined to moving to IGH/belt in a light sporty package.

Yes but OTOH, 3 years ago I was surprised to see $200 mountain bikes in Walmart with disc brakes. & in 70's "10-speed" boom all the department store chains were quick to introduce cheapo road bikes. Quality usually bad (though some Austrian-made Sears models were surprisingly good). Point being that new tech can be introduced to general public w/o exorbitant expense.

CliffordK

True, for the belt, it may depend a bit on patents, and whether the patent holders actually want to deal with dept store bikes.

For the internal gearing, it has been around since the 50's, and I believe there are still some 3 speeds showing up in the dept store bikes. However, with the price competition, the 7 & 8 speed hubs are fairly rare, and the 10+ speed hubs are still more expensive than the rest of the bike combined (for average dept store bikes).

DropBarFan

In the old days all the local bike paths were crushed limestone & grit got into chains even in dry weather. Germany is the hotspot for IGH/belt advances now; tire-maker Continental is a Gates competitor. Germany's rainy damp weather makes it rather impossible for regular bikers (from commuters to avid tourists) to avoid wet conditions that build up grit on chains & derailleurs. So hey, Seattle made gourmet coffee popular in the US; maybe uber-bikoid Portland Oregon will make IGH/belt trendy in the States!

HauntedMyst

I have a belt drive coupled with a NuVinci 360 on my commuter bike. It's awesome for around town. Quiet, very smooth and thus far flawless. This is Chicago so I can't speak for hill use but I'd love to have it on my big dummy. The bike itself is very heavy and the hub alone weighs about 5 pounds. I think the market is there for belts and IGH's but it's going to be a very long adoption period. The weight has to come down for urbanites who need to carry their bikes up stairs to store them inside and until they are price competitive with chains and derailleurs, I don't see them reaching critical mass.

Robert C

Another belt Drive, N-360 user chiming in. As I mention in the Commuting sub-forum, I ride a Novara Gotham to work daily; It makes a great commuter. The reason I went this route was my desire for a low maintenance bike for commuting and the belt drive also means that it is very clean. I actually wanted a Trek SOHO with a more conventional IGH; but Trek stopped selling them and they almost never show up used.

I like that it is quiet and smooth with very little maintenance. My only concern is that it is hard to find spare belts (I keep telling myself that I need to have a spare hanging in the garage). Most of the Belt drive bikes have quite a bit if adjustment built in; so minor gearing changes would not be a problem. The biggest problem is the cost of the replacement pulleys, they aren't cheap.

I do agree that they are not common on the market, new or used. I cant help but think that part of the problem is that belt drive-IGH bikes don't fit the frequent replacement model. When a person gets one they are pretty much done buying commuter bikes. The same explains the lack of offerings on the used market; mine will enter the used market when I retire . . . well, no, a low/no maintenance bike wold make a great Old-Man bike too.