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Hidden motors in cycling: Van den Dreissche banned for 6 years, titles stripped

cyclingtips.com

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Re: Hidden motors in cycling: Van den Dreissche banned for 6 years, titles stripped

#51

Post by Gmo »

wmeredith wrote: post #28
atom-morgan wrote: post #23

I don't see it in the article but I heard it recently so I guess I'll share. Lance Armstrong was on the Joe Rogan Experience and discussed doping within the sport. He said at one point in time, people would thread fishing line through a wine cork. They'd tie the line to the tail of a car and stick the cork in their mouth. As the car starts moving, the cork pulls against your teeth giving you just enough pull.

That's got to be the most French way of cheating I've ever heard.

That's because you don't know about the early days of the Tour de France where the racers would drink wine along the way.

Re: Hidden motors in cycling: Van den Dreissche banned for 6 years, titles stripped

#52

Post by chinathrow »

davidw wrote: post #46
chinathrow wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's common. 18 hits in: http://www.thefinancials.com/Default.aspx?SubSectionID=curfo... Writing code is not that tough in Europe - just use a proper i18n library.

> Writing code is not that tough in Europe - just use a proper i18n library. Not even having to think about that initially is sure handy for US startups. You can get pretty big without worrying too much about other languages and all the confusion that entails.

True - until you go north and need a french translation ;)

Re: Hidden motors in cycling: Van den Dreissche banned for 6 years, titles stripped

#53

Post by dv_dt »

skybrian wrote: post #29

Are there any competitions where this sort of motor assist is legal? It seems like that might be an interesting sport.

It's only tangentially related, but the first year of Formula E electric car racing was fascinating last year. It's really adds a dimension to the race when battery status is reported. I think it's 2/3 done this year too (I haven't had time to catch the races yet...)

Re: Hidden motors in cycling: Van den Dreissche banned for 6 years, titles stripped

#54

Post by ars »

chinathrow wrote: post #39
ars wrote: post #17

This is unrelated, but that has to be the most confusing way to write a price I've ever seen: 2.699,00 - a period for the thousands separator, and a decimal comma for the cents. I am aware of decimal commas - but a period for the thousands? I thought they used a space, or an apostrophe? 2'699,00 It must be tough writing code in Europe - computers only use decimal points, not decimal commas. And how do you make an int…

That's common. 18 hits in: http://www.thefinancials.com/Default.aspx?SubSectionID=curfo... Writing code is not that tough in Europe - just use a proper i18n library.

> Writing code is not that tough in Europe - just use a proper i18n library.

That only goes so far - the actual code you write has to use decimal commas. You can't even export, say a list of numbers, and then directly copy that in to your code.

Or for example: Use SQL to print a list of numbers to use for testing queries. If you used i18n, all the numbers would have decimal commas, so you can't combine them with a comma to make a list.

So you have to turn off i18n, print your list, and make sure it's off when you use that list in a subsequent query.

Any European programmers here? Do you simply leave i18n off for all low level tools? And just use it for customer facing code?

Re: Hidden motors in cycling: Van den Dreissche banned for 6 years, titles stripped

#55

Post by rasz_pl »

huphtur wrote: post #10
larrydag wrote: post #5

Infrared FLIR cameras are being used to help spot the cheaters. http://hackaday.com/2016/04/25/cyclists-use-tiny-motors-to-c...

That news article may not be entirely correct: https://www.eptc.co/watts-the-deal-with-motors/

This guy analysed a control image - image taken of a KNOWN bike with a vivax motor - and came to a conclusion there is no motor in that picture.

Re: Hidden motors in cycling: Van den Dreissche banned for 6 years, titles stripped

#56

Post by rikkus »

ars wrote: post #17

This is unrelated, but that has to be the most confusing way to write a price I've ever seen: 2.699,00 - a period for the thousands separator, and a decimal comma for the cents. I am aware of decimal commas - but a period for the thousands? I thought they used a space, or an apostrophe? 2'699,00 It must be tough writing code in Europe - computers only use decimal points, not decimal commas. And how do you make an int…

I can't tell if the parent is a joke. If not, I should tell you that decimal separator is usually regarded as variable and therefore just part of local representation, in a similar way to time and date formats. Plenty of code is only able to cope with a particular representation, or has bugs around dealing with varying ones.

Re: Hidden motors in cycling: Van den Dreissche banned for 6 years, titles stripped

#57

Post by DINKDINK »

shpx wrote: post #38
Xylakant wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It was controlled by a Bluetooth switch installed underneath the handlebar tape." (in the article)

They should install Bluetooth sniffers before steep sections, it would be cool to see a little ping on the radio and then watch one of the racers magically pull ahead.

how would you filter out Bluetooth signals that are and aren't cheating signals?

Re: Hidden motors in cycling: Van den Dreissche banned for 6 years, titles stripped

#58

Post by methehack »

shpx wrote: post #38
Xylakant wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It was controlled by a Bluetooth switch installed underneath the handlebar tape." (in the article)

They should install Bluetooth sniffers before steep sections, it would be cool to see a little ping on the radio and then watch one of the racers magically pull ahead.

While they're at it, they should make better humans.

Re: Hidden motors in cycling: Van den Dreissche banned for 6 years, titles stripped

#59

Post by ars »

athenot wrote: post #49
ars wrote: post #17

This is unrelated, but that has to be the most confusing way to write a price I've ever seen: 2.699,00 - a period for the thousands separator, and a decimal comma for the cents. I am aware of decimal commas - but a period for the thousands? I thought they used a space, or an apostrophe? 2'699,00 It must be tough writing code in Europe - computers only use decimal points, not decimal commas. And how do you make an int…

«computers only use decimal points, not decimal commas» That's what localization is all about: eliminating these false assumptions. It's only confusing when you're not used to it. On a similar note, 12-hour time notation (eg. 3pm) is confusing as heck when you're used to 24 hour notation.

> That's what localization is all about: eliminating these false assumptions.

I've never seen a production compiler use anything except decimal points.

So writing code that outputs code must be extra confusing: Turn off localization for the parts meant for the computer, and turn it on for the parts meant for humans.

Re: Hidden motors in cycling: Van den Dreissche banned for 6 years, titles stripped

#60

Post by nxzero »

coris47 wrote: post #8
VeejayRampay wrote: post #3

What about Ryder Hesjedal's bike spinning on itself a few years back? Are we addressing that as well? It feels like the UCI is only going after easy pickings to prove a point and not doing its best to actually to fight mechanical cheating in fear of yet another scandal.

For some additional context / evidence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynLMfzLTc8M

Appears at least in some models that if the pedals stop turning that the motor stops and the wheel spins normally; meaning to me, if true for most motors like this, seems like it's very hard to say that video is proof.
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