Belt drive and gravel

Inspired by CycleRob, this section is devoted to all flavors of the F800.

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captaincable
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Belt drive and gravel

Post by captaincable »

was wondering if anyone has heard of any problems riding a belt drive on dirt/ gravel road , I don't mean motorcross riding just
gravel roads in general, I know I have heard that you should not , but still have not heard of any cases of damage. A stone between a chain & sprocket could not be good either yet I have never heard of that. Seen plenty of H.D. 's on gravel and sand. Just wondering . Mike
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CycleRob
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Re: Belt drive and gravel

Post by CycleRob »

FYI - captaincable and I live within about 40 miles of each other and after a PM have spoken twice on the phone about belt/shaft/chain drive, our guns and certain 2 cylinder BMW/Honda bikes, affordable and not.

Looking very closely at my F800ST's very thick rear drive belt cover assembly, I could not find any area(s) of weak protection from small stones picked up and thrown by the rear tire treads. In just over 3 years I've ridden about a dozen miles total on hard packed dirt roads without inflicting any damage on the hard rubber drive belt. On the dirt roads I rode slowly in 2nd & 3rd gears, in the car tire track. All the while fearing that a small thrown stone would somehow get past the belt guards and get swallowed by the meshing sprocket/belt teeth . . . then be pushed thru the belt, permanently damaging it. It never happened. Just turned over 19,000 miles (30,577 km) today and the belt is new looking perfect. Conclusion; It should never be used as a dual purpose bike, but a very few hard packed dirt road miles once-in-a-great-while very likely won't hurt anything.
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Woland
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Re: Belt drive and gravel

Post by Woland »

Never had a problem with it back when I had my F800ST and rode plenty of gravel roads. Did have a problem when I rode on a newly asphalted road with some loose "sticky" pebbles, one of which managed to get thrown up by my front wheel and attaching itself to the outside of the belt and getting stuck above the front "sprocket" thus cutting a fine groove in the belt. Thankfully it wasn't too deep and I rode some 6k miles with it without any problem before changing it.
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Re: Belt drive and gravel

Post by CycleRob »

In my lifetime I've owned 14 bikes. The first 8 were chain drive. The next 5 were shaft drive. After the 1st shaft drive bike, an XS-750D 3 cylinder Yamaha, I vowed to never again own a chain drive bike. I especially enjoyed the 63K+ miles on each of the VX-800 Suzuki and BMW R1150R. The F800ST is the first belt drive and I've got to say after 19K miles it combines some of the best qualities of chain and shaft drive with almost none of their worst traits: messy, noisy, maintenance intensive (chainlube), heaviness and being (very) expensive to replace or repair.

--Like a shaft belt is very clean, very quiet, dependable at extended high cruising speeds and it has zero driveline lash -but- with zero maintenance and a typical belt life of (only) 40K--65K miles, despite the 24K mile $400 belt replacement BMW recommends.

--Similar to a chain -but- it has the lightest weight, is totally cleaner and quieter, is the most efficient, has cheaper 50K mile replacement costs (1 belt costs less than 3 chains and 2 sprockets) and it can allow a final drive ratio change like H-D with a 31 or 30 tooth front pulley.

It's only quirky characteristic is that it makes creaky noises when you (key off) push the bike around, as needed in-and-out of the garage. Other than that . . . . and after the labor and parts co$t of replacing R1150R FD bearings, belt drive is the new #1.
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Re: Belt drive and gravel

Post by BigEasy »

I'm obviously late to this party but if the OP is still checking in I will have to second CycleRob's thoughts on belt v shaft v chain. Both my HD and Buell are belt drive and I really do like them, and they jave bothe seen gravel on a number of occasions.

As for gravel roads with a belt, well Buell equipped the Uly with a belt and some guys actually do use them as an adventure bike. I spend some time in the Uly section over on BadWeatherBikers and rarely see any reports of failure attributable to gunk in the belt. The failures typically come when folks are "jumping" the beasts. The extension of the swing arm with the rear tire off the ground causes excessive tension that wil pop the belt. Keep the back wheel on the groun d and you should be fine :lol:
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Re: Belt drive and gravel

Post by CycleRob »

BigEasy wrote:The failures typically come when folks are "jumping" the beasts. The extension of the swing arm with the rear tire off the ground causes excessive tension that will pop the belt. Keep the back wheel on the ground and you should be fine
That's IF you're jumping a Buell Uly!!

Belt drive is my favorite final drive because of the quietness, mechanical efficiency, light weight of the whole system, zero maintenance, zero drivetrain lash, lifetime cleanliness and future possibility to change the FD ratio (OK, that last one is crazily optimistic, but it's more likely/possible and less expensive than shaft drive ratio changes). If it were a chain drive bike, I would have replaced the front sprocket with a 1 tooth larger sprocket to lower the cruising speed RPMs and get better fuel mileage -but- when it always exceeds 62 MPG on Regular grade Chevron/Texaco/Shell gas -and- has great standing start acceleration to very illegal speeds, there is no need to change the FD ratio.

The one downside of belt drive is it's replacement cost when it wears out OR is damaged by stones or an accident. BMW recommends F800 belt replacement at 25,000 miles, but many riders just buy the new $400 belt or a slightly used much cheaper one on E-Bay, keep it in the garage and ride their odometers to well past 50,000 miles. My belt, with almost 21,000 miles on it still looks new . . . and I can't imagine replacing it until I hit the point where I see faint signs of tooth or rubber wear/deterioration.
Image

EDIT: July 6, 2019: Now have 30,748 miles and it still looks like new.
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