| Author | Message | ||
     Trojan |
Chains "break" every 6000 to 15000 miles. If they weren't broken, then why am I replacing them? Chains wear and need to be replaced before they break, hence service intervals. However, a decent chain can be bought for around 1/3 of the cost of a belt here in the UK, so overall prices over a long term will be very similar between the two options. The difference with a chain is that you can call into any motorcycle accessory shop and pick up a chain off the shelf, with a belt you are stranded unless you happen to be close to a H-D dealer. Belts & chains both have advantages and disadvantages. Horses for courses I suppose. (Message edited by trojan on October 26, 2007) | ||
| Dbird29 |
Where's that damned Energizer Bunny emoticon? | ||
| Imonabuss |
The leading Buell team lost the MotoST Championship over a broken chain. So, horses for courses indeed, but I'll bet they wonder for years if they should have used a belt. I DNF'd several major races in my day due to broken chains as well. And destroyed an engine and crashed the bike on the street due to a broken chain going through the crankcases and emptying the transmission oil onto the rear tire. I have a lot of years of riding experience, and anyone who says chains rarely break is mistaken. | ||
| Trojan |
We lost a race due to a snapped belt (brand new with less than 600 miles on) in 2006, so we all have our tales of woe for any drive system. My point was that I could buy a chain at the circuit but had to travel a 100 mile round trip to buy a belt at 3 times the cost. In racing things break. Fixing them easily and cheaply at the circuit is the clever bit. | ||
| Court |
The part of this discussion that parts company with ridumentistic logic is the presumption that Buell randomly decided to use a belt. Nothing could be furtheristic from the truthectomy. Erik Buell had quite a career as a Tests and Analysis guy . . . to prove it he's remained somewhat boring to this day. Anyone who thinks he woke up one morning and decided "let's toss a belt drive at them to keep'em pissed off" would of course . . . be inaccurate. Buell did extensive testing. | ||
| Imonabuss |
Sorry, but fixing the chain when you are sitting in the chicane watching the race wind down is not an option. And if you go to a track without a spare belt or a spare chain, you are a fool or a moocher (even worse!). I do agree though, we all have our tales of woe with drive systems, and amazingly the tales of woe on the BMW chat pages over their driveshafts are worse! I never ever worry about my belt drive and have yet to break one in all my Buell riding. However, I am older and slower... | ||
| Xlcrguy |
85,000+ miles and 14 years on my S2's ORIGINAL drive belt and sprockets. I know it's not exactly the same, but add up all the parts and labor for swapping out about 10 chains and sprocket sets; probably well over 1500 bucks...not sure as I've not needed to go pricing them for well over a decade! | ||
| Court |
I'm in kinda the same boat . . . I had a new belt put on the S2 when I rode it to Homecoming a couple years ago . . . but it's just been chugging from coast to coast. The bike doesn't seem to be aware that the belt is supposed to fail. | ||
| Reepicheep |
I just priced one. I broke the chain on my KLR-250... Remember, this is a bike with 17 HP to the rear wheel on a *good* day. A new O-Ring chain, generic brand, el-cheapo version, along with master link was going to be $70+ shipped. Name brand chains were $80 to $120. And I am supposed to replace the sprockets at the same time, that was going to be another $40 to $80. So that's $110 at a minimum. Plus $5 or so for the master link. This chain failed at 8000 miles. The previous owners probably did not maintain the chain (Lord knows they maintained precious little else on the bike), so lets assume it *should* have lasted 10k miles. Oh, but when I got the bike, I had to go get some decent quality chain wax spray. That was an $8 can, and I re-spray the chain once a month and any time I have been off road or in the rain. So I will probably go through 5 cans of this stuff every 10k miles as well. So thats $150 to $200 every 10k miles or so. On a dirt bike I bought for $570. It's a little depressing. (Note I went the cheap route and just got a non o-ring chain... and I will probably start lubing it with normal grease when I use up my current can of lube, and I did not replace the sprockets, so there are cheaper and riskier ways to do it). | ||
