Belt drive giants Gates, known for their applications in everything from snowmobiles, ATVs, fitness equipment and bikes is offering a large ‘Belted Purse’ for their first World Cup win.
If you were wondering why bike companies and their respective teams were rolling out belt drive downhill bikes, then the lure of a 100,000 Euro for their first Elite World Cup win should certainly help explain it. The prize will roll over to 2026 if not claimed this season.
The Gates Carbon Drive Prize is a 100,000 Euro pot on offer to anyone who wins an Elite World Cup for the first time using the Gates Carbon Drive belt system. Whilst Gates have been in the belt drive MTB market for a while, the belt drive and fluid coupling giants getting fully stuck into this year’s World Cups shows welcome outside investment.
Continental Atherton, MS Zerode, Intense Factory Racing and AON Racing have all either had or have developed belt drive downhill bikes for this season. Zerode and Gamux (AON’s bike sponsor) are well-known for their belt drive bikes, whilst the Atherton A.200G is recently launched and Intense have been developing one for a while now.
This poses two questions. Which riders on these teams are known winners? Charlie Hatton famously won Worlds on home turf in 2023, Ele Farina won in the ice rink that was Les Gets, Reece Wilson has taken the Rainbow Stripes and a World Cup win in Snowshoe. There’s an awful lot of potential in these teams it’s worth adding, and plenty of teams who have yet to announce their roster and bikes.
Will we see a Frameworks belt drive taking the money under Asa Vermette or Angel Suarez? Has Specialized cooked up a new Demo for Bruni, Iles and Williams to run? A belt-drive Session for Trek Factory Racing? Amaury and co. on a Commencal Supreme with a belt? Will YT launch a new Tues?
It also begs the question, how much does it cost to develop a bike with a belt drive? Yes you could go geared hub, but that increases the mass in the wrong place, offsetting some of the benefits, so a frame-mounted gearbox is likely the preferred solution. Kinematics will likely need to be tweaked to suit and a whole new front triangle to match the new drive system will be required. Obviously Gamux and Zerode are well ahead of the curve in this sense.
Who’s your money on to take the Belted Purse, and will it be won this year?
