Bikes that really should have shaft drive
Discussion
creampuff said:
Silver993tt said:
willis1337 said:
Also the GTR has 50bhp less than a ZZR (c. 25%).
Yes but also has more torque lower down and uses variable valve timing unlike the ZZR1400.Wedg1e said:
Horses for courses, of course... I don't do sports bike yoga positions and I don't do warp speed so I'll take the boring inconvenience of never having to wipe chain oil off my undertray instead 
Another advantage of chain drive, I never have to worry about corrosion of the back end of my bike ;-) I can see why those weirdos that spend more time polishing thier bike then riding them would prefer a shaft though :-D 
RizzoTheRat said:
Wedg1e said:
Horses for courses, of course... I don't do sports bike yoga positions and I don't do warp speed so I'll take the boring inconvenience of never having to wipe chain oil off my undertray instead
Another advantage of chain drive, I never have to worry about corrosion of the back end of my bike ;-) I can see why those weirdos that spend more time polishing thier bike then riding them would prefer a shaft though :-D 
Wedg1e said:
RizzoTheRat said:
2 minutes to tweak the chain every few thousand miles and £150 quid or so for new chain and sprockets every 30k miles, vs a huge amount of faff and costs when the shaft drive eventually fails? I'll stick with chains thanks. Shaft drives just seem to me a bit of a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.
The shaft drive on a bike is analogous to the propshaft and differential of a rear-wheel drive car: you see those broken down all the time, do you?My ST1300 is as near as dammit 10 years old and has managed 37000 miles on its original shaft drive with no issues, not even an oil leak. By the time it breaks, the bike won't be worth fixing.
My last ST13 had over 50K on it: the same reliability (it's still out there somewhere).
The ST1100 I had before that had 107K on it last I heard, how many chain drive bikes can go that far on one chain...?
Prof Prolapse said:
Hooli said:
I used to drive around with two diffs & a pair of propshafts in the boot 'just in case' when I had a Discovery that got used properly. I don't see many green lane bikes carrying a spare C&S set...
Should have just towed a spare Disco.
Had spare radius arms etc onboard too, but we did get a bit silly on P&P sites.
Lincsblokey said:
Can the answer be 'no bikes'
Shaft Drive is for weiners who really should be driving skoda's.
I've had two Skodas: proper rear-engined ones too, not re-badged VWs Shaft Drive is for weiners who really should be driving skoda's.
Two of the most reliable cars I've ever owned.
However I will admit my penis is tiny so I bought a huge shaft-driven motorcycle to make up for it
jackh707 said:
If you are refering to the 650s, NoNoNo. Light (for what they are), cheap and reliable bikes that do not need to be more complicated,
If 1000s, I'm still not sure. The V1000 is a road bike, the Strom 1000, has some light off road suggesting styling, but the lack of shaft drive is one of the reasons these 2 bikes are affordable and undercut a new R1200GS/KTM1190/multi by £4-5k.
Don't get me wrong they are not in the same league overall as the above bikes.
And let's not get started on BMW final drive failures. Arguably they usually happen to unsympathetic owners who wouldn't notice the first signs of it starting to go.
I'd pick a chain for reliability every time.
Yeah, those BMWs suck.. let's see: BMW 1: 90K check.. BMW 2: 79K check... BMW 3: 39K check ( shaft ).. BMW 4: 26K ( belt ) - Honda 2: 110K ( chain ).If 1000s, I'm still not sure. The V1000 is a road bike, the Strom 1000, has some light off road suggesting styling, but the lack of shaft drive is one of the reasons these 2 bikes are affordable and undercut a new R1200GS/KTM1190/multi by £4-5k.
Don't get me wrong they are not in the same league overall as the above bikes.
And let's not get started on BMW final drive failures. Arguably they usually happen to unsympathetic owners who wouldn't notice the first signs of it starting to go.
I'd pick a chain for reliability every time.
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