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Tour de France confronts a new threat: Are cyclists using tiny motors?

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Tour de France confronts a new threat: Are cyclists using tiny motors?

#111

Post by cujo »

noelwelsh wrote: post #106
tgv wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot more money in basketball, though. And money is the number 1 incentive. Growth hormones might be used.

You can reasonably assume that some NBA players are using PEDs. However, the effect is different. To be an NBA basketball player you need to have several attributes, such as height and hand-eye coordination, that cannot be affected by PEDs AFAIK. If basketbally are using PEDs, it is probably to recover faster, which means coming back from injury or training more. More training can lead to a higher level of skill, but…

yes, but those epo-esque drugs aren't exactly trivial to use these days. the testing process makes the doping process much more difficult for drugs that have these direct performance benefits.

recovery help is where it's at these days i expect, in most sports.

Re: Tour de France confronts a new threat: Are cyclists using tiny motors?

#112

Post by tokai »

Motordoping does not exist. There has not been a single case at top professional level even though they have looked for the motors for over a decade. But journalists, bloggers, and youtubers love to bring it up as a exciting story they don't need to do any work to write. Also old men like Greg LeMond uses it to stay relevant even though he knows nothing about motors nor modern cycling.

Re: Tour de France confronts a new threat: Are cyclists using tiny motors?

#113

Post by sumo89 »

gwelson wrote: post #16

I am definitely a layperson when it comes to organized sports, but from my POV it seems like competitive cycling attracts WAY more fraud/cheating/doping/etc. than many other kinds of sports. At least I have heard about it a lot more. I wonder why that is.

It's the most tested sport by far. Mostly because a couple of huge scandals - Festina and Armstrong. It's an endurance sport which is a natural target for doping because of the huge gains that can be made and it's also probably the most popular endurance sport too. That said, it's a problem in other sports but they just don't test as much or publicise it as much. It's become a real problem in Rugby, https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/50785122 and in Football where they hardly test anyone https://warrenmenezes.substack.com/p/doping-and-english-foot...

Re: Tour de France confronts a new threat: Are cyclists using tiny motors?

#114

Post by darkwater »

floodfx wrote: post #43
ahi wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I replied directly to OP, but applies here as well. Cycling is far more specialized than other sports so the pay off for doping is greater.

Why is pay off greater in cycling than other sports? Salary of the top riders? Compared to say NBA players, pro cyclist make relatively little. Tadej Pogacar (best and top paid cyclist) makes about $8M (euros) in salary per year. Steph Curry (highest paid) NBA player makes $55M (dollars) in salary per year.

Because beside some skill needed in going fast during descends at 70-80-90km/h without dying (which is not easy but not extremely difficult either), a cyclist is basically an engine. Most other sports need physical fitness (speed, stamina, strength, endurance etc) AND coordination skills, and the latter is not easy to improve chemically.

Re: Tour de France confronts a new threat: Are cyclists using tiny motors?

#115

Post by tokai »

gwelson wrote: post #16

I am definitely a layperson when it comes to organized sports, but from my POV it seems like competitive cycling attracts WAY more fraud/cheating/doping/etc. than many other kinds of sports. At least I have heard about it a lot more. I wonder why that is.

Its not like that. If anything cycling has less doping than most sports. Cycling has been very serious about doping for much longer, than most other sports. Infractions are punished very hard; a guy like Hessmann had his career paused for a year plus, while also losing his contract, even though he hadn't doped. While a tennis star get three months for a clear doping infraction. Cycling also bans more substances than the international doping authorities does. As an example did cycling banned tramadol and other strong painkillers, while other sports don't care.

You have heard much more because from cycling over other sports, because the other sports don't want their dirty secrets aired out, and you heard about the huge scandals in cycling in the 00s.

Re: Tour de France confronts a new threat: Are cyclists using tiny motors?

