Belt Drive

Get rid of the chain!

A Santos with a belt drive is clean, quiet and fast. This maintenance-free drive does not require you to lubricate it and always run smoothly. That way you have more time to ride!

I have been riding on a bike with belt drive myself since 2008. My first impression ... it runs fantastically! It has become my favourite bike; lots of riding and little maintenance (so it really does it for me).

I find it important that everyone chooses the right bike. That is why we have bikes with belt drive and with chain drive. It is also why we custom build bikes. So, choose what best suits you. Curious? Then read on or drop in for a test ride and see for yourself how such a Santos rides!

Recently I have been getting more and more questions about the belt drive. Therefore I have built a whole website for it. On the belt drive website you will find everything there is to know about the belt drive; tips, manuals and installation instructions, and of course general info - such as why you should now choose for a belt..

Santos Beltdrive
For the smoothest ride of your life...

Enjoying your bike ride, making long trips, going backwards and forwards to work. Then you put the bike away and next time you can just jump on your - silent - bike again and head off... on your belt-driven Santos bike.

The SRR-05, the first racing bike with belt drive. Light (under 10kg), fast and practical - you can even put a carrier and mudflaps on it. The perfect road bike for every day, all week, all year!

All kinds of bikes with belt drive!
The revolutionary SRR 05 road bike with Rohloff hub; the road bike for the whole week, every day, in any weather. With mudflaps it is ready for the wet months of the year, and you can choose for yourself whether to have a belt or a chain. We are not custom built for no reason.

Also the Trekking Lite with Rohloff hub. Our reliable lightweight (without carbon parts) now comes with this – for us - popular gear system. It is really a bike for weekend holidays, to enjoy riding in the country or for the everyday - quick - ride to work. Just like the SRR-05, the Trekking Lite is available with chain or belt drive.

The Trekking Lite Rohloff and the SRR-05 Rohloff will be available from mid-March/April 2010. If you order it now you will be one of the first to be riding it! If you would first like to check it out and go for a test ride, then come and visit us in Sassenheim (we are there every Friday afternoon) because they are already there!
(with belt drive)

Santos gets a world record with belt drive!
James Bowthorpe (our English world cyclist) has established a new world record, the official once-round-the-world that is included in the Guinness Book of Records.
How far is it? Uhhh - 29,065kms in 175 days, about 190kms per day, alone, with luggage!

James rides a Santos Travelmaster with belt drive.

On where in the world is James? You can view James' route.

James and I toast the world record - he made it. And his bike did too - with the original wheels (without any broken spokes) and using only two belts in 29.065kms! James rode with his second belt for more than 19.000kms.

Riding with a belt through thick Limburg mud

This occasion was the Bart Brentjes Classic (October 2009) - a real mudfest. The rain the previous day made sure there was plenty of typical Limburg mud; very sticky and full of small stones. In short, I was wondering how my belt was going to cope, because this was the first time riding with it in this typical mud.

After 10 kilometres I rode past the first rider whose 27-speed bike had become a single-speed bike - his rear derailleur was broken. From then on I saw so many more; broken chains, broken derailleurs, lots of chainsuck (when the chain does not release from the bottom of the chainring, pedal action comes to an abrupt binding stop, and you fall over into the dirt and lots of grinding noise.

I rode for 3 ½ hours without problems. All gears worked (thanks to Rohloff) and everything ran smoothly thanks to my belt. After the race I gave it a hose down and it was ready to ride to work the next day. No oil, no grease, nothing. Just a little water to get the worst of the mud off and then it is ready to go again. The next morning I had a quiet and smooth ride into work - super!

How many chains, sprockets, cassettes and disc brake blocks must have flown out of shops in the week after this ride?! As for my belt, I'm still riding with it with no troubles at all!

On to the next ride.

Real Limburg mud, absolutely filthy. It was great riding though. Afterwards, just hose it down and it is ready for the next ride.