"Ollie: Definitely. The big time saving is the lack of lube. Craig would have to stop and lube his chain three or four times per day. Craig also changed his chain twice. It’s a psychological boost as well, knowing that you can keep riding without having to stop."
He could have avoided most of the lube hassles with Rohloff and a standard chain, no need for the Gates carbon belt. When I did my Lassen tour this past August, the hain was coated with volcanic dust from start to finish to the point where it was making horrible creaking noises, but there was never a problem pedalling the bike, though I probably added some drag with all this crud. I hadn't yet devised a system for cleaning the chain in the field. Now that I have such a system, I typically clean and relube the chain weekly to bi-weekly, or about every 250-500 miles. For these guys, going 165 miles/day that would mean every 2-3 days, which isn't that bad.
My experience with a derailleur bike during my Mojave desert tour last year matches that of Craig. Namely, I had to lube the chain every 50 miles or so (daily in my case, 3 times a day at the 165 mile/day pace of these guys) to keep it flexible enough that the derailleur (especially the front derailleur) would work properly.
