Is chain drive best?

07/09/2017 9:47am

To date, there have been three principal drive types used to drive the motorcycle rear wheel. Shaft drive, belt drive and chain drive. All of them date back around 100 years, all have advantages and disadvantages but chain drive is still by far the most common. So why haven’t we moved on? Well, let’s look at the pros and cons of each.

Shaft drive is very clean, very reliable and very durable but it is also complex, heavy and much more expensive to produce. On top of that, it has little or no ability to vary the final drive ratios making it almost useless for any type of sports bike. Its use is generally restricted to big and fairly expensive touring bikes.

Belt drive is also very clean, quiet and relatively inexpensive to produce. However, the belts are not nearly as strong as chains. To make them as strong, they would need to make them wider and a belt running on a modern day superbike would need to be many inches wide, making it completely impractical. Changing gearing is also much more difficult and they are completely impractical off road. It is possible that in the future the technology will become available to manufacture belts which are strong enough to withstand modern power outputs but it hasn’t happened in the last 100 years and with power outputs rising every year, I wouldn’t hold your breath! Its use these days is generally restricted to custom bikes and cruisers.

Chain drive, on the other hand, is cheap to produce, is fairly durable, is narrow enough to pass the rear wheel easily, is strong enough for all modern day applications, can be used on or off road and can easily vary the gearing ratios. Its only real negatives are that it gradually wears out, is fairly noisy and is relatively messy with chain lubrication. Overall though, its advantages far outweigh its disadvantages, so it looks like it will be with us for a long time into the future yet.