Based in a former dairy near Zurich, Simpel produces good, solid and elegant town and touring bikes. They like to test new technologies and were among the first in testing and fitting the NuVinci hub on their bikes.

Recently they have been working on fitting the carbon belt made by the Scottish firm Gates, on their range of bikes. Phil Douglas, Simpel’s founder came to visit us last week, and he enthused over the belt drive. If you associate belt drive with the Strida, think again: the Gates is extremely strong and will not skip even when climbing up the Alps.

The advantages are multifold: long life, clean and silent. Phil is now engineering special drop-outs so that he can fit the belt drive on Nexus and Rohloff hubs and keep it properly tensioned. As he reports on his blog (a must read on how to integrate new technologies), the belt has come undamaged after long tests; the teeth of the chainring have suffered minimal damage from debris stuck in them: that should not be a major problem because the fact that the belt is grease-less makes cleaning the transmission an easy job.

Additional reporting in Aktiv Fahrrad

CORRECTION: Rik Kreunen from Strida points out that the belt used on the Strida is also manufactured by Gates; its longevity is beyond doubt.