Hi people,
new to the site and absolutely love it!
I'm planning to make a RTW trip or Amsterdam-Cape town within two years from now, depending a bit on budget, time etc.

The big question everyone faces is of course which bike to choose? Lots of info and pro's and con's on weight vs power vs reliability, but no one seems to talk about shaft drive vs chain driven bikes (at least, i can't find it, might just be me).

Here in Holland I drive a bashed up cx500 (due to budget and living in inner city), which is shaft driven and i love it. It has never let me down (nearing 90,000km) and the shaft is totally care free. This experience tilts me towards shaft driven bikes, but the only enduro bikes seem to be BMW's, which are not my type of bike (too expensive and too high tech) for a RTW.

What are the options on shaft driven enduro's? Or can someone convince me chain is just as good/better?

cheers
Paul

Dont Honda do a shaft drive Trailie? XRV 750?:confused1:

Thats the Africa Twin right? I believe its a chain driven bike. Beautiful bike. Don't get me wrong, i don't swear by shaft, just have good experiences with it, but am willing to listen to chain enthusiasts!

Maybe, but they definateley DID do a shaft drive V twin........

The old Honda XLV750 had shaftdrive:



As you say there is a lot of Beemers, (airheads are my favorite), but you don’t like them so I guess you have Ural and Guzzi left.

I know what you mean about shafties, reminds me of my Suzuki GS850G days (1985-1998) (a good reliable and utterly bulletproof Jap tourer). In the case of road based long distance tourers, a well designed and constructed shaftdrive runs circles round a chain driven tourer. As far as Trail/RTW/Adventure bikes are concerned I think a chain drive is much simpler, quicker and cheaper to fix in the event of failure. The other aspect to remember is the increase in weight too, a shaftdrive is much much heavier than a chain and sprocket.

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Triumph Bonneville 800 (2004), Yamaha XT600E (1999), Honda XBR500 (1986).

That is just GORGEOUS! I want one...... I Do...really, really, really.... Sod my XT......... ive fallen in love with an inanimate object......

Martyn

Personally I would just find a bike with which you can live for a few months on the road. The chain or shaft is in some respects a re-hash of jap versus old Brit bikes argument. The chain will require more simple maintenance than a shaft, replacement is cheaper and easier also. However which costs less in the long run is a moot point. I like the shaft drive on my BMW ( 1980 R80RT) one day it wil break and cost a lot to fix, but then will run another five years+ with just an annual oil change. It is good not to have to bother with it on my longer trips. BUT. when it does break, it is likely to be a problem, unless it breaks close to home.
in a nutshell, shaft no maintenance until it breaks then is expensive and difficult. Chain, needs regular maintenance with occasional cheap and simple replacements. ( much like brake shoes/pads).

Just take the CX500 Paul!! (or a nice XJ900 Divy ). After all, plenty of roads RTW are sealed surfaces, i.e. bitumen surfaced, nowadays.

Actually, those who are shaft drive enthusiasts won't be swayed by anything in a thread and lots of people will swear by a chain drive.
In the meantime, you have not said what kind of riding you want to do, how much weight you expect to carry or even what countries you may ride through - too many variables in other words!

Are you sure there are no threads in here already on this topic? Maybe I have read "so much" elsewhere!

How about a belt drive BTW?

Chain drive: Ted Simon's first trip RTW.
Shaft drive: his second trip RTW.
In both cases, he was given the bikes.

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Dave

The weight issue is funny. As always people think that the traditional BMW-stuff is heavy. I compared the weight of swingarm, beveldrive/sprocket, driveshaft/chain on a R80GS and a F650GS Paris Dakar:

R80GS shaft 12,4kg
F650GS 9kg

That’s not to bad is it? …… Well if you need to carry a spare set of sprockets and chain the weight for the chain-bike will be 12.3 kg! Still 100 gram lighter but you need lubricants, a few chainlocks and maybe some tools.

Conclusion: Shaftdrive is not necessarily heavier then chain and sprockets!

Sidenote:
Small things like chain guard, chain followers and so on are not included in the weight stated above.

So:
Weight – The same
Cost – Shaft is less expensive in the long run
Maintenance – OldBmw has some good points here, personally I would prefer a few hours job every 100-150.000 km then the hassle with a chain.


Who cares?

Since 1977,all of my bikes have been shaft-drive,CX500,6 Goldwings,5 BMWs.

I've done "serious" miles on all of 'em.For instance,my latest bike,bought new on August 1st '07, has done just under 11,000 miles!

I have never had a single problem with any shaft-drive.

Chains belong on bicycles!!

I have to agree with AliBaba, the weight difference isn't big, there is a small weight advantage for chain drive, but not as big as many people think it is.

