On Wednesday, I posted an article on drive chains and lubricants. That sort of leads to this one. I am constantly amused and puzzled by an odd phenomenon. For some reason, there are folks out there who bound and determined to “fix” the bicycle. I don’t mean this in the sense of repairing a broken bike. Rather, these folks seem to want to change the entire bicycle.
The Shaft Drive: Many years ago, in the motorcycle world, BMW decided to replace the chain drive with an enclosed drive shaft. One of the things that helped this work was they flattened the engine out and turned it sideways. Also, motorcycles have lots of reserve power, to drive the thing. Okay.
Almost from the beginning, some folks have tried to apply shaft drives to bicycles. They exist to this day. They limit the gearing available, increase the weight of the bike, and increase the cost. Admittedly, the do work, but only by limiting the usefulness and function of the bike. The advantage? Well, they are lower mainenance, and cleaner. But it doesn’t take very much to maintain a chain, and if done properly, it is pretty clean. So just what problem does this fix?
Belt Drives: You too can own a bike with a gadget! Wow. It’s not special. It has no real benefit over other technologies. It’s just different!
Here’s another one. Belt drives have been with us for a long time. They have been used to run farm equipment and machine tools. There are belt drives under the hood of your car, to run accessories such as air conditioners, water pumps, and alternators.
Back during the 70s some of the custom motorcycle crowd started experimenting with belt drives on Harleys. They work okay. From time to time various tinkerers have tried to apply this to bicycles. (The most recent one of these is the Trek company.) The do work. But why do it? The claim is it’s quieter and cleaner. But…
The only bikes that Trek has managed to put a belt drive on are a singlespeed/fixed gear models. (There’s a reason for this.) A well set up fixie or singlespeed is about as close to silent as it is possible to get. As for the cleaner, please see the above discussion. And by the way? Belts do make dirty! They wear and accumulate rubber and carbon dust. Yuck.
As for why only on singles and fixed gears… The problem is that belts are a lot wider than chains. So there’s not really room for them to operate a multi gear set. Besides, getting the belt to move across gears, and stay properly tensioned, is a real nightmaire. Such a deal.
Other examples of this sort of thing include (but are not limited to) “Magic” auto shifters,. “Really good” (read weird and uncomfortable) saddles, add on electric motors, add on gasoline engines, funny handlebars, oval chainrings, and some really really goofy approaches to frame design and rider position. Some of these things sort of work, but in odd and unhelpful ways. Others are actually positively harmful. Some of them are actually well intended, others are out and out scams. They all have one thing in common, they fix “problems” that don’t really exist.
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