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Thermal camera footage allegedly shows pro cyclists using motors

fittish.deadspin.com

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Re: Thermal camera footage allegedly shows pro cyclists using motors

#261

Post by J-dawg »

lmm wrote: post #193
dalke wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there is no actual line between the use of gears and the use of motors. There's a very clear line in this case. Cycling is a human powered sport. Battery, gasoline, nuclear, and other power sources are not allowed. This is why mopeds are not allowed. Also prohibited is temporary power storage like a capacitor or spring, which might be used for regenerative braking. You can put all the motors you want on your bike (…

> There's a very clear line in this case. Cycling is a human powered sport. Battery, gasoline, nuclear, and other power sources are not allowed. This is why mopeds are not allowed. Also prohibited is temporary power storage like a capacitor or spring, which might be used for regenerative braking. Doesn't a derailleur have to have a spring in it? And any chain will have a certain amount of tension that allows it to st…

> Doesn't a derailleur have to have a spring in it?

Indeed, a lot of them now have batteries and electric motors. I was surprised how easily electronic shifting was allowed into the sport.

So yes, many pro-racing bikes already have battery power, even though it's not directly driving the bike. It could be argued that some kind of KERS would be a natural evolution of this.

Re: Thermal camera footage allegedly shows pro cyclists using motors

#262

Post by Strom »

bigiain wrote: post #163
rhizome wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every spandex rider you pass is pretending?

Nope - that was aimed at me not them - but I'm happy to let the stereotype burn stand ;-) I will say to a first approximation, 100% of the RadioShack lycra liveried carbon fibre Trek riders I see riding through Sydney traffic on a weekday morning are _not_ Lance Armstrong class riders. (Not any more than I'm a Carl Fogarty or Troy Bayliss class motorcycle racer when I put my racing leathers on and fire up my Ducati M…

What a weird implication that you need to be the best to use good gear.

The pro-style clothing isn't posing or brand snobbery. Jeans are way too hot, cotton clothes get uncomfortably sticky from sweat way too fast and let cold wind go through them. Proper bike clothes allow me to feel comfortable for a long time and won't get me sick.

As for a good bike, it's just a better experience. I've owned a bunch of different bikes, starting with a old soviet fixed-gear Školnik, and ending with my current Trek road bike with fancy gear. Everything about riding the Trek is better than any of my older bikes. The gears change in a smoother fashion, I can roll on without cycling for much longer, and the effort-to-speed ratio is much better, allowing me to reach way higher speeds than ever before.

Re: Thermal camera footage allegedly shows pro cyclists using motors

#263

Post by Overtonwindow »

blitzo wrote: post #48
Overtonwindow wrote: post #41

For the big races, why don't they embargo the bikes prior to the race? Then xray them at random. Beginning of the day the rider pics up the bike, turn it in at night. The mechanic can work on it, whatever, in a special shop. Especially for the one day races. I can see how this would be difficult with multi-day races, but something like this should be feasible elsewhere.

I imagined a mandatory thorough backscatter scanning through a special path just before starting point on the race day.

That could work. As the bike is going up to the start house, they have to put it through the backscatter machine. Just having it there, and saying they're going to randomly choose and at least 60% of the teams will have to go through it, could be a powerful deterrent. Also, I think they should up the penalty for bike doping. Lifetime ban for having a motor in your bike.

Re: Thermal camera footage allegedly shows pro cyclists using motors

#265

Post by ward »

hatsunearu wrote: post #119
sliverstorm wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you heard of Group B? That's the story of why racing today has heavy regulations.

I wanna learn more and wikipedia isn't very helpful; any places I should read?

I believe he is referring this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_B

Re: Thermal camera footage allegedly shows pro cyclists using motors

#266

Post by freehunter »

davidw wrote: post #251
anjc wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well except there's a video of someone's bike skidding around on its own on the site. So the motors do exist in the sport...

Video is old and has been debunked.

The only debunking I've seen is putting a spinning tire down in optimal conditions, which of course has it spinning like it did in the video. The video has the bike bouncing off the ground several times and coming to a complete stop on the ground in the rider's hands, and then him letting go and it spinning away. At that point, the tire should have stopped all of it's rotational inertia.

