I think “best” depends on your specific usage. For me, the Newbee drive is just fantastic for road builds. Really smooth and quiet and I think despite the POM, it’s a solid design. You get a lot of teeth in contact throughout the drive. I opened one up recently to check on it after about 3000 km and everything looked like it was in great condition. I think Newbee did a fair bit of testing on their drives. Hard to say how much testing has been done on the copycats like the Meepo.
For mountainboard I have Apex Jump Drive. It’s louder but more likely to handle the abuse of off-road and I think had some pretty heavy-duty testing during development. I have it in 2WD right now but I’m about to make it 4WD.
Those are probably the most common and they are all good but have pros and cons. Depends what you want, what the rest of your setup is, and how much you want to spend.
+:
Only steel gears
1:2.2, 1:2.6, 1:3, 1:3.5 options
Works for both street and AT
Helical
Intergrated hanger adapter into hanger(= no loose geardrives like etc grub lock can get)
Isn’t bioboards just using 3DServisas GDs? AFAIK those don’t have a mounting bracket, they only work with the Fatboy trucks with mounts milled onto them.
I guess some clamps could be made, but I wouldn’t want to trust them with a gear drive.
I also have GDs!!! Dang it lol they expensive but mostly because the tires are expensive!!! And you get 2 sets of tires!! Those retail for $120 a set!
The GDs are designed and made by 3Ds, new and improved nano gear drives, super compact and extremely fun, they are designed for the Hoyt 5 tire which is like esk8 magic
