Bicycle Chain vs Belt Drives

This looks more complicated than a chain driven bike.

Would an internally geared hub solve for this type of wear?

A negative for belt drives, especially on a bike this price, is the cost of replacement parts. I think a shimano nexus 3sp would be a much more sensible option, though obviously it's not as striking and wouldn't get to the HN front page.

Every so many years I see a post like this where they claim to have improved the drive chain of bicycles and they really never go anywhere, mainly because they aren't compatible with other kit.I've built and repaired quite a few push bikes over the years I am still using fairly standard shimano kit. The problem with exotic equipment is that even decent shops might not be able to repair it and it normally requires specialised tools.I mucked about with Campag and some other exotic

What problems do people have with chains? They're dirty? Well, yeah, you have to keep them clean or put them in a chaincase. They break? Never happened to me, but keep a $5 chaintool in your bag and you can remove the faulty link more quickly than you can fix a flat tire. The gearing doesn't work? Don't ride a geared bike if you don't know how to shift, and don't ride a racing bike when you're commuting. Get an internally geared bike and you will never have gearing problems again.The c

It just doesn't make sense to replace the chain. They are incredibly efficient, cheap and reliable. Most of the issues with chain drives are due to improper maintenance on sport bikes. Modern bikes have 10 or more gears in their cassette, which means the chain has to be very skinny and shifting needs to be very precise.On the other hand, a dutch style bike with a wide 1/8" chain and an internally geared hub instead of a derailleur is much more reliable and requires very little

Belt drivetrains (e.g. Gates Carbon Drive) + internally-geared hubs (e.g. Shimano Alfine) have basically solved that issue. They cost a bit more than chain-derailleur drivetrains but not significantly more.

Buy a better bike. You should effectively never need to fiddle with anything if you spend $300+ and aren't riding lots of hours or through intense terrain.

Mountain biker chiming in: have broken chains, friends have broken chains. It’s not a common occurrence, but basically ever has a chain breaker and spare links in their bags. MTB also admittedly puts a lot of components under far more wear and tear than other disciplines.For MTB especially, it’s not the fact that there’s probably better drivetrain options, but the fact that the current options will happily take a beating, and still let you ride back out. I’m sure the string is real nic

Bicycle parts are incredibly standardized compared to cars. Outside exotic racing bikes almost every brand uses the same Shimano parts or compatible copies from other brands. And even between component brands, the way the components attach to frames are somewhat standardized so replacing an entire Shimano drivetrain with Campagnolo or vice versa is possible. The problem is that there are a bit too many standards now.