The main con for shaft is the power loss, which is approximately 18%, chains drives have approximately 11% power loss from the crank. So this clearly dictates shaft drive isn't the best solution for very high performance road racing bikes. But for our consumer use adventure and adventure touring bikes, where 7% power difference wouldn't be noticed, I think we can argue about the cons and pros of each system.

Personally I prefer the shaft-drive. On BMW paralever, you can repair it on the road too, if you know how to do it. You need to carry a main bearing and/or a main seal just in case. They cost less than a good chain set, weight less and take less room carrying them with you.

Very nice armored assault vehicle , imagine if it was a chain drive and you had to ride home that is 200kms away w/o cleaning and lubricating it, like I often do with my GS - how much chain wear it'll cause? Also if mostly riding on dirt and gravel roads? Even the "sealed" X- or O-ringed chains will give up faster in dirty conditions. Closed systems (both shaft and some enclosed chain drives some older bikes have) are the best there I think in terms of longevity and wear. If riding only on clean tarmac on Western-European and N-American clean main roads then high quality (D.I.D., Regina few other) chains last relatively long (up to 30Kkms, some even more if you aren't a very hard handed rider and clean/lubricate it after every 500km, or after every day when riding in rainy days), but it's a hassle in any case. Your rear wheel will be oily with dirt glued on and your girlfriend (maybe you too if you're too nasty on oiling the chain) will have oily boots, whether you have Scottoiler or you prefer to clean/oil it yourself and you have to keep an eye on it constantly anyway: overall condition, wear of the chain and sprockets, and constantly check&adjust chain slack... In comparision, any 20,000km or more manitenance intervalled (only oil change needed) shaft drive looks very convenient, since you even don't have to touch or look at it in between the maintenance intervals.

In the end of the day each system has it's advantage and disadvantages. Everyone has their own personal requirements, comfort-levels, technical skills and risk assessment in their minds to choose the one that suits the best, IMHO anyways.

Here's mine:



Mine's now at 73Kkm and not a single problem.

Honda did make a V twin with a shaft drive. The St110, and the Deauville as well as the CX500. But depending on what type of travelling you want to do depends on what bike you choose.

As you said most off roaders dont have shaft drive (apart from a few) for weight as most people say and to keep the bike slimmer and other reasons.

As for choosing a bike give us a possible price you would want to spend on (if you dont mind) the bike and we might be able to give you a few bikes we would think about. and what type of terrain you want to go on, road, bit of off roading, hardcore stuff

I plan to go to morroco and i just bought a Yamaha Xt660r for me i find it a great bike, cheap to run, comfy etc but it has a chain when my old bike a deauville had a shaft drive. But there are plenty of things out there to help stop you throwing money at them like scott oilers, degreasers to clean road crap from the chain etc etc

Seem to have spawned quite a discussion here on chains and shafts! After reading through all the posts the only thing one can conclude, as with all these sort of discussions, there are pro's and con's for both systems!

Biking wise I have no experience with long touring outside of europe, but i imagine that if you decide to drive over from up here to SA, it would be fun to get into less familiar type of biking. Probably not the hard core stuff, but some semi offroading, a bit of desert etc seem like a pretty cool experience! So that would probably mean a tenere/africa twin/kle etc enduro style bike. The near daily chain maintenance still scares me off a bit, but if that is what it takes and it can be done without too much problems, it seems like a minor price to pay for a wicked experience!

cheers for al the input

Paul

[QUOTE=Margus;168730]

The main con for shaft is the power loss, which is approximately 18%, chains drives have approximately 11% power loss from the crank. So this clearly dictates shaft drive isn't the best solution for very high performance road racing bikes. But for our consumer use adventure and adventure touring bikes, where 7% power difference wouldn't be noticed, I think we can argue about the cons and pros of each system.
end quote

This is not a fixed thing Margus. On the diesel bike forum where bikes often run with a max of 9hp, transmission loss can be substantial. For instance the old Enfield gearbox when filled with grease as recommended consumes over 25% of the crankshaft power. Switching to 90 grade oil halves this, with a further decrease of power absorbtion when using 50 grade oil. The new (since 1995 or so) 5 speed gearbox on 50 grade oil will often allow a bike to go an extra 10mph, as it absorbs very little power.

Many modern bikes run the gears in the very thin synthetic engine oils which reduce drag to a minimum, wheras the bmw's use separate gear oil of 75/80 weight. Worse for BMW's is that the gearbox is directly coupled to the engine, so there is no primary reduction. This means the input shaft turns 2-3 times faster. to compound this problem, the output shaft is offset to drive the shaft. This forced BMW to use a gearbox that not only spins fast but final drive is via transverse cogs, all of which conspire to drain power. Old Gearboxes and most car gearboxes usually lock the input to the output on the same shaft, so in top gear power is not trasferred by energy wasting gears at all. This normally can easily be checked by looking to see if top gear is shown as a 1:1 ratio. Final drive ratio should always use the least amount of intermediaries for highest efficiency ( and probably component life).