From my understanding, belt is actually more efficient than a chain. Due to less friction, no moving parts and sh!t.The forementioned drag comes from the gearbox...
From my understanding, belt is actually more efficient than a chain. Due to less friction, no moving parts and sh!t.
The forementioned drag comes from the gearbox. That said, it's really overblown on the internet. I'd say there's more drag in a regular drivetrain at the end of a big ride, assuming I cleaned and lubed it before.
Have you ever held a belt, and flexed it? Even a car engine belt? Belts absolutely have more friction than a chain, it's not even close really.
I can't speak for every locale, but I could ride my waxed chains with no maintenance at all in my dry dusty location for 100+ miles with zero change in friction or performance.
Have you ever held a belt, and flexed it? Even a car engine belt? Belts absolutely have more friction than a chain, it's not even close...
Have you ever held a belt, and flexed it? Even a car engine belt? Belts absolutely have more friction than a chain, it's not even close really.
I can't speak for every locale, but I could ride my waxed chains with no maintenance at all in my dry dusty location for 100+ miles with zero change in friction or performance.
Agree. While I love the idea of ditching the derailleur, gearbox/belt driven drivetrains are measurably less efficient (even when accounting for a chain drive that isn't perfectly clean). This isn't up for debate, it's a fact.
Have you ever held a belt, and flexed it? Even a car engine belt? Belts absolutely have more friction than a chain, it's not even close...
Have you ever held a belt, and flexed it? Even a car engine belt? Belts absolutely have more friction than a chain, it's not even close really.
I can't speak for every locale, but I could ride my waxed chains with no maintenance at all in my dry dusty location for 100+ miles with zero change in friction or performance.
Agree. While I love the idea of ditching the derailleur, gearbox/belt driven drivetrains are measurably less efficient (even when accounting for a chain drive that isn't...
Agree. While I love the idea of ditching the derailleur, gearbox/belt driven drivetrains are measurably less efficient (even when accounting for a chain drive that isn't perfectly clean). This isn't up for debate, it's a fact.
Just to clarify, that's the gearbox's fault, not the belt.
Above 150W or so, belts are more efficient than chains as long as they have proper tension.
The belt vs chain efficiency difference is negligible once you throw the 5-10% power loss from a gearbox into the mix.
The derailleur in a box might work for DH, but not for anything that has to be pedalled. There's not enough range and you're not putting a 50T cassette inside your frame.
The whole gearbox/belt moment right now is solely due to a massive decline in sponsorship of the traditional bike industry. Gates has been huge enough for decades to make their pitch… Shimano and Sram clearly aren’t capitalized well enough to fight them anymore, due to poor pandemic vision and blowing so much money on useless electronics, but the science on belts v chains is pretty clear. Belts suck for the low power applications we see in cycling, and they are super duper draggy, and generally horrible to live with.
Anyone who has ever worked on any belt driven bicycle will tell you how much better chains are at every junction. Gates could do a hell of a lot more for the health of mtb racing by giving out free hoses for the excavators to trailbuilders so we can build your local trails better than splashing out a little bit over one product manager’s yearly salary in hopes of a world cup win, but clearly Gates aren’t interested in supporting the growth of mountain biking as much as they are hoping to grow a market segment that has been a failure to launch for more than a decade.
Chains are amazing. No belt can ever match the performance of modern chains and cogs.
I feel a lot of people that would complain about the gearbox efficiency making a perceivable difference to their enduro or all mountain ride would be the same people with overbuilt wheels, fox 38, cushycores, and downhill casing tires for multiple blues a maybe a black diamond trail for their saturday ride. Then finish it off with pounding back 4 IPAs and some cake later that day.
I feel a lot of people that would complain about the gearbox efficiency making a perceivable difference to their enduro or all mountain ride would be...
I feel a lot of people that would complain about the gearbox efficiency making a perceivable difference to their enduro or all mountain ride would be the same people with overbuilt wheels, fox 38, cushycores, and downhill casing tires for multiple blues a maybe a black diamond trail for their saturday ride. Then finish it off with pounding back 4 IPAs and some cake later that day.
I feel a lot of people that would complain about the gearbox efficiency making a perceivable difference to their enduro or all mountain ride would be...
I feel a lot of people that would complain about the gearbox efficiency making a perceivable difference to their enduro or all mountain ride would be the same people with overbuilt wheels, fox 38, cushycores, and downhill casing tires for multiple blues a maybe a black diamond trail for their saturday ride. Then finish it off with pounding back 4 IPAs and some cake later that day.
Very true!
