I was watching a couple of motorcycle shows on Discovery a while ago, specifically the “American Chopper - the series” that featured the Orange County Choppers “Black Widow”.
I noticed that the Black Widow appeared to have a mixed drive train (is that the correct term?) with a belt drive off the engine, but a chain drive connecting to the rear wheel.
I’ve done some searches on google and have gotten some hits: fairly useless ones, but enough to tell me that the concept of a “Primary Drive” and “Secondary Drive” are known, if not common. My question is:
What benefit is acquired from having a dual-drive? The benefits of chain vs belt vs shaft are known, but what’s the benefit of mixing them? It seems like just more maintenance to me.
The primary drive runs from the engine to the transmission; the final (or secondary) drive runs from the transmission to the rear wheel. They’re two separate drives, and changing the type of drive used for one doesn’t affect the other.
The primary belt/chain runs at a higher speed than the output, so converting to a belt probably allows the bike to accelerate faster, but considering that we’re talking about a chopper, they probably chose an exposed belt primary because it looks cooler and used a chain rear for tradition’s sake (tradition being a very big deal with bikers.)
Thanks, cornflakes - that makes some sense. . .
On a side note, gotta love the hamsters: I’m writing this reply in another instance of IE on my 'puter. The original post screen is still open and still “working” in the other instance. So according to it, I haven’t posted, yet here I am thanking someone for the reply!! 