Hey everyone!
New to biking and just got a gates carbon belt drive bicycle. I wanted to test the tension of the belt, and googled how, and one of the first results was:
“A general rule for flat belts is to twist the belt midway between the front and rear belt drives, it should twist to 90 degrees with moderate two finger effort, if it goes past 90, then it is too loose, if you cannot make 90 without great effort, then it is too tight.” Source: [https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/questions/5187/how-to-measure-the-correct-belt-drive-tension](https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/questions/5187/how-to-measure-the-correct-belt-drive-tension)
Unfortunately, I followed this advice and did it a few times to my brand new belt. Only later to find out that Gates recommends to never twist the belt, as doing so can damage the belt. Instead, they recommend to use their app and pluck the belt to determine the tension. Didn’t find anything about this on this subreddit so just wanted to make a public service announcement in hopes that nobody else makes this mistake.
I am still going to ride with the belt, as Gates mentions that “Excessive bending and twisting creates invisible crimps, which can lead to belt breakage,” and I’m hoping that my 2-3 twists are not considered “excessive”. Would be interested to know if anyone else has twisted their belts and what their results were like with that belt (if they had an early failure). I’ll update this post if I run into any issues with the belt. I also messaged Gates to see what they think, and I’ll update this post with what they say 🙂
Have fun riding!
by Entirely_Honest_Ryan
1 Comment
K, let’s breath and think about this rationally for half a second:
Do you honestly think that twisting a drive belt a little bit will impact the functionality or lifetime of the belt in any measurable way? Because if you could, wouldn’t the very action of using the belt for it’s intended purpose be likely to cause excessive damage itself?
You’re fine. This is just common advice for belts, don’t manipulate them a bunch outside of their intended usage. A little nudge or twist here and there is not going to do anything to it.
You’re good. Now go find out just how good you are and use that drive for it’s intended purpose!