I'm a huge fan of gearboxes and hope to get back on one again soon. The drag and efficiency arguments in real-world applications take on a hyperbolic/confirmation bias tone. Way more people could benefit from a gearbox than would like to admit. They're not for everyone in every application, but man are they good. I wouldn't want an XC bike with a gearbox unless I had to race on a muddy course. I had some seriously low-stress years with Pinion. Half of that time was spent on a hardtail and all of it was spent making bad choices. I did manage to break one crank spindle from a few too many pedal strikes on said hardtail, but I was also pushing 250lbs geared up at the time.
My Zerode was chain-driven and could get a bit loud on really high-speed chatter, but something like VHS tape would've made it silent again and honestly, I preferred that setup to a belt
People need to be more open-minded when it comes to gearboxes 😂
The one thing that kills me about all the full-suspension gearbox bikes with belts is the tensioner. Gates puts this warning on the box for belts, "Do not back bend" 🤣🤣🤣. I've got some serious questions about efficiency and durability if they're saying don't back bend.
Have you ever held a belt, and flexed it? Even a car engine belt? Belts absolutely have more friction than a chain, it's not even close...
Have you ever held a belt, and flexed it? Even a car engine belt? Belts absolutely have more friction than a chain, it's not even close really.
I can't speak for every locale, but I could ride my waxed chains with no maintenance at all in my dry dusty location for 100+ miles with zero change in friction or performance.
Believe it or not, I have one on my bike, and a chain on a few other bikes.
Bending with and without load is not the same thing,and the energy used by bending a belt is fairly constant,while chains friction increases with power.
There's a dedicated thread to all this now, just saying like someone else mentioned, there's a lot of confirmation bias and a huge echo chamber talking about drag, but I literally just have 2 bikes next to me, one with a belt, and one with a chain I didn't lube after riding yesterday. There's no difference worth mentioning in their drivetrain losses.
I don't understand why people put so much emphasis on the new thing's one drawback that's barely a measurable difference. You could argue spares and belts can be hard to find, but get out of here with BS about efficiency already, there's so many ways you waste energy with a derailleur you don't realize because you're so used to it, it's really an invalid point.
1. NICE! 2.I see a letter from DW coming to someone soon.
A patent doesn't stop you from building something, but it does prevent you from exploiting it commercially.
The use of the existing pivot bolt/idler location as a mounting point and the overlap between the chainring and the new drive ring suggests it was done this way because an idler pulley that large wouldn't fit without dramatically reducing the size of the chainring.
Also either he doesn't understand "pedal efficiency" or I don't. It's effectively eliminated anti-squat, so pedal efficiency's now in the dirt.
A patent doesn't stop you from building something, but it does prevent you from exploiting it commercially.The use of the existing pivot bolt/idler location as a...
A patent doesn't stop you from building something, but it does prevent you from exploiting it commercially.
The use of the existing pivot bolt/idler location as a mounting point and the overlap between the chainring and the new drive ring suggests it was done this way because an idler pulley that large wouldn't fit without dramatically reducing the size of the chainring.
Also either he doesn't understand "pedal efficiency" or I don't. It's effectively eliminated anti-squat, so pedal efficiency's now in the dirt.
"Also either he doesn't understand "pedal efficiency" or I don't. It's effectively eliminated anti-squat, so pedal efficiency's now in the dirt."
Based on glancing at chainline and pivot placement, that might not just have zero anti-squat, it might actually be pro-squat.
With a pivot high enough it makes sense to position (or size) the idler in such a way to induce squat via the chain as there can be too much antisquat from the suspension geometry itself (if the instant centre of rotation is higher than the rear axle and that heigh above it large enough).
We have antisquat through the chain mainly because the IC with classic layouts is so low it induces squat. With inverse suspension layouts the antisquat influencing factors also invert.
But yeah, this will likely influence the antisquat behaviour compared to how the frame was designed.
Yup, why i posted it in tech rumors not team rumors.
News strive testing? The spectral and the eebs all seem pretty up to date.
since jesse usually runs mavens on his strive (and that‘s not mavens) i guess that bike isn‘t an enduro bike, so no new strive IMO. but timeline-wise a new strive could be on the horizon.
since jesse usually runs mavens on his strive (and that‘s not mavens) i guess that bike isn‘t an enduro bike, so no new strive IMO. but...
since jesse usually runs mavens on his strive (and that‘s not mavens) i guess that bike isn‘t an enduro bike, so no new strive IMO. but timeline-wise a new strive could be on the horizon.
Those are not Maven Silver calipers? You sure? They look pretty Maven to me.
My guess is Jesse is on a "new eBike" more than anything.
A patent doesn't stop you from building something, but it does prevent you from exploiting it commercially.The use of the existing pivot bolt/idler location as a...