| Steve_mackay |
but I'll bet they wonder for years if they should have used a belt I'm quite positive that they wont be wondering whatsoever. I know Dan Bilansky well enough to be sure of this. Bilansky and Higbee would waste a belt in far less time than a chain. (Message edited by steve_mackay on October 26, 2007) | ||
| Indy_bueller |
Besides, you cant change your gear ratios with a belt. | ||
| Anonymous |
Oh yeah, Steve? Ask them how many endurance racing miles the belts went on the 1125R's doing hour endurance racing tests. I guarantee they are wondering. And the 1125 has a lot more power than does their endurance bike. | ||
| Steve_mackay |
Oh yeah, Steve? Yup  Talk Danny in to running a belt for his next Thunderbike race, and see how far that gets ya Don't get me wrong. I would *NEVER* switch the belt to a chain on a street bike. The belt for the street just makes WAY more sense IMHO. | ||
| Anonymous |
Maybe not on his Thunderbike where every last minute gearing change matters in 6 lap sprint races, but if he can't see the light after what he has ridden lately in endurance racing, then I can't help him. There were no belt breakages in massive amounts of endurance race testing the 1125s. Of course that was with Danny and others testing with slow guys like Jeremy and Estok who ride slow and soft like on the street! I'm willing to bet he just might change his mind now. I know Shawn has. Or someone else may wind up running belts in the endurance classes and avoid the failure issue. It was nice to win the manufacturer's championship, but it woulda been nice to have the team win as well. | ||
| Steve_mackay |
Nice condescending attitude there... But anywhoo... So we can expect to see Higbee/Bilansky team running a belt next year in Moto-ST then? | ||
| Anonymous |
Steve, the condescension started when you responded to another poster that Bilanski and Higbee would waste a belt far sooner than a chain, my friend. No hard feelings, OK? But I would expect someone to be running belts in endureance racing next year. It's a different kind of racing, wherre little gearing tweaks don't matter as much, and durability and lack of need for adjustment take on more importance. The latest 1125R belt material is really, really good. It's hard to be out on the cutting edge with a small company, and Goodyear have stepped up to the challenge for us. Most companies aren't interested in advancing their producs and processes unless you are a big customer. | ||
| Steve_mackay |
No, no hard feelings. Just didn't expect that attitude towards me.... The comment came from watching Terry Galigan break a belt on an 1125R at Road America a few weeks ago. Maybe a fluke? So are you telling us that the 1125R belts are of different materials/construction to that of all previous belts? | ||
| Anonymous |
Inside Pass bikes are burning up early iteration development belts that we won't use for production. Since we aren't made of money. And yes, the 1125 belts are of significantly different construction. | ||
| Indy_bueller |
Cool! That is interesting to hear [read]. Since we have hijacked this thread....I've been helping out with James Gang quite a bit this year. I remember them saying that a last-minute gearing change really helped for the Moto-ST race at Road America. Wouldn't using a belt on an XB put them at a disadvantage in this way? I realize that it may not have as much effect in an endurance race as opposed to a sprint, since reliability is the more important factor. But there must be a fine line there someplace. Inside Pass bikes are burning up early iteration development belts that we won't use for production. Since we aren't made of money. And yes, the 1125 belts are of significantly different construction. Will this trickle down to the XB line? The '06 belts are pretty solid (I upgraded my '03 to an '06 belt setup) but is it a case of "there is always room for improvement"? | ||
| Ceejay |
If that's the case, would it also be possible that Buell(or HD for that matter) would be coming out with a "ratio" kit. Meaning for about 4-500 bucks you could change the rear and maybe the tensioner pulley along with the belt for 1/4 to 1/2 point change up or down. I know it doesn't offer last minute minute ratio changes, but in some cases I would think that would be all that is needed. It may be more costly than some chain conversions but less than many others, plus could retain the benifits of the belt while allowing some gearing changes which were only possible previously with the chain. Some people are doing this via the primary with the XB's, but you can only get lower gearing on the 12's and higher gearing on the 9's which... | ||
