Bicycle belt drives

Orange and Gates Corporation are working bike equipped with carbon-corded Poly Chains. Here's a sneak peak...

• Category

  Sports

[carltonreid]

CVTs such as Nu Vinci's are available for bikes but Spot and Orange are working with Shimano Alfine and Rohloff hubs.

[electroum]

Sounds like a horrendous place to live... what a bunch of nutjobs :(

[TheMountainrage]

That would depend on the design of the belt. Current chain driven systems have fiction points at every chain link, so how would the loss compare. It might end up that the performance is very similar to a chain with minimal maintenance. Perfect for a single speed commuter, even better if you are a winter cyclist.

[RoyKnable]

Actually, your average casual cyclist puts out 0.1hp if they're lucky. If you can find someone who can generate 5 horsepower, he would make Lance Armstrong look like Pee Wee Herman on a tricycle.

[HfxCyclingCoalition]

Probably the worst idea i've seen in regards to biking in my life. HAHAHA!! Cute idea though.

[NoirMusic]

I'd say before putting down comments like this you should make sure you know what you are talking about. Certainly what you said applies to previous attempts at belt driven bikes. I don't think it applies to these...

[rulestein]

LoL, interest? Where can I read the full thing?

[rulestein]

Sometimes that happens to me as well.  Like other people said, the idea may have been around already. It is all about who markets the idea first.

[G4331]

Actually, I would love to try a belt drive bike but I live in a neighborhood that has used violence whenever they see someone there with new technology without an HOA discussion. A few years ago, my next door neighbor got his ass kicked by other neighbors when he pulled up in a Honda hybrid.

The windows were busted as well. That's the gated community life for you here at Pine Forest Village in Bluffton,SC. So I would be too scared of offending the neighbors to ride one. I'll take the chain.

[camtnkngsnk]

cleaner & quieter, would be great if adapted for a single swing arm electric assist hybrid biken, no need to break the read triangle.

[Willem Stockton]

belt drives will never be practical for bikes. Belt drives 'give and take' more than chains and are only good for constant torque and tension, like engines. A cycle, no matter how good your cadence is is never perfectly constant (because it's human powered..) On a graph force applied would be spikes and valleys instead of a smooth line. Each time you press down when you pedal you exert a force then let off. Belts absorb some of that force from stretching each pulse of energy.