A patent doesn't stop you from building something, but it does prevent you from exploiting it commercially.
The use of the existing pivot bolt/idler location as a mounting point and the overlap between the chainring and the new drive ring suggests it was done this way because an idler pulley that large wouldn't fit without dramatically reducing the size of the chainring.
Also either he doesn't understand "pedal efficiency" or I don't. It's effectively eliminated anti-squat, so pedal efficiency's now in the dirt.
1. I am quite aware how patent enforcement functions. 2. I thought the attempt at humor was functional as well, but apparently not😁.
Have you ever held a belt, and flexed it? Even a car engine belt? Belts absolutely have more friction than a chain, it's not even close...
Have you ever held a belt, and flexed it? Even a car engine belt? Belts absolutely have more friction than a chain, it's not even close really.
I can't speak for every locale, but I could ride my waxed chains with no maintenance at all in my dry dusty location for 100+ miles with zero change in friction or performance.
Believe it or not, I have one on my bike, and a chain on a few other bikes.Bending with and without load is not the same...
Believe it or not, I have one on my bike, and a chain on a few other bikes.
Bending with and without load is not the same thing,and the energy used by bending a belt is fairly constant,while chains friction increases with power.
There's a dedicated thread to all this now, just saying like someone else mentioned, there's a lot of confirmation bias and a huge echo chamber talking about drag, but I literally just have 2 bikes next to me, one with a belt, and one with a chain I didn't lube after riding yesterday. There's no difference worth mentioning in their drivetrain losses.
I don't understand why people put so much emphasis on the new thing's one drawback that's barely a measurable difference. You could argue spares and belts can be hard to find, but get out of here with BS about efficiency already, there's so many ways you waste energy with a derailleur you don't realize because you're so used to it, it's really an invalid point.
If belts had more efficiency at over 150 watts, we'd almost certainly see them at the TdF. I certainly don't maintain over 150 watts when pedaling my bike.
There is a member over at MTB.com, NurseBen, and like all of us he has some pretty specific beliefs about what will and won't work on his bikes.
First, he wanted a gearbox with a belt, as he is a long-term fit mountain biker and wasn't concerned about a few watts. Mud kept packing up on his belt and the bike was throwing belts. I also think it kept squeaking. So, then he sold that bike and bought another gearbox bike, a Kavenz, but this time with a chain to get away from the belt issues. First, he punched a hole right through the gear box case, so there was $800 or something gone. Then he had to build a bash plate so that it wouldn't happen again, which of course adds even more weight. Next, he as a nearly daily bike rider, went out with his occasional rider friend and realized he killed himself to keep up. So, the next time he joins the friend but he rides his chained single speed bike, and has no issues keeping up. Now he has his second gearbox bike in like a year for sale and be bought a Canfield with a normal drivetrain to replace it and he acknowledged that it just sucked to pedal the gearbox bikes (finally). This was a guy that went from singing the praises of his gearbox belted bikes to eschewing them entirely, at no small financial loss, I'm sure.
If belts had more efficiency at over 150 watts, we'd almost certainly see them at the TdF. I certainly don't maintain over 150 watts when pedaling...
If belts had more efficiency at over 150 watts, we'd almost certainly see them at the TdF. I certainly don't maintain over 150 watts when pedaling my bike.
There is a member over at MTB.com, NurseBen, and like all of us he has some pretty specific beliefs about what will and won't work on his bikes.
First, he wanted a gearbox with a belt, as he is a long-term fit mountain biker and wasn't concerned about a few watts. Mud kept packing up on his belt and the bike was throwing belts. I also think it kept squeaking. So, then he sold that bike and bought another gearbox bike, a Kavenz, but this time with a chain to get away from the belt issues. First, he punched a hole right through the gear box case, so there was $800 or something gone. Then he had to build a bash plate so that it wouldn't happen again, which of course adds even more weight. Next, he as a nearly daily bike rider, went out with his occasional rider friend and realized he killed himself to keep up. So, the next time he joins the friend but he rides his chained single speed bike, and has no issues keeping up. Now he has his second gearbox bike in like a year for sale and be bought a Canfield with a normal drivetrain to replace it and he acknowledged that it just sucked to pedal the gearbox bikes (finally). This was a guy that went from singing the praises of his gearbox belted bikes to eschewing them entirely, at no small financial loss, I'm sure.
https://www.vitalmtb.com/forums/hub/belt-drive-and-gearbox-thread There, if you wanna keep blasting new tech while ignoring the obvious shortfalls of old tech Just a few simple points - Hard to use a belt without a gearbox, and gearbox is probably not the best for the lycra lovers. - Been riding my belt in treacherous mud all fall/winter, and had zero issues, literally zero maintenance..just saying, because some fella somewhere had a bad experience doesn't mean sh!t. - So what a fella broke something. I have a box full of broken derailleurs that had definitely cost me $1000 in the past 3 seasons. Just yesterday on my last ride I smoked another derailleur.
