Hi newbert, are you sure you're not worrying needlessly? Not to put too fine a point on it, I'm not!
MANY other bikes that are used on sealed & unsealed roads these days run belts like ours, most of them with belts even more open to damage than ours are, and largely they do it without any significant number of belt damage incidents or issues. As for 'our belts', because so many of our Aus roads are either loose chip-sealed or completely unsealed, while I've now done close to 60,000 km all up on my RT, I've also done a good third or maybe even half of that , ie up to about 30,000 km of that while travelling on loose chip- seal &/or mixed dirt roads, ryding without any extra belt guards on my RT and yet NO belt issues! :shocked: Btw, I say 'mixed' only because while I never
actively 'seek out' dirt, I certainly don't ever avoid it and generally take whatever road surfaces I get when and as I find it - so the dirt roads I do find range from smooth dirt with tiny marbles thru to belly deep sand & gravel, altho I do tend to limit that deep stuff if it doesn't mean big detours.... and the worse it is the more 'carefully' I ryde - but I really do enjoy the rooster tails & the drifting thru the corners on the faster open stuff!
hyea:
And since I personally know a fair few Ryders and I 'know of' even more Ryders who ryde in much the same way on much the same road surfaces as I do with nary an issue - I'm pretty convinced that belt or sprocket problems are more of the rare exception thing rather than the norm! And the number of replacement belt sales for Spyders, at least here in Aus where we have a LOT of dirt roads & loose chip seal roads and lots of small gravel & other debris on even the best roads, does seem to reflect that! And even though there are quite a few of these belt driven Spyder things in this country now & well over 100,000 world wide, there still doesn't seem to be a major or even significant amount belt damage problems being reported - not even on the Spyder Lovers boards! :shocked: Yeah, every now & then a post or two pop up, sometimes even thread about a little bit of belt damage does crop up, and when it does, there's often a little spate of concern expressed about it, but what percentage of the Spyders sold so far have ACTUALLY had any issues or even realised ACTUAL belt damage concerns? It can't be too large or we'd likely see just as much discussion about it as we do re the DESS issues, or the crappy Kenda tire issues, or the belt vibration concerns, or maybe even the 'my hands block the mirrors' worries - but we just don't, and certainly no-one is obviously getting rich selling those missing belt guards, and neither has BRP
ever bothered to do anything about it, let alone add what is really a very easy to do & cheap to fit bit of plastic in order to allay the fears or completely resolve the 'problem', have they?!? :dontknow: But they have made a belt tensioner available, haven't they?! Hmmm??
So I would suggest that you really shouldn't over-think this one.... sure, avoid dirt if & when you can, maybe slow down & take a bit more care if you can't, even check your belt carefully once you get home after ryding on dirt if you feel you should (I generally do.) but really, I reckon the best thing you could do is to
Ryde More & Worry Less! hyea: :2thumbs: :yes:
Go on, you know you can! Enjoy!:thumbup:
