Why Chain Drive Is Commonly Used In Motorcycles- Is It Any Better?

• Jul 7, 2015
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We have seen motorcycles running chain drive; which means the power from the engine is transmitted to the rear wheel via a chain. Now barring models from Harley Davidson which mostly run Belt drives; which means they use belts as the final drive method; and bikes like BMW run Shaft drives, the majority of the bikes included all the top tier superbikes and even professional racing MotoGP bikes run a chain drive system on them. Now when all these many bikes are using a chain drive, there must be something about it that scores above all other available methods, right? So let’s check it out and understand why Chain drive is so commonly used. How a Chain Drive Works?

The working of the chain drive is very simple. If you have seen how bicycles work on the chain, you pedal on the front and the chain rotates the rear via the chain. There are two sprockets, one on the front and the other on the rear with the chain connecting it. When the front is rotated, the chain moves along with it and this makes even the rear move since it is also connected to the chain. This is how the power is transmitted to the wheels via a chain. Now like bicycles, the same applies to motorcycles, just the front is connected to the engine and the gears and this transmits power to the rear via the chain.

How it is better?

We are not just claiming out of the blue that chain drives is better, there is certain proof of it. The other known options or alternatives for chain drives are Belt Drive or Shaft drive. In Belt drives, there is a belt instead of a chain and the sprockets are not exactly toothed. So the problem that occurs here is that they tend to slip and hence there is a limit to the power delivery capability to the belts. Though now there are even toothed belts to prevent such slips, but again belts are after all made of rubber or plastic or some other polymer instead of metal in case of chains. Hence there are greater chances of them degrading with time and even damaging or tearing due to a tough terrain or excess pressure.

In case of shaft drives, it is highly quiet and superb low on maintenance, but then the bevel gears used there require a lot of gear sets to make the distance which adds to the weight and also causes drop in power transmitted due to all the gears in between. In case of chain drives the chain is a single entity in between, being made of metal it can take all the tough terrain that can be thrown at it without being destroyed. It has high resistance and most importantly it is far more efficient as well. We will cover the entire list in some. Chain Maintenance:

With every part of the bike that is exposed to the world, there comes a certain maintenance aspect to it and with chain drives it is no different. The easy part here is that all it needs is simple cleaning and lubrication which hardly takes much time and needs to be done when the need arrives. The chain being a mechanical item with lots of linkages gets crevices which can get accumulated with dirt and grime over time with travel. Hence there is a need to clean that up and provide fresh lubrication for the chain to keep up its efficiency. Also with the numerous linkages, over time there is a stretch caused which increases the chain length and hence there is a need to increase the chain tension again by setting the chain.After checking out the pros and cons, we can definitely conclude that the cons are almost negligible for the work that the chain drive does better than any other drive train. Hence we can see all the companies going in for chain drive as the most preferred final drive mechanism. After all it is tried, tested and reliable.

By: Pratik Patole