Let's move it to the dedicated thread, I'm just sick of people parroting downfalls of some technology without having even tried it, and completely ignoring the downfalls of other tech..
Have you ever held a belt, and flexed it? Even a car engine belt? Belts absolutely have more friction than a chain, it's not even close really.
I can't speak for every locale, but I could ride my waxed chains with no maintenance at all in my dry dusty location for 100+ miles with zero change in friction or performance.
Agree. While I love the idea of ditching the derailleur, gearbox/belt driven drivetrains are measurably less efficient (even when accounting for a chain drive that isn't perfectly clean). This isn't up for debate, it's a fact.
Just to clarify, that's the gearbox's fault, not the belt.
Above 150W or so, belts are more efficient than chains as long as they have proper tension.
The belt vs chain efficiency difference is negligible once you throw the 5-10% power loss from a gearbox into the mix.
The derailleur in a box might work for DH, but not for anything that has to be pedalled. There's not enough range and you're not putting a 50T cassette inside your frame.
I mentioned this in the gearbox thread, but 2 cassettes back to back would actually work. And it's been tried in the past actually, though not to much success:
https://www.bikeradar.com/news/first-look-phaser-gearbox
https://www.sicklines.com/2007/03/19/phaser-gearbox/
A setup like this would give REALLY smooth gear ratios. And 11-25T cassettes mounted oppositely would give just over 500 % range.
The whole gearbox/belt moment right now is solely due to a massive decline in sponsorship of the traditional bike industry. Gates has been huge enough for decades to make their pitch… Shimano and Sram clearly aren’t capitalized well enough to fight them anymore, due to poor pandemic vision and blowing so much money on useless electronics, but the science on belts v chains is pretty clear. Belts suck for the low power applications we see in cycling, and they are super duper draggy, and generally horrible to live with.
Anyone who has ever worked on any belt driven bicycle will tell you how much better chains are at every junction.
Gates could do a hell of a lot more for the health of mtb racing by giving out free hoses for the excavators to trailbuilders so we can build your local trails better than splashing out a little bit over one product manager’s yearly salary in hopes of a world cup win, but clearly Gates aren’t interested in supporting the growth of mountain biking as much as they are hoping to grow a market segment that has been a failure to launch for more than a decade.
Chains are amazing. No belt can ever match the performance of modern chains and cogs.
I feel a lot of people that would complain about the gearbox efficiency making a perceivable difference to their enduro or all mountain ride would be the same people with overbuilt wheels, fox 38, cushycores, and downhill casing tires for multiple blues a maybe a black diamond trail for their saturday ride. Then finish it off with pounding back 4 IPAs and some cake later that day.
I love cake.
Very true!
I'm a huge fan of gearboxes and hope to get back on one again soon. The drag and efficiency arguments in real-world applications take on a hyperbolic/confirmation bias tone. Way more people could benefit from a gearbox than would like to admit. They're not for everyone in every application, but man are they good. I wouldn't want an XC bike with a gearbox unless I had to race on a muddy course. I had some seriously low-stress years with Pinion. Half of that time was spent on a hardtail and all of it was spent making bad choices. I did manage to break one crank spindle from a few too many pedal strikes on said hardtail, but I was also pushing 250lbs geared up at the time.
My Zerode was chain-driven and could get a bit loud on really high-speed chatter, but something like VHS tape would've made it silent again and honestly, I preferred that setup to a belt
People need to be more open-minded when it comes to gearboxes 😂
The one thing that kills me about all the full-suspension gearbox bikes with belts is the tensioner. Gates puts this warning on the box for belts, "Do not back bend" 🤣🤣🤣. I've got some serious questions about efficiency and durability if they're saying don't back bend.
Believe it or not, I have one on my bike, and a chain on a few other bikes.
Bending with and without load is not the same thing,and the energy used by bending a belt is fairly constant,while chains friction increases with power.
There's a dedicated thread to all this now, just saying like someone else mentioned, there's a lot of confirmation bias and a huge echo chamber talking about drag, but I literally just have 2 bikes next to me, one with a belt, and one with a chain I didn't lube after riding yesterday. There's no difference worth mentioning in their drivetrain losses.