Re: Thermal camera footage allegedly shows pro cyclists using motors

#267

Post by usrusr »

freehunter wrote: post #257
sorenjan wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't speak french, but in the video in the article they show several cyclists changing bikes for no apparent reason. I'm guessing that the film makers theory is that they're switching bikes to pass inspection after finishing the race, that's at least the suspicion I get when watching it. I think switching bikes during the race should be banned. Fixing a flat tire, a malfunctioning chain or similar can be allowed,…

There are reasons someone might switch bikes seemingly for no reason. This bike is geared for this section of the course, that bike is geared for the next section, etc. Chain is getting loose, and instead of taking two minutes to switch chains, they take 30 seconds to switch bikes. Maybe the tires are a different compound. It could be cheating, but it could be a variety of other reasons as well. I do agree with "if t…

The three weeks Grand Tours have nearly as many stages each as a full formula one season has race days. Asking to do a grande boucle without spares would be like asking formula one to go a whole season on a single set of tires - both would be perfectly possible with some adoption of hardware and tactics, but both would completely change the nature of the events.

While promoting equipment durability is a reasonable goal (and has been a cornerstone of competitive cycling during the early years), adding equipment damage DNF to the already rampant injury DNF would bring grand tours close enough last-man-standing events and make them so unpredictable that the semi-random "survivors" would be faceless nobodies to the audience. This is not how business is done in spectator sports.

Besides, any restrictions of technical support just add more rules to break. Cycling has already been through all of that. In that famous event, Eugène Christophe was penalized because someone operated the bellows while he fixed his fork at a roadside blacksmith's shop. Much drama happened over questions like wether a rider drank water from a hose coming from a pump not operated by himself or did some teammates maybe secretly switch spare parts. Is that really a line that is easier to draw and monitor than a dead simple "only human powered propulsion" rule? Finding secret motors is a much simpler problem.

Re: Thermal camera footage allegedly shows pro cyclists using motors

#268

Post by freehunter »

qb45 wrote: post #137
chickenbane wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most professional athletes are doing everything they can to get ahead, and cycling is no exception. That said, there are pretty amazing stories about cyclists cheating - perhaps because the sport is so grueling that small advantages can really translate to substantial gains. One of my favorites for the Tour de France was cyclists being pulled by cars attached by fishing line to a piece of cork held in the mouth!

WTF? Who did that and when?

I'm not really finding any primary sources, but there is a lot of unsourced blogs talking about it. Allegedly it was Hippolyte Aucouturier in the 1904 Tour de France, which apparently was so rife with cheating that it almost got canceled.

http://www.bikeroar.com/articles/the-4-greatest-bicycle-chea...

Re: Thermal camera footage allegedly shows pro cyclists using motors

#269

Post by freehunter »

Zacru wrote: post #143
yborg wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently you missed the part where they have this footage for just 2 racers out of an entire peloton.

Seems like that could just be because they need greased and/or aligned.

It could be that. It could be something else. That's why the questions are being asked instead of people being disqualified at this point.

Although I would really doubt any professional cyclist would have an ungreased, misaligned hub and not know it or not trade it out for a bike in better repair.

Re: Thermal camera footage allegedly shows pro cyclists using motors

#270

Post by freehunter »

usrusr wrote: post #267
freehunter wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are reasons someone might switch bikes seemingly for no reason. This bike is geared for this section of the course, that bike is geared for the next section, etc. Chain is getting loose, and instead of taking two minutes to switch chains, they take 30 seconds to switch bikes. Maybe the tires are a different compound. It could be cheating, but it could be a variety of other reasons as well. I do agree with "if t…

The three weeks Grand Tours have nearly as many stages each as a full formula one season has race days. Asking to do a grande boucle without spares would be like asking formula one to go a whole season on a single set of tires - both would be perfectly possible with some adoption of hardware and tactics, but both would completely change the nature of the events. While promoting equipment durability is a reasonable go…

They could easily trade off at the beginning and ends of stages. Start the new day with the fresh bike. It's switching during the actual race that is very surprising to me that it's still allowed. Motorsports let them switch cars between races, and the Tour is hardly one single race. Like you said, it's basically an entire race season, just condensed to "stages".

Restricting them to one bike per stage but letting them switch tires and chains is right in line with other sports, and wouldn't allow for any more cheating than there already is and would be super easy to enforce, especially when these days the entire race is monitored by officials. It's not 1913 anymore.

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