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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?

#201

Post by thebruce87m »

wonderwonder wrote: post #154
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.

I would be surprised at a professional using a motor. It just invalidates the entire sport and the lifetime of work that they would have put into it to get to this level. One does not get there without a love for what they are doing. Some may point to doping but I think that is different. Its still very wrong in a professional context but its still a human body at peak performance doing the work. Using a motor is som…

Edit: I read it again.

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

#203

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

audinobs wrote: post #153
cujo wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Anyone who thinks cycling of all sports is clean is a total fool. It is a sport literally built around doping. You can't take things to the Tour De France level and recover from those workouts without drugs. Beating the test is part of the sport. In the NFL/NBA, drug testing is just a theatrical performance. I know in the NFL because careers are so short, the players basically have a gentleman's agreement that whatev…

> You can't take things to the Tour De France level and recover from those workouts without drugs.

You absolutely can. However, you will almost certainly be impacted as the days progress, and this doesn't work well for the largest spectator single sport event in the world.

Also, watts per kilo is irrelevant in pack cycling and flat time trials. It only matters on when climbing.

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

#204

Post by cogogo »

rich_sasha wrote: post #59
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.

In team-based group start road racing, like TdF, a lot of people aren't really competing. They are top sportspeople by ability, but their job is to support the team star. They are often called in French "domestiques", servants. I wonder if this contributes. Imagine you're a sport person, your job depends kn your performance, you are at the mercy of your team, and it's not even like you can win. So why not help yourse…

I think the format plays a huge factor too but for different reasons. This format of racing is very dependent on aerodynamic advantages - to the point that even on the massive climbs the rider on the wheel still holds the edge to someone doing the work. On the flat stages the peloton is almost always going to catch a breakaway. Any marginal advantage is super useful in that context and the well funded teams push to optimize everything. I think it’s more likely than not there is cheating. Motors seem unlikely but with this kind of money and international attention marginal advantages like microdosing for example will be exploited. People cheat in everything and often get rewarded for it. It’s an infuriating fact of life.

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

#205

Post by david-gpu »

brrrrrm wrote: post #197
sumo89 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.c…

> endurance sport which is a natural target for doping This makes a lot of sense to me. A very singular goal of "maximum output" without much need for fine motor skills and strategizing. I'd guess sprinting/marathons might have similar issues?

There is actually a lot of strategy in road cycling. Remember for one thing that there are teams -- ask yourself why is that.

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

#206

Post by randomcarbloke »

this_user wrote: post #118

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 imp…

there is room, bear in mind such a device need only provide minute advantage for it to be significant.

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

#207

Post by GateCrasher »

stefs wrote: post #145
ekianjo wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> drugs are not used much they just switched to drugs you cant easily detect.

ah, the magic undetectable drug that's just the right kind of effective without the pesky side effects, which you'd need other undetectable drugs for. this drug would be worth a lot of money, but we'll keep secret except just for the one top performer, because wide distribution would increase the risk of a leak substantially. and remember: the top performers getting busted would probably mean the end of pro cycling a…

It's been proved scientifically that microdosing EPO is undetectable and results in a significant performance boost:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36317927/ https://www.usada.org/wp-content/uploads/R058.pdf

Now I cannot say this cannot be proven in the future, but right now it is definitely possible, and not even a secret.

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

#208

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

jeffbee wrote: post #47
jancsika wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The math doesn't even begin to pass the smell test, with regards to how much energy you'd get out of some tiny battery vs. the amount you'd spend dragging the dead battery around France all day. But there's already evidence that some cyclists were at least dragging around exactly that much extra weight: > In the 2015 Tour de France, bikes in the peloton were weighed before one of the time trial stages. French autho…

Aero is basically the only thing that matters, second only to recruiting freak-show riders with horse lungs. These guys are averaging 40km/h. Have you seen Vingegaard's ridiculous mushroom helmet that's pushing the boundary between headwear and faring?

Aero doesn't matter at all on hill climbs, they are going too slow there for that.

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

#209

Post by pge »

stefs wrote: post #198
pge wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that history suggests this is likely. The dopers have substantially more financial resources than the testers. EPO is a great example. It was widely used in cycling for almost 10 years before tests were developed. It was pretty much a miracle drug from a performance standpoint and undetectable. The very few cyclists that tried to blow the whistle were run out of the sport. Similarly, blood doping was wi…

i'm unconvinced. EPO was undetectable, but not anymore. new undetectable substance would run the risk of being detectable in a few years. who would ignore whistleblowers today? and the USADA did bring the hammer down on LA at some point. sure, they pay off is high, but the risk - at least in cycling - is even higher, exactly because they've been caught once and now all eyes are on them. if pog gets popped, nobody wil…

We can agree to disagree. People said cycling would be clean after the '98 Festina affair because all eyes were on them. All that happened was that teams (that could afford it) switched from EPO to blood doping. The next Tour after everyone said the Festina bust had cleaned up cycling was Lance Armstrong's first win (1999).

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

#210

Post by cvwright »

david-gpu wrote: post #205
brrrrrm wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> endurance sport which is a natural target for doping This makes a lot of sense to me. A very singular goal of "maximum output" without much need for fine motor skills and strategizing. I'd guess sprinting/marathons might have similar issues?

There is actually a lot of strategy in road cycling. Remember for one thing that there are teams -- ask yourself why is that.

But like Jorgenson said this year, there’s no tactics that can beat Pogi going up a steep hill at 7w/kg. At some point it all comes down to power to weight.
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