Belt Driving Fixed Gear Bikes
April 5th, 2009Recently I have seen two harley davidson inspired belt driven bikes ride past me in town. Both caught my eye in a way no other bike really did before, as a cyclist (a fixie rider) maintaining my bike is actually quite an enjoyable pastime, but I know a lot of others that think maintaining a bicycle is dreadful. The chain being the pivitol means of propulsion on a bike makes it get the most abuse, im my experience out of all the components of a pushbike. So like the harley motorbikes that adopted the belt in favour of the traditional chain have finally dumped their magic into pushbikes? Supposedly these belt driven bikes never need lubrication (no more oil stains on your light coloured trousers) and provide smoother pedalling. Put simply at this point I don’t believe it.
For people who like having gears on their bikes these are available now, this example is the Trek Soho and features gears built into the back hub. I am yet to spot a fixie one for sale locally – But then I am very lazy today. I think in theory belt driven fixed gear bikes make a lot more sense than belt driven multi gear bikes. I mean it simplifies it a whole nother step.
Built from carbon fibre and rubber supposedly these bike belts are clean, don’t stretch within reasonable force – they took two years to appropriate into the perfect cycling form of the equivalent motorbike belt. They had to supposedly find the perfect tooth length and then in the end use thicker back end tubes to support the strain. Either way I hope they stick these on a nice fixie, or at least they date a bit so I can rip one off another second hand bike to play with. Belt driven fixies – Gotta be worth a months shedwork.
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In my experience belt-driven motorcycles are crap.. while you have less maintenance in the short run, replacing a belt is far more of a task than replacing a chain.. requiring the complete removal of the rear wheel in the best of models. This has little effect on bicycles though.. in that removing a wheel is just par for the course.
But in relation to fixed-gear I believe it has some drawbacks.. you don’t find belts on performance motorcycles, because the belt loses the springyness found in a chain.. thus losing the ability to control sudden changes in tork, going in and out of turns particularly. My assumption.. and keep that in mind as I talk out of my ass now.. is that on a fixed gear that could pose some problems at some stage.
Or I could be a luddite.