I don't understand why people put so much emphasis on the new thing's one drawback that's barely a measurable difference. You could argue spares and belts can be hard to find, but get out of here with BS about efficiency already, there's so many ways you waste energy with a derailleur you don't realize because you're so used to it, it's really an invalid point.
Melamed playing games with us again
...still an Canyon though, same logo on the handlebar.
A patent doesn't stop you from building something, but it does prevent you from exploiting it commercially.
The use of the existing pivot bolt/idler location as a mounting point and the overlap between the chainring and the new drive ring suggests it was done this way because an idler pulley that large wouldn't fit without dramatically reducing the size of the chainring.
Also either he doesn't understand "pedal efficiency" or I don't. It's effectively eliminated anti-squat, so pedal efficiency's now in the dirt.
Yup, why i posted it in tech rumors not team rumors.
News strive testing? The spectral and the eebs all seem pretty up to date.
if its a proto strive then theres no shapeshifter leaver so maybe another bike?
New brakes, coming out soon from famous ( B )rake company in collab with american ( S )upreme bike company.
Are those the new Trickstuff Direttissimas?
"Also either he doesn't understand "pedal efficiency" or I don't. It's effectively eliminated anti-squat, so pedal efficiency's now in the dirt."
Based on glancing at chainline and pivot placement, that might not just have zero anti-squat, it might actually be pro-squat.
With a pivot high enough it makes sense to position (or size) the idler in such a way to induce squat via the chain as there can be too much antisquat from the suspension geometry itself (if the instant centre of rotation is higher than the rear axle and that heigh above it large enough).
We have antisquat through the chain mainly because the IC with classic layouts is so low it induces squat. With inverse suspension layouts the antisquat influencing factors also invert.
But yeah, this will likely influence the antisquat behaviour compared to how the frame was designed.
My guess is Brembo and the American bike company being Specialized. Brembo own Ohlins, who sponsor the Specialized DH team.
since jesse usually runs mavens on his strive (and that‘s not mavens) i guess that bike isn‘t an enduro bike, so no new strive IMO. but timeline-wise a new strive could be on the horizon.
Those are not Maven Silver calipers? You sure? They look pretty Maven to me.
My guess is Jesse is on a "new eBike" more than anything.
Lewis and Intense???
i‘ve mavens myself and the hoses run parallel to the handlebars, those in the picture run a little bit inwards, like codes and level brakes.
Oh come on mate, they are 100% the pre-series maven levers. 😉
1. I am quite aware how patent enforcement functions. 2. I thought the attempt at humor was functional as well, but apparently not😁.
Brewis and Sntense?
My thought was Bimano and Srek.
If belts had more efficiency at over 150 watts, we'd almost certainly see them at the TdF. I certainly don't maintain over 150 watts when pedaling my bike.
There is a member over at MTB.com, NurseBen, and like all of us he has some pretty specific beliefs about what will and won't work on his bikes.
First, he wanted a gearbox with a belt, as he is a long-term fit mountain biker and wasn't concerned about a few watts. Mud kept packing up on his belt and the bike was throwing belts. I also think it kept squeaking. So, then he sold that bike and bought another gearbox bike, a Kavenz, but this time with a chain to get away from the belt issues. First, he punched a hole right through the gear box case, so there was $800 or something gone. Then he had to build a bash plate so that it wouldn't happen again, which of course adds even more weight. Next, he as a nearly daily bike rider, went out with his occasional rider friend and realized he killed himself to keep up. So, the next time he joins the friend but he rides his chained single speed bike, and has no issues keeping up. Now he has his second gearbox bike in like a year for sale and be bought a Canfield with a normal drivetrain to replace it and he acknowledged that it just sucked to pedal the gearbox bikes (finally). This was a guy that went from singing the praises of his gearbox belted bikes to eschewing them entirely, at no small financial loss, I'm sure.
Guys, make a belt vs chain thread or something, The rest of us dont care for gearbox's & belts etc
https://www.vitalmtb.com/forums/hub/belt-drive-and-gearbox-thread
There, if you wanna keep blasting new tech while ignoring the obvious shortfalls of old tech
Just a few simple points
- Hard to use a belt without a gearbox, and gearbox is probably not the best for the lycra lovers.
- Been riding my belt in treacherous mud all fall/winter, and had zero issues, literally zero maintenance..just saying, because some fella somewhere had a bad experience doesn't mean sh!t.
- So what a fella broke something. I have a box full of broken derailleurs that had definitely cost me $1000 in the past 3 seasons. Just yesterday on my last ride I smoked another derailleur.
Let's move it to the dedicated thread, I'm just sick of people parroting downfalls of some technology without having even tried it, and completely ignoring the downfalls of other tech..
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