Venture said:
I'm really surprised more manufacturers haven't jumped on the belt drive bandwagon. All the benefits of a chain and much cleaner.
I know Buell seemed to have decent luck with a belt final drive, but honestly, I personally would never consider an adventure bike with a belt drive. After a small rock punched a hole through the belt of my wife's BMW F650CS and paying $400 to replace that belt, I am soured on the idea of a belt being a good choice for a final drive on a bike used for gravel, dirt and rocks. We never road her 650CS on trails or gravel roads except for the 2 miles of gravel to get from our house to the asphalt.
We discovered the pebble and hole while 125 miles from home. Luckily, we had just come from the BMW dealership and were in the parking lot of another business 3 blocks away when I discovered it. We popped back over to BMW and they pulled the pebble out with a pliers. The 3/16" hole went all the way through the belt, very close to one edge. From what I've read, the belts are very robust, so we decided to ride it home rather than leaving the bike there and her hopping on my bike with me. It changed the dynamics of the trip, though, because we took the interstate home (to be on the main route) rather than a less traveled back highway that we had planned and road at a slow pace. I ended up taking the lazy way out and had the shop replace it because I didn't want to mess with pulling off the entire swingarm (like what one would have to do with a linkless chain). Many folks have ridden a compromised belt (like with cracks or holes in them) for the rest of the normal belt life (20,000 miles) but since it was my wife riding the bike, I was not going to risk a failure while riding that could result in her taking a spill.
From the time we got it fixed to the time we sold that bike a year later, we road it a max of 20mph while on our gravel road because I was scared it would happen again. I can't imagine riding hundreds of miles of trails every weekend and always worrying a rock was going to punch a hole in the belt. True that a rock can get between a chain and sprocket, too, but for whatever reason, that just seems to rarely result in damage. Maybe our belt getting a hole was a fluke, but since it happened, it's not something I'd ever be able to get out of my mind, hence my comment that I, personally, would never even consider buying an adventure bike that came with a belt final drive.
I have the S10 on order, and I like the adventure tourer setup better now than the sport tourer. If the S10 doesn't work out for some reason, maybe this new Trophy will be in the cards but I really think the Yamaha is going to do the job for me now.
