I have a 2017 Trek Dublin BLX bicycle, which has a Gates belt drivetrain (mix of CDX and CDN) and a Shimano Alfine 8 hub. I use this as my commuter bike and so far I don't have any reasons to complain. My gf and I are planning a bike touring trip later this year and therefore I'm doing the rounds and checking if my bike is solid for that. A couple of weeks ago I had it serviced at the local bike shop - the Alfine hub had never been serviced and it was due for an oil bath. I asked the guys to tension the belt in the lower range as I found that a higher tension causes extra noises and creaking in the rear sprocket.
So far so good, the bike runs quite the same (when moving forwards :D ), except I noticed that overall it feels there is extra resistance when moving the pedals backwards. I don't really know how to express this in words, so I filmed it:
When continuously moving the pedals backwards on the second bike I do not feel extra friction or resistance, but if I give it some momentum it goes to a stop almost immediately.Those are two completely different bikes, so there are a lot of variables at play. 1) old Gazelle+chain+3spd sturmey archer 2) Trek+belt+alfine.
Now, I had already noticed that in general the Trek was a bit 'stiffer' when moving the pedals backwards, but I don't know if it has gotten worse after it came from the shop, or if it's me just being anal about having a top-notch bike for this summer.
Some questions:
- is this normal behaviour one would expect from a Gates belt drive train? Or from a drive train using an Alfine 8?
- could this be to low of a tension on the belt?
- could this be a misaligned belt line between the back and front sprockets?
Thanks in advance!