| Ducxl |
Inside Pass bikes are burning up early iteration development belts that we won't use for production. So you're obsoleting belts and the bikes haven't reached production yet? And...how many revisions have we endured on our current XBs' so far? Will you support the belt breakage as well as you've addressed our beloved XBr headlights? I just want to know how many revisions we are expected to endure? "Oh,that was a design flaw,you should just buy the revised model"??? WTF? | ||
| Reepicheep |
What part of pre-prodution has you confused Duc? Goodyear is continuing to develop better belts for Buell motorcycles, and Buell is testing them on their pre-production bikes in situations as far and wide as is practical. How, exactly, does this hurt you? 2003 belts were very good in use, and good enough in handling damage resistance, provided you followed instructions. 2005 belts were very good in use, and very good in handling damage resistance, even if you didn't follow the instructions so well. Now 2008 belts will be very good in use, very good in handling damage resistance, and better in FOD resistance. Are you saying they should never release something unless it is evolutionarily perfected? Or are you saying that once they release something, they should never make it better? I'm confused. | ||
| Ducxl |
What i'm saying is owners of previous models with more primitive and inferior versions of the product are left to their own devices.I want to purchase a product that is thoroughly engineered to work without defect once.there are many years of headlight defect and belt defect in the field and BMC flat out refuses to accept proper responsibility for designing a defective product."Light-Years ahead of the competition" my A$$. They'll leave first generation 1125r owners with defective product out in the cold and say,"Gee,we solved that with the newer version,which you should purchase".Fortunately,except for my $hitty XB headlights i've had no issues. But,based on the record of XB models and with relation to the poor early version belts and ALL XBr headlights i've lost faith BMC can introduce a product and protect owners from defects. How many design changes must there be until they find one robust enough for the long run? And what about everyone with earlier versions of these crappy belts? | ||
| Court |
Your logic is inaccurate. The earlier versions of the belts (I have the first year from 1995) were not "crappy". | ||
| Reepicheep |
Shoulda bought a 1985 KLR then... "Twenty years of tradition, unmarred by any hint of improvement..."  | ||
| Ducxl |
umm...the KLR is a tank.Rock solidly built without defect.It's hard to improve on perfection.BMC should attend the school of Kaizen | ||
| Doerman |
On the topic of belts Ducxl, you accept that Ducati requires you to buy new cam belts every 12K? You must, you own a 996. If there is a problem with a drive belt on a Buell, they have in many instances bent backwards to make it right for the customer. And for normal operating (non-track) conditions, Buell drive belt are reliable (certain exceptions noted). I see the opposite in the data in front of us. Extensive factory and consumer pre-production testing increases my confidence in the first release of the product (belt included). Asbjorn | ||
| Ducxl |
Ducati requires you to buy new cam belts every 12K? You must, you own a 996. Yeah,but i was told,and knew that up front.I'm on my 4th set of belts in 12k miles.They're so silly easy i do them on a whim. You should've mentioned the massive failure in the field of Ducati rocker arms on '96-roughly '03 4 valvers. But at least they "good will" replace them and have reduced the price per from $140 ea. to $45. ea. They acknowledge,and accept responsibility for their manufacturing defect. BMC keeps redesigning their belts...Why? | ||
| Spike |
Wow. That's just . . . wow. It hurts to even think about that statement. | ||
| Rick_a |
I've wasted a few chains and a set of sprockets in the same amount of mileage my original belt lasted, but a chain never left me stranded on the side of the road (even though it's a measly 520). This is how most of the street riders end up in the "Chain Gang". A new belt would probably make more sense, but damn do I not miss those belt guards at all  and I am not one to listen to reason. |
