Hello all, I am getting a bit annoyed by the belt drive on my bike and would like to go to the chain conversion, I was driving through town and the belt snapped (this is the third time in about 5 years and as you know they aren't anything like cheap), what would be the best chain to use, I am looking on the usual sites in the UK but no luck so far

hey jog2, tension by turning belt through 90 degrees with finger and thumb and giving it about 3" of travel up and down midway-ish between front and rear sprocket on the  bottom length of belt, cheers

As Badwolf said  Something is just plain wrong These belts are very conservatively sized

I'm also looking at a chain drive and found this:

https://www.xlmoto.nl/aandrijfpakket-jt-tandwiel-en-snell-powerlink-525-x-rin...

It is in the Netherlands, but sending should not be a problem.

I believe Badwolf ,  has" hit the baseball out of the park " with his statement  that the problem may in fact be that the belt tension is way to loose , 3 inches of slack in the bottom section of the belt is about 3 times what I'm running on my 25 year old belt with 40,000 miles.
   If you have that much slack in the bottom of the belt what happens when you shift gears or close the throttle ? The drive pulley on the engine slows ,but the speed and weight of the bike keeps the rear wheel turning the same speed,  and all that slack is suddenly transferred to the top side of the belt, snapping the bottom side taunt . When you again speed up the engine,  that situation is reversed , snapping the top side . While the rubber dampers inside the hub try to absorb some of that shock ,I don't think they can begin to handle the amount of movement your adjustment has allowed , and the force of the snapping is breaking down the back of the belt until it fails.  If you have one of the broken belts ,looking at the back of it , you should see fine white lines on the area each side of the tiny ridges, the same thing you would see if the belt broke from being to tight .

If you can do the finger twist with only one inch of slack in the belt That is where it needed to be. Stones are more likely to put a hole in the belt ,not snap it, we've seen holes in the center of the belt from stones that still allowed the belt to be used.

Not to mention the awful clattering and banging that I experienced

Not much damage though

Before I installed the 25 tooth front pulley , I would pull the front wheel off the ground on a regular basis .    The Belt never complained a bit and I've got almost 50,000 miles on it now.   That larger front pulley makes 5th gear seem like "Over-drive"     but that was the end of the wheelies  .

You understand that when the swing-arm is completely parallel with the ground --- that is when the belt is tightest .   As the shocks come close to bottoming out the swing arm is above center and the belt starts getting looser again ...

Hay , have you got extra long shocks on your bike ?  
If so : you should know to adjust your belt when the swing arm is level and the length between the front pulley and the back pulley is at its longest.
You might be surprised to know the same problem occurs with chain drive too .   That is why long travel dirt bikes have spring loaded chain tension arms on the bottom side of the chains.  

Let us know how it works out for ya .  
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The only time I adjust my belt is when I've had things apart putting a new tire on , then its good till the tire goes bald  (8-10K-miles) !   You'll never get that kind of performance with a chain !