New Gates belt drive innovation for off-roading electric motorcycles

Gates Carbon Drive is already a leading supplier for many electric motorcycles, but the company’s new MudPort innovation is likely to expand the company’s dominance, especially for off-road electric motorcycles.

Gates has just released its new sprocket design, which was specifically designed for applications with electric motorcycles and scooters to be used in both on- and off-road environments.

As the company explained:

The new sprockets, featuring patent pending MudPort™ technology, offer advanced debris shedding for belt drivetrains compared to traditional sprockets.

If you take a look at the image below, you’ll instantly see the difference. Those windows or ports on the sprocket create an easy pathway to shed all the junk slung up by off-road tires.

While belt drives have been popular for electric motorcycles and scooters as their noise reduction actually makes a significant difference with the lack of a loud gas engine, extreme off-road vehicles have presented unique challenges to belt drive manufacturers.

The introduction of the MudPort system from Gates further enables belt drives to penetrate the off-road powersports industry.

As the company continued:

MudPort builds on Gates Carbon Drive’s fourteen-year legacy of designing sprockets that are perfectly paired to its carbon-fiber belts. An early version of MudPort technology was first used on bicycles starting in 2007. Since then, the technology has been improved and scaled up in power rating by optimizing port design, tooth shape, and materials, and by eliminating flanges where possible. The end-result is a belt-drive system that is expected to increase lifetime in high-debris riding conditions while also reducing weight vs. standard sprocket designs.

The new debris-shedding sprockets, combined with existing range of Gates carbon-fiber belts, will bring the benefits of belt drives to the growing space of electrified powersports vehicles. Traditionally, dual-sport, adventure touring and vehicles used on unpaved roads have used chain. MudPort delivers the debris-shedding performance to better tolerate dirt, mud, sand, and snow, enabling increased conversion from chain to belt drives. Gates technology offers additional advantages to electric vehicles as well, providing virtually silent operation and significantly decreased maintenance compared to chains.

Last year electric dirt bike manufacturer CAKE announced that it would begin outfitting models with Gates belt drive systems.

Now we’re already seeing what a CAKE electric motorbike looks like with the new MudPort sprockets. The CAKE Kalk line of electric dirt bikes will offer the MudPort sprockets as an upgrade while the CAKE Osa electric utility bike will come standard with the MudPort sprockets.

Gates also showed off a Sur Ron electric trail bike sporting the new innovation as well.

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