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

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

#161

Post by wonderwonder »

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.…

People want to see doped athletes in the NFL, NBA, etc. We don't know that we do but we want to see the biggest, strongest people doing the most exciting athletic fetes that they can. The pure punishment that athletes in the NFL take and then keep taking the field is mind blowing. The human body has a hard time dealing with that on its own. I would be surprised if the majority don't have a dosing regime. A 265lb man with low body fat running at the speeds they run is just not realistic for so many, they are the pinnacle of physicality and that doesn't come naturally for many.

Add on that most of them only play for a few years and there is every incentive under the sun to dope and maximize their earnings. I'm not endorsing it but if its essentially a widely accepted secret and you cant compete without it then you get what you incentivize.

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

#163

Post by wonderwonder »

darkwater wrote: post #114
floodfx wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I could agree with this. You do need some physical gifts as far as muscular endurance beyond the capacity of most but after that, its a very limited set of movements performed over and over again for hours. Plus a massive amount of will power and pain endurance. No amount of chemicals will turn even most gifted people into an NFL athlete.

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

#164

Post by stockresearcher »

le-mark wrote: post #150
stockresearcher wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s too bad LeMond sold his bike company to Trek. I have a small collection of American-made bikes. Every single one of the brands was acquired by Trek and then shut down a few years later… The LeMond is probably my favorite. Great geometry, great road feel, and a fantastic paint job. I put some new wheels on it this spring and it gives it such a rad look. Totally modern and retro at the same time. Such a bike would…

I worked in a shop that sold LeMond bikes back in the 90s. Iirc they were generally a chromolly lugged frame. At the time a lot of the high end bikes were the same. Are these not common nowadays?

No idea about date ranges, but they were using Reynolds 853 and TT OX Platinum. Very high quality steel, and not something you’d get on anything mass market

https://frugalaveragebicyclist.com/2022/05/15/guide-to-vinta...

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

#165

Post by malfist »

sho_hn wrote: post #128
tokai wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the thing that's always brought up. That female junior cyclocross racer (its a different sport bub) and one attack that fans didn't like. People like you keep going with these two, even though they mean nothing. And then the conspiracy shit. The motodoping topic is closer related to pizzagate than it is road racing.

I have no stake or set opinion in this debate. But your parent poster posted an interesting-looking video, and you responded with "it means nothing" without any explanation. Care to explain?

Sure. People move their hands on bikes all the time, to get more comfortable to address a balance issue or to keep the positions moving.

Seated attacks are becoming more and more popular. Pogi uses them almost exclusively these days. "A little too strong" is nonsense.

Plus, bikes are xrayed.

I makes no sense to carry around the weight of a motor in the off chance you might use it for a single attack. These people care about grams. They're not going to waste it on a motor that may or may not be used to give them a tiny boost.

Not only that but any motor linked to the drive train is going to add resistance and cost the more net watts over the ride than a tiny motor with a tiny battery that may or may not get used, could ever provide. It just makes no sense tradeoff wise.

There's way more reasonable explanations than a conspiracy theory.

This all reeks of nonsense like that cis gendered athlete that got hounded by the nutters about being trans

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

#166

Post by littlestymaar »

mft_ wrote: post #119
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…

> 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?

In which case you'd expect a performance drop when they stopped (like what happened with EPO), which hasn't happened at all.

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

#168

Post by 0xAFFFF »

atemerev wrote: post #63

You could probably just eject the motor close to the finish line, or, if there's weighing involved, replace it by some neutral part.

There is no realistic way to do anything like that "close to the finish line" on a Tour race, especially during a mountain stage, there are people and cameras everywhere.

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

#170

Post by littlestymaar »

discreteevent wrote: post #81
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.

Because it's such a tough sport. The Tour de France was originally intended to be so tough that only one person might finish it. In other words it was set up to be extremely hard for most normal athletes to compete without some kind of artificial assistance. So there was a history of drug taking from the start. But after the scandals of 20 years ago it became one of the most tested sports in the world. So now, in my…

> The Tour de France was originally intended to be so tough that only one person might finish it.

The difficulty has been toned down a lot since the early days though. (You'll never see a 466km long stage like the first of Tour de France 1903[1] ever again).

[1]: https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1re_%C3%A9tape_du_Tour_de_Fr...)

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