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

cyclingtips.com

71–80 of 205 posts

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

#71

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.

That's already been demonstrated to be a side effect of a still-spinning rear wheel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ak7xP8eghog It should also be noted that "incident" occurred on a fast downhill section while Hesjedal wasn't pedaling so even if there were a motor it is exceedingly unlikely it would still be engaged at the time of the crash. With a plausible physical explanation and no way to go back in time to chec…

It was also on a pretty steep downhill slope, which by itself could have been enough to cause this. You put a wheel on a slope and it's going to try to move downhill. It'd be suspicious if the bike had moved uphill, but the video clearly shows it moving downhill.

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

#72
post #64
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…

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11581036 and marked it off-topic.

Sorry, I didn't expect the subthread to get that long.

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

#73
post #59
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

«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.

Well here's the thing: decimal points are for humans in the first place. Computers use fixed, floats or whatever binary representation that suits the needs of the environment.

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

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even rather casual cyclists will want something as light as possible and the in-frame hub drive arrangement has nice aesthetics.

Yes but casual cyclists will not pay €2499 for the pleasure of doing so

It depends how you define "casual". I tend to think of casual cyclists as avid cyclists who don't race. Anybody who isn't avid is just a guy/gal on a bike.

By that definition, casual cyclists spend ridiculous amounts of money on cycling kit. $2000 for a set of carbon fiber wheels. $1000 for a power meter. Trek has a custom line of bikes (Project One) that retail in the $7000-$15000 range (US).

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

#75
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Haha what?? Did they have camel backs back then

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

#77
post #54

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. 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 co…

Yes. Minor haggles occur when importing numbers into code , but all good tools can export to whatever format.

Typically the internal representation is not related to the external format.

But yes there are bugs in (American) programs sometimes that forces you to run them in the C locale. Typically they serialise something and fails parsing it back...

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

#79
post #44

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.

For context, this was in the early 1900s http://www.bikeroar.com/articles/the-4-greatest-bicycle-chea...

What the hell? This guy, Hippolyte Aucouturier, was a legit great cyclist, not a charlatan. He won Paris-Roubaix twice!

I can't find anything about this cork biting incident involving him, and I reckon it's made up out of whole cloth.

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

#80
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Haha what?? Did they have camel backs back then

They used glasses you barbarian ;-)
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