I don't know about the Conti belt but the Gates has been rock solid since they introduced the center track guide. The first wave did have some problems unless the pullies had guides, they could slide off.
For what it is, I love it, it's not a racing bike though. I'm curious about the mtb uses with a Rohloff hub, it's a fair amount of weight.
I've had a Spot ACME with belt for about 6 years. I've used in on my daily lunch ride 4+ days a week. I was worried about all that stuff, I love the bike and was worried about nothing.
Belt damage? They put these belts on motorcycles, it's possible to damage them but they are insanely durable, probably stronger than your typical chain. Somewhere I picked up a staple on mine, I'm going to get it replaced but I've done several hundred miles on it with no issues.
The IGHs are a different matter, they're pretty sensitive and if you get them off a little bit they work but your shifting will be hosed up. Bike shop fixed it all though. My advice? Don't mess with it, get it set up, make sure the little connector on the cable is tightly attached and you probably won't have issues, I had some slip on mine.
I've been running Conti touring tires with some mixed tread and pre-slimed tubes, I've not had flats but I've worn out 3 or 4 sets of tires. It's not a big deal to change it though. It's a commuter bike so it has bolts rather than quick release skewers, I'd use slime and maybe even kevlar liners if you get a lot of flats and just make tire changes a wear issue. It's a heavy bike, it's not a carbon roady by any stretch but it has been as close to zero maintenance as any bike I've had. It's actually required more maintenance on the disc brakes than the drive train, they were getting a little squishy but just rebleed them and they're good again. The only "issue" I've had was when I got a lot of dust on the belt, it was kind of squeaky for a while.
This carbon/ceramic drive shaft is kind of interesting. I always thought that the chain to pully and gear touch point was where the friction loss was, not interlink on the chain itself. For years and years, they've offered bigger pullies for reduced friction. This drive shaft will still have a similar touch point; also seeing as how both pieces rotate, it looks like there could be side to side friction as the cog on the shaft touches the gear on the wheel and they both rotate unless the cog and gear have some very special shaping that I'm not seeing.
As the cog rotates, when it first can engage the gear, just the tip will be touching the gear but as it continues it will push more of the tooth on the cog in to the gear, am I wrong on this?
What's mindblowing is the rage that seems to pour out of, mostly, non-contributors when this stuff comes up. There is a more fundamental insecurity or just a fundamental disrespect that some of these folks seem to have for others. I've heard claims that there have even been planted "social justice warriors" that have intentionally engaged in conflict to change projects. When you have guys like Eric Raymond saying that sort of thing, what do you expect?
At the same time, this company has printed money for 30 years, not just beat the competition but killed the competition in many cases, and even made that an internal mantra. They have a pile of very smart people, money, etc.. there are also browser compatibility test services. They could have a VM grid with every interesting browser ever and it's not a big cost to them. A 15 person startup? I get they you might skip some browsers and focus on a key supported set. The tooling for that VM grid is also something I think a lot of the community would eat up of MS made available, there are lots of ways to build good karma and improve community relations.
Intentional or not, it's just bad optics, if nothing else. A slate with the windows 10 linux subsystem looked like an interesting environment to play around with and maybe give a shot. This sort of thing makes it look a lot less interesting. No joke, I was thinking of getting my kids one.
For what it is, I love it, it's not a racing bike though. I'm curious about the mtb uses with a Rohloff hub, it's a fair amount of weight.