WELCOME!

Thank you for your purchase of a Viral Bike and welcome to the family. We realize that buying a bike is a very personal thing, and we truly appreciate you taking a chance with Viral. We want to make sure that your experience with our brand is nothing short of extraordinary.

Here you should find all of the information you need to care of your Viral frame and your Pinion Gearbox. If something is missing from this section that you have a question about, please don’t hesitate to reach out and ask. We’re here for you!

Firstly, we would love it if you joined our community over on Strava. Here you can interact with other Viral Owners, compete for a top spot on the leader boards, and see what kind of amazing routes other Viral riders are going on. Sometimes they’re in your backyard, and sometimes they are crossing continents!

Belt Basics

Your Viral Bike ships with a top of the line Gates CarbonDrive CDX belt. This belt is NEARLY indestructible, but does require some special handling. Please see the chart to the left to see ways in which NOT to handle your belt, especially if you’re carrying an extra for a middle of nowhere bikepacking expedition. You’ll want to pack your belt away in a place that doesn’t allow the belt to do any of those actions.

Below is a link to the Gates handling and tension information. This will also have another link to download the Gates belt app, where you can use your phone to check the tension of your Gates belt. Here you’ll see a range of belt tensions that work with the Pinion gearbox (45 -65 hz). We recommend getting as close to 45hz as possible. The lower the tension, the better the wear on ALL of your components, including rear hub bearings.

Should you need to move your drop outs, either because the belt requires tensioning, or you are changing the size of your belt or cog, please make sure to tighten the drop out bolts on both sides to the required torque. Please see below:

C-Line Owners Manual

C-Line Owner’s Manual

Pinion Gearbox

The Pinion gearbox is an exceptional piece of technology and one of its main benefits is requiring almost no maintenance… almost.

The Pinion C-Line gearbox we spec with every single Viral bike comes with a 2 year warranty against manufacture defects. This warranty can be extended to 3 years if you register your gearbox with Pinion: https://pinion.eu/en/account/?customer_login

If you are using the Smart.Shift, you will need to download the Pinion Smart.Shift app from the iOS or Android store. This app allows you to check your Smart.Shift battery life and switch the button assignments around to suit your needs. Some of the options in the Smart.Shift app, such as Start.Select and Pre.Select require a speed sensor, which we do not spec with our bikes currently.

Pinion now says that the service interval for the gearbox is every 6,000 miles, no matter how long it takes to reach that mark. We used to supply the first oil change with our bikes, but because of this new service interval, it could be years before your first oil change. As such we do not want to have oil sitting around your home for years. It’s probably best to create your Viral as a ‘bicycle’ on your mileage app (Strava, Garmin, etc) to help keep track of the necessary oil change interval. If you have multiple bikes, it does mean being vigilant about making sure you’re tracking the correct miles on the correct bike. The below video will show you exactly how to perform an oil change on the C-Line gearbox.

Pinion C-Line Gearbox Oil Change

  • No. Once your dropouts are adjusted for proper belt tension, they shouldn't need to be moved, ever. It's possible your belt might wear and stretch enough to need to readjust them down the road, but it should be well over 1000 miles before that's necessary. Once you remove the thru axle, your rear wheel can just drop out of the frame, the same as it would with any other drivetrain. When putting your wheel back in, take care to insure that your belt is properly engaged with the front cog first, and as the wheel is going in, make sure to align the belt in the rear cog and then finish installing your wheel in the frame and replacing the thru axle.

  • The Pinion Smart.Shift battery is tucked up inside the downtue of your frame. The charging port is a covered wire up near the head tube of the bicycle (it comes out of the frame with the shifting wire). The battery itself can only be accessed by removing the gearbox.

  • Unfortunately, it means you're stuck in whatever gear it died in. There is no option for changing the gear manually on the Smart.Shift gearbox. So make sure to keep your battery charged and ready for anything. On major bikepacking trips, we definitely recommend bringing the charger along with you.

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