Belts are the BEST bicycle drivetrain - Test data

[Cstefan]

Funny to think none of premium e-MTBs is equipped with a belt drive. Or, road e-bikes.
There is nothing that is "the best" in the cycling world. Ironically, Specialized Como SL ("super lightweight") that is equipped with a belt drive and Enviolo is about the heaviest of the SL e-bikes, and very close in weight to full-power chain driven Comos.

The Enviolo is one of the heaviest IGH’s out there. It’s a full kilo heavier than a Rohloff or Alfine 11.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Stefan,

You know a few things and you don't know a few things. You may know something about specialized but you certainly have no idea about Nicolai.
Nicoali built the suspension designs that Speicialzied used/uses in their mountain bikes. Nicolai is whom you would refer to as a Grandmaster of bicycle design and technology.
His creations are hardcore cyclists' dream and he has consciously decided to stay small and produce really high-quality bikes. When you have some time, read this article by Pink Bike to understand how his designs made it to Specialized MTBs. Giant builds trek bikes in China and Merida builds Specialzied bike Taiwan. It is well-known. Nicolai builds their bikes from tubes and does everything in-house in Germany. Take a look at the video below.

Thank you Ravi for the information.

Nicoali built the suspension designs that Speicialzied used/uses in their mountain bikes.

I thought it was Horst Leitner who designed the FSR rear suspension (hence "Horst link"). Both Leitner and Nicolai worked for AMP. It does not make Karl Nicolai the inventor of the FSR link.
As Nicolai says himself, his own 20-people company found a niche. Decidedly not a mainstream company, and Nicolai has very little influence on the bike market nowadays.
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The whole line you are trying to defend is "Belts are the BEST bicycle drivetrain". I contest that claim. Belts are an interesting drivetrain alternative. If you said just that, I would say no word against it.

Belts certainly have their place in cycling. Urban and SUV e-bikes can benefit from using the belt drivetrain for less maintenance, clean trousers/shoes/hands, and (as Art Deco has proposed) for automatic shifting. However, there are at least three features of belt/IGH drivetrain making them not the best bicycle drivetrain:

• Their heavy weight. There are classes of e-bikes (I could mention road, gravel, mountain and fitness e-bikes) where heavy weight is the cyclist enemy. There is a trend to make lightweight e-bikes, and I could mention Specialized or Orbea but there are more brands to propose low power/small battery lightweight e-bikes. The example of Como SL that is indeed almost as heavy as its full power chain driven sister should say something (Como SL is a strictly urban e-bike, and the future [and optional] belt driven Vado only tells you the story of the "gentrification" of Vado from an agile sporty e-bike to a heavy colossus). That's why Specialized has released the Tero that shares its frame with Vado but is a sporty, chain driven HT e-bike.
  The heavy weight e-bikes are also hard to carry over off-road obstacles.
• Off-road riding and field repairs. As I can read in the Forum, America is a region where cyclists experience flat tires pretty often. Removing the belt driven rear wheel for field repair doesn't seem so simple as it is with the chain system. Riding in the woods means you meet twigs everywhere. If a twig gets entangled in the chain, it is pretty easy to remove it. It does not look so simple with the belt system.
• And yes, the belt drivetrain happens to break. You must know the story of a respected EBR Forum member whose Gates belt broke, and he was left his Homage-less for several months. He later had another period of waiting when his Rohloff broke. You must know of another EBR Forum member who converted his belt drivetrain in all of his e-bikes to the chain system, so irritated he was with belt drive performance. (If a chain drivetrain breaks, any bike mechanic can fix it, and it is the user who can fix the chain system him/herself in many cases).

Having said the above, I need to re-iterate: While the belt system is an alternative, one cannot certainly say it is the BEST bike drivetrain. If one insisted on that, I would say the Dutch omafiets were the ultimate bicycle... (Both claims are not quite true).

 

[Art Deco]

One of the reasons I bought Specialized Como bikes over the similar priced Giant (Momentums?) was concerns about having the Giant's IGH serviced 1,000 miles from home. Any bike shop can service a derailleur ... I hope.