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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?

#301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I believed him 100% about EPO but the motor stuff is silly. they check for motors for over a decade now. If it's silly then why are they trying to counter it for over a decade?

Because where there are no checks there are the cheaters. Example: there is no antidoping in amateur races. Amateurs dope themselves to win those races.

> Because where there are no checks there are the cheaters.

Were there any instances where people cheated in spite of testing, and were undetected for years?

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

#302
WTF.. Sick and tired of the incessant cheating by these cyclists. It never ends. They cheat, then win, then walk around like they are some big sh*ts.

I mean, I am sick and tired of cyclists in general because of the way they act where I live. They obey no traffic laws, run red lights, never signal, blaze through intersections, and generally act like they own the road.

It's amazing how many of them forget that they are like cars and must abide by the same laws.

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

#304
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were all doing doping. That stuff goes back to the 70s.

I've read that doping has been with cycling from the start. The early racers in the TdF took amphetamines to counteract their hangovers.

The Tour de France was around for several generations before amphetamines became available.

But otherwise that's probably correct, whatever they could find, they used.

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

#305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Most of the steel bikes you see sold are gaspipe. Lugged chromoly today you might have to dip into the remaining italian frame builders and they charge modern carbon prices for their steel.

Reynolds 853 is still manufactured and available to bike makers, but TT OX Platinum was discontinued about 7 or 8 years ago.

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

#307
post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes those folks just tell the truth. Now if you are OK with cheating and this just annoys you that's another story but lets be honest here - professional cycling became pathetic deplorable 'sport' full of jokes of sportsmen that should not be respected or admired in any way, in contrary. Half of Olympics is heading that way but for some reason cycling was and still is ahead of the curve for quite some time. I'l…

Hey, that's a lot of mental gymanstics for saying "I dislike cyclists going slow on the road so I'll take it out on their sport". If you had the opposite idea of "doping is okay in sports" and applied the categorical imperative to it, we'd have a bunch of roided superman doing insane sports and it would be awesome. Daniel Tosh of all people proposed this jokingly in some standup years ago but why not just admit that…

Its interesting as I have a similar philosophy to the OC but the exact opposite takeaway. To declare my bias: I hate cyclists on the road AT ALL. Cars are fundamental and essential transportation in America and cyclists who want all the privileges of a pedestrian and follow none of the rules while operating at a fraction of the speed is a frustrating impediment to traffic.

Rant aside - The sport of cycling is quite cool. I feel bad for those athletes because they have to dope. It's simple game theory, if enough of a critical mass of people are doing it, you have to as well to be competitive. It really shouldn't have been as big of a scandal as it was. At least, making Lance Armstrong the face of the scandal wasn't really fair since, IIRC, almost all the front runners did that. I'm not sure what the answer is, but I think the way they do it now is reasonable. They test and ban so that people likely severely limit cheating. If they simply made it allowed, or had very limited protocols, it would be a total arms race similar to the Armstrong era where riders would have to run tons of gear and chemicals to even attempt to compete and it would have tons of knock on health effects.

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

#308
post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I don't believe they're being used to cheat in professional cycling, a motor would _definitely_ provide a massive advantage in a cycling race of any kind. A motor easily provides enough power to overcome its weight, and they wouldn't need assistance for the entire race, just an edge at key moments.

motor yes, battery no. Think of the riders themselves as incredibly efficient batteries and motors - they can also recharge at 120g carb/hour. The motor itself is just deadweight over most of this process.

But the weight doesn't matter most of the time - on flat sections and downhill, which are 90% of the distance covered, it's completely irrelevant.

For much of the stages, the top guys are not doing much work, they spare their legs for the climbs. They will hide in the pack, doing only very light work drafting. If you could put a smallish battery able to recharge on flat / downhill sections and only provides a boost on the critical uphill parts, that would be a massive advantage.

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

#309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The whereabouts system has expanded to apply to tens of millions of people, completely outside of any serious national or international legal framewor[k]. What? Why? Who cares whether the 500,000th-fastest bicycle racer in the world is cheating?

The 500,001st cares quite a lot!

That's unlikely; there is no ranking that includes so many people, and those two particular people will never have heard of each other.

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

#310
post #147

Fabian Cancellera was widely suspected of mechanical doping in Paris Roubaix in 2010 (possibly also the tour of Flanders that year). Since then, however, they x-ray bikes for motors. More importantly, riders aren't switching bikes they way they used to. Greg LeMond claimed Chris Froome used on in the TDF. References: https://www.bennionkearny.com/the-hidden-motor-mechanical-do... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgbvu…

> Fabian Cancellera was widely suspected of mechanical doping I don't think the opinions of these fringe conspiracy theorists were ever widely held. Not in the cycling world, not among people with an understanding of physics, and not among the general public.

This is definitely not fringe conspiracy theorists. In fact I would argue that it's largely people familiar with the sport that are skeptical.

It was the same during the Amstrong times. I was racing as an amateur during those years, and lots of people were quite open about doping, i.e. everyone new someone who had been on training camp with people who were using, people asked others what they used... This particularly known for the top amateurs and continental pros. If you brought this up with regular cycling fans (particularly in the english speaking sphere), you would get accused of being a conspiracy theorist, that the top talent would not need to do this (only the talentless masses who could not make it otherwise...). Which is such a weird argument considering the gains we knew about. Well we know how history turned out.

Considering that it's the same people running the show (I encourage anyone to look into the history of Mauro Gianetti who believes that UAE would not do everything for a win), I believe everything we hear about is just the tip of the iceberg and reality is much worse. Cycling lost their right to benefit of the doubt a long time ago. As a side note, I don't believe they will every catch a high profile rider with those motor tests. Nobody actually wants to catch them, just imagine they find Pogacar was using a motor, that would be the death of cycling as a marketable sport. That would be swept under the carpet, just like Amstrongs positive EPO test was initially.

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