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Hidden motors for road bikes

cyclingtips.com

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Re: Hidden motors for road bikes

#141

Post by rorykoehler »

dabeeeenster wrote: post #6

There are two videos on Youtube that have been regarded by bike fans as suspicous. I will let HN readers make their own minds up! https://youtu.be/8Nd13ARuvVE?t=3m35s and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ideiS-6gBAc I would love to hear smart people's thoughts!

I find his 2010 acceleration very unnatural. If you watch his win this past weekend and compare the effort made when accelerating it's like the difference between night and day. 2010 was too effortless even for someone of Cancellara's abilities. There was also the videos of him fumbling with something exactly where you would expect to hide a switch for the motor. All in all I reckon he did cheat with a motor in 2010 which is sad because initially I was amazed by his performance.

Re: Hidden motors for road bikes

#142

Post by rorykoehler »

peter303 wrote: post #48

I read a good rider can sustain 250 watts for hours and peak at twice that. (power is weight dependent) So if you have an effective 100 watt assist, that can be helpful.

Watts per kilo is what they all optimise for in pro cycling (expect for the pure sprinters where it's no as important).

Re: Hidden motors for road bikes

#144

Post by gambiting »

stouset wrote: post #113
Havoc wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The bicycle is pulled downhill by gravity, but rotates around the brake hood Not convinced. The bike is close to stationary after the fall, then turns a full 180 and hits the next cyclist with quite a bit of force. Notice also that the back while is in constant contact with the road as it makes that 180 degree turn. Doesn't look gravity driven to me at all...

As I replied to the grandparent, rotating wheels carry enough rotational inertia to spin a lightweight bike. https://www.instagram.com/p/sh0fSPirPW/?modal=true

I feel like this should be obvious to anyone who has ever fallen off a road bike. I know I have, and this is very frequently what happens. But of course if someone has no experience riding bikes and views the video it looks like cheating.

Re: Hidden motors for road bikes

#145

Post by julie1 »

awqrre wrote: post #122
julie1 wrote: post #119

Question : why do people cheat? Saying it is in the human nature is laughable. I see no one cheating at being poor sick, handicapped or being lazy. People only cheat because they don't care about winning for themselves. They have no personalities and are lost in the recognition of a mindless crowd as a substitute to self esteem. We have to focus society on individual realization to fight efficiently against hidden mo…

You cheat if you know that you have no chances of winning otherwise?

Exactly.

Is it because education make people lack of confidence in themselves or do people adapt a rigged games?

My opinion is some kids especially introverted one lacking of self confidence are put in a stressful competition early and education/society advocate early results on strong competition. The race for the elite schools being at kindergarden.

The culture of results coupled with a rigged system (the system enable institutional cheats for some) result in the conviction of being right to fight the system back by compensating for the one considering themselves unlucky.

Our education is clearly creating the cheaters at my opinion. Corrupting the expectations of kids about progress, merit, hard work and replacing it by saying only the result matters.

The funny part is all these kids having paying loans for studies that enslave them not only in debt but also breaking their mind. No educated kids have been suing universities/banks for having scammed them by giving them false information to engage them in life long debts.

Smart kids are not smart. Education has broken bright spirits.

Re: Hidden motors for road bikes

#146

Post by Thimothy »

TwoBit wrote: post #139
brudgers wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember watching Miguel Indurain blow past great climbers without leaving the saddle during the 1990's. His resting heart rate was recorded at 28 beats per minute. The best cyclists are outliers among outliers.

surely indurain was doping, though.

As was every other cyclist back then. Look at the wiki, the guy was a horse.

Re: Hidden motors for road bikes

#147

Post by hinkley »

kazinator wrote: post #97
bbarn wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the thing. No one to date has actually been caught using one. The banned woman was caught having one, on a spare bike in the pit. She claims it's owned by a friend (who corroborated) and that her mechanics mistakenly put it in the pit, etc.. it's a pretty shaky story, but the fact remains they have never actually caught someone using one during a race. There's a large number of people who think it just wouldn'…

There is no forced cadence. The motor is not fixed at a particular RPM; if the motor were unloaded, it would spin a lot faster than it does. It supplies a certain amount of power, and the bike hits a certain ground speed, and through the gear ratio, that determines the motor's speed. If you only want to go that fast, then you don't have to crank the pedals, and it's awkward. However, you can crank the pedals to go ev…

The benefit provided by the output of the motor won't be linear, at least not for road races (cyclocross I'll grant is an entirely different beast).

The ratio of power output to speed follows a square law, so if you're going 20 mph and flip on a motor that doubles your power output, you won't even hit 30 mph, let alone 40mph (4x power = 2x speed). But this is an endurance sport and a huge part of your strategy involves dealing with wind resistance (by drafting) so even a little boost means that you might be able to pull off or prevent a breakaway at a critical moment of a race. For much of the race your goal isn't to go faster than the other guys, but merely to match speed without wearing yourself out.

Re: Hidden motors for road bikes

#148

Post by BorisMelnik »

Nelson69 wrote: post #76
BorisMelnik wrote: post #58

I just don't get how psychologically how these people are making this ok with themselves. I almost get human doping (I don't approve it, but I get it) but this is straight cheating.

There is next to no money in pro cycling. Sure there are a few very very elite riders that make millions, maybe 10 to 20 of those. There are also the other 160 riders that start a grand tour. Read some of the documentation USADA put out on Lance. Not about the doping, but like Dave Zabriskie was a legit world class pro, he raced the Tour, and I think they listed is salary in those early years as like $24k. Another na…

wow really good point, never thought about the financial motivation especially the motivation NOT to be broke

Re: Hidden motors for road bikes

#149

Post by perrylaj »

sawthat wrote: post #133
bigiain wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what I call my "cheater bike": https://www.dropbox.com/s/nu2q0srtj62w3gl/cheater-bike.JPG?d... It's a 250W rated bunch of Chinese-sourced parts on a $50 eBay steel framed budget mountain bike. It's _so_ hilarious to ride, a friend says "it make you feel like Lance Armstrong!". It just makes everything too easy. I barely ever take it out of top gear - I just lazily pedal up hills, zoom along the flat, and have…

Just curious: why not ride a regular bike to work? I've been doing it for a year now (16.5 miles round trip) and it has been great. I never could find the time to exercise before and now I commute and exercise at the same time. Parallelism!

I built an ebike last year to do something similar to OP. I rode my bike (a full suspension mountain bike) a couple times, but found that 20 miles was just too far to cover for a commute. With the ebike, I am still pedaling and getting exercise, but it takes me 50 minutes instead of 90. Still a tad longer than it would take in my car, but I am definitely getting a decent workout (determined by how sweaty I am before I shower). Even if I only burn half the calories, I am getting nearly 2 hours of exercise a day I wouldn't have gotten otherwise, and am not adding much time to my commute.

Maybe someday I will be in good enough shape to make the 20 mile commute in around 1:15 without the assistance, but if it's between pedal assist and driving, pedal assist seems like the far better choice!

FWIW, I used to bike-commute to school when it was 8-10 miles, and that was great. But 20mi each way is just too much time for me when I need to get home to get kids to practice, or help with homework, etc.

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