Bicycling Mag on Gates Carbon Drive: "I Love It"
Bicycling Magazine has been testing the new CenterTrack belt drive from Gates on a Spot Rocker singlespeed mountain bike and is elated about its performance. Writer Matt Phillips is no stranger to Carbon Drive:
“I’ve been riding an original Carbon Drive equipped bike for about three years,” he writes. “I love it because not only is it maintenance free—no lube required, and the belt lasts longer than a chain—but it takes the purity of the single-speed experience and amplifies it. Properly set up, a belt is much smoother and quieter than a chain. It’s difficult to convey how much more exactly, but trust me: If you ride a belt, you’ll immediately notice the difference.”
Gates recently sent Phillips the new CenterTrack design, which is the lightest, strongest and highest performance belt drive system ever. The new CenterTrack belt is two millimeters wider at 12 mm, which adds strength while also requiring less tension. The new system received a bonanza of media attention when introduced at Interbike 2010.
Phillips notes that, while the original Carbon Drive system was “already quite good in mud and snow,” the CenterTrack design is even “more impervious because the pulleys don’t have ‘sides’ and debris can just fall away.” For more info on Centertrack click here.
Click here to read Phillips’ story on Bicycling.com.
