Uturn said:Could a belt drive be lower noise lower maintenance? Or will that assembly take too much space? Or no big pulleys available?
All very good questions!
Can you suggest a source for components? I would be curious to see how belt drives compare to chains with regard to cost, width, availability, etc.
One of my motorcycles has a belt (Buell Lightning). It came with a bunch of shielding to keep pebbles out of the mesh, as that could theoretically break the belt. It was ugly, so I took it off and never had a problem - possibly just lucky.
I went with the quick and dirty solution. Chains are very tolerant to all kinds of abuse - dirt, misalignment, sprocket runout, loosness, etc. Also, on a prototype build they are easy to shorten/lengthen when I make changes.
The drive is actually fairly quiet. When I chat with my riding partner on long uphills, the motor and chain noise are pretty much in the background, not too much louder than the gravel crunching. Over 8-10 MPH, the wind is louder.