#116

Post by kasey_junk »

cujo wrote: post #108
gwelson wrote: post #16

I am definitely a layperson when it comes to organized sports, but from my POV it seems like competitive cycling attracts WAY more fraud/cheating/doping/etc. than many other kinds of sports. At least I have heard about it a lot more. I wonder why that is.

it's a safe bet that your big money sports (not cycling) have a lot more doping than cycling. the issue is that you can't report what you don't know. * cycling is a mix of moderate money and lots of drug testing. there are significant incentives to dope, but it's fairly hard to do these days since there is a lot of testing. * big money sports (in the us especially - nfl, mlb, nba) are the jokes of the testing world.…

The nfl testing regime is purely surprise testing based.

The bigger difference is that endurance sports have more options for doping than others.

Frankly, I think too many things are banned. Blood doping seems no worse than sleep chambers and hgh in correctly applied regimes would take some of the punishment out of football.

Re: Tour de France confronts a new threat: Are cyclists using tiny motors?

#117

Post by VikingMiner »

cesnja wrote: post #83
silverquiet wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a minimum weight requirement for bikes. I remember reading somewhere that they actually add ballast to some of them because they can be made so light.

Not any more - nowadays being aero is more important and that adds quite a bit of weight. And disc brake sets are also heavier than brake pads used to be.

The UCI weight limit still seems to be in place. Disc brakes have been allowed since 2018 it seems.

Re: Tour de France confronts a new threat: Are cyclists using tiny motors?

#118

Post by this_user »

Betteridge's law.

There have been suspicions about this for about 15 years. Yet, in that entire time, not a single road cyclist in a UCI competition has ever been found to be doing this.

Even just from a practical POV, it makes little sense. Stock road frames do not have room to even mount such a motor. You would also need a sufficiently large battery somewhere on the bike that can deliver enough power to make an impact. Examples that people have built are usually replacing one of the bottles on the frame with a battery, but that would obviously be noticed immediately upon closer inspection of the bike. Even if you can remove the battery bottle, there would still need to be some kind of cable to connect it that you cannot remove on the fly without anyone noticing while in a highly public space.

They have also been scanning bikes for years for potential signs of motors. Nothing has ever been found. So, if it does exist, someone has found a way to build incredibly tiny motors and batteries that don't show up during checks, but are still powerful enough to make a difference for a cyclist who is already pushing 400-500w or more.

The much simpler explanation is that it's a complete myth that some people keep pushing for whatever reason.

Re: Tour de France confronts a new threat: Are cyclists using tiny motors?

#119

Post by mft_ »

tokai wrote: post #112

Motordoping does not exist. There has not been a single case at top professional level even though they have looked for the motors for over a decade. But journalists, bloggers, and youtubers love to bring it up as a exciting story they don't need to do any work to write. Also old men like Greg LeMond uses it to stay relevant even though he knows nothing about motors nor modern cycling.

> Motordoping does not exist.

It does exist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femke_Van_den_Driessche

Aside from allegations about Cancellara (basically that his seated attack was too strong, plus he 'moved his hand suspiciously' just before) I always struggled to find an alternate explanantion for this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ideiS-6gBAc

> There has not been a single case at top professional level even though they have looked for the motors for over a decade.

Or, no-one has been caught as they stopped before the checks were brought in, as it's impossible to hide without a much broader conspiracy?

> But journalists, bloggers, and youtubers love to bring it up as a exciting story they don't need to do any work to write.

Agreed. WaPo is about a decade too late on this one.

Re: Tour de France confronts a new threat: Are cyclists using tiny motors?

#120

Post by Gibbon1 »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #62
chrisfosterelli wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very hard to tell because the true rate of doping is not known. We just know about who we catch (or very questionable survey results) which are skewed by the resources available for testing and the resources available for hiding doping. Competitive cycling is more popular than many sports, so it gets a lot of attention and effort on both. Cycling was also at the center of the explosion of EPO use between the 199…

When will the average person benefit from all the interesting performance enhancing drugs that have been secretly developed?

What helps you get a little more oxygen to you muscles thus winning the race is worth nothing to someone pushing a shopping cart around Costco.
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