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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?

#311

Post by rajbot »

chollida1 wrote: post #248
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…

> It's the most tested sport by far. Is it? I don't know how to ask this without it sounding argumentative, but how are you measuring this? Just by the number of times an athlete is tested a year? If so where are you getting the data for this to compare it to other sports drug testing regimes?

From the article:

> Cycling now spends far more money on anti-doping programs than any other sport

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

#312

Post by cwmoore »

aeternum wrote: post #8

It's too obvious to put the motor in the bike. What they should do is embed electromagnets under the road surface to help accelerate certain bikes and decelerate others.

Not in the road, embed high frequency electromagnets in the fork and frame tuned to pull on steel spokes.

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

#313

Post by AtlasBarfed »

stockresearcher wrote: post #142
IncreasePosts wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's what people said about him when he was speaking against doping in the late 90s/early 2000s too. Remember when he was forced to issue an apology to Lance Armstrong for calling out his relationship with Dr. Ferrari(doping connoisseur)?

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…

Lemond got a suspicious injection once in the 1989 Giro d'Italia...so his team may have been doping him without his knowledge if one wants to hold him on a pedestal.

Lemond was beating a lot of superstars in the 1980s that were blood doping (Hinault was probably blood doping - that's where you freeze your blood in the offseason or between races and then superinfuse yourself for "big days" - it went to the wayside because EPO was so much more effective and convenient) which is suspicious as well.

Lemond was also not exactly the best trainer compared to people like Lance Armstrong. He was teased by magazines for starting some TdFs overweight with a slight potbelly.

Doping in cycling, heck doping in all sports has been around a long long time, well before Lemond. Stimulants and a wide array of other drugs have been used in top sports for a long time. So it gets very suspicious whenever someone is beating the top end performers at any point in the last 50 years.

That said, I think he was pretty clean, or at least cleaner than the EPO guys that knocked him from the peloton.

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

#314

Post by AtlasBarfed »

ubermonkey wrote: post #184
le-mark wrote: post #150

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?

100% no. I've been on the bench for about a year, but I spent the last 15 years as a pretty intense recreational cyclist. I was in the tier that you might describe as "the craziest you get without having a racing license." There were very few steel bikes on those rides -- say, less than 10-15%. Carbon is by far the most common material, followed by Ti for the more well-heeled folks. Most of the steel is "modern", but…

You forgot aerodynamics. They windtest and wind-design even road bikes: shaped tubes, removing cables/electronic shifting, wheel - frame airflow shapers, etc.

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

#315

Post by AtlasBarfed »

jajko wrote: post #144
tokai wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greg LeMond has been on a whole motodoping tour online recently to stay relevant. He clearly does not understand modern cycling and he has a ton of people he wants to put down for the sake of his own reputation. There is not reason to believe him more than a crazy uncle.

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…

To underline this:

So what about baseball, basketball, football, hockey, soccer, swimming, wrestling, boxing, mma, golf, etc?

Cycling got "exposed" by french media because they wanted to go after soccer, but it was a world cup year being held by france, so they went after cycling.

You need to understand something about pro sports: everyone is on stuff. If you can make a million or more a year, most if not certainly all of the athletes are on something:

steroids - vastly increase strength by 10-30% or more (and endurance even)

stimulants - sustain attention and increase endurance and power

EPO - increase endurance and sustained power output by 20% or more. Think that's only cycling? If you breath hard doing something, EPO can help, because it will keep you in Zone 2 and more mentally clear.

Attention drugs - Think that lots of athletes don't want more ability to concentrate? Hello ADD drugs!

Relaxation drugs - Want to keep an even keel for that big tee-off, or for shooting targets? Beta blockers aren't just for heart disease!

Testosterone - Increases strength, but also can critically help in recovery from hard workouts or performances, Floyd Landis got busted for this.

Human Growth Hormone - heal quicker? get taller? recover faster?

Pro sports is a fantasy pageant. These people are supposed to be superhuman, and the pro sports all WANT their athletes on this stuff. Especially the stars, once a star gets big, they get a lot more hall passes.

They just don't want it to be TOO much, and don't want it getting too much press.

Psychologically, there is a bottomless pit of athletes willing to dope.

In a self-reported anonymous poll at a European Ironman (so not even top-end athletes, a range of "good" endurance athletes) more than half admitted to taking performance enhancing drugs.

An article I once read said in Cat 1 amateur cycling races there was tons of doping. Dude, that is so far below the pro ranks it is laughable. No one in Cat 1 amateur cycling will SNIFF european protour.

Cycling is peanuts in terms of money. Tadej makes 8 million euros. He is a legendary superstar of the sport. Now look at what the top quarterbacks, basketball players, soccer players, baseball players make. HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS. You think there isn't worse doping in those sports than cycling?

I mean maybe Michael Jordan, the most ruthlessly competitive person in NBA history, doubled his muscle (while going bald) right after joining the NBA naturally. Maybe Lebron james (also went bald) is 280 lbs naturally. Maybe Tom Brady got a stronger arm and kept healthy as he aged with yoga. Maybe Katie Ledecky just "tries really hard in practice". Maybe Tiger Woods with his popping muscles in mid career was just hitting the bench press.

Lance Armstrong and Barry Bonds aren't anomalies or outliers or rogues. Really, they didn't treat the media well and were too big of a-holes to hide, so the media busted them, but other athletes play the game and don't get busted. Is cycling really that bad, or is it sufficiently a "small player" that the dirt-mucking sports reporters are allowed to expose it. Do you think the NFL would let something like that happen? MLB already found out. FIFA sure as hell won't, neither will the NBA.

We are well past the point where the best of the best of previous generations that were shown to be doping have been passed comprehensively by modern athletes and are told that it's just better coaching, science, training and effort.

Enjoy the show.

"How I became a drug cheat athlete to test the system"

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-32983932

Outside Magazine in 2004 tries all the drugs

https://velo.outsideonline.com/road/road-training/drugs-a-ca...

Amateur doping

https://velo.outsideonline.com/road/totally-amateur/

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

#318

Post by crashbunny »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #282
ubermonkey wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% no. I've been on the bench for about a year, but I spent the last 15 years as a pretty intense recreational cyclist. I was in the tier that you might describe as "the craziest you get without having a racing license." There were very few steel bikes on those rides -- say, less than 10-15%. Carbon is by far the most common material, followed by Ti for the more well-heeled folks. Most of the steel is "modern", but…

The only things an older frame won’t accommodate is electronic shifting and disk brakes. You can run 12 speed its the same cassette width as its always been since probably 7 speed. Stuff like external cables actually are better for you as someone who isn’t a pro cyclist since shifting is smoother without under handle wraps, cables last longer with less tension in the brifter. Easier to service yourself than running t…

i don't know if braking performance is the main reason for disk brakes.

I suspect the biggest benefit is bike makers get to sell new bikes to people who don't need new bikes.

For professional riders who don't buy their own bikes, it's probably more about areo, and maybe weight, as the rims don't need a braking surface. They have more creativity with the shape and material. They only brake for emergencies and going into a corner on a downhill. A tiny fraction of a stage. The areo benefit is for the full length of the stage.

I don't know much about physics but even if the weight of the disks is more than rims brakes, the weight being closer to the centre of the wheel might be a benefit. I suspect in terms of performance, aero is the biggest benefit, though.

even the 12 speed cassettes, from what I've read, accelerating smoothly isn't the main point. for a professional rider, they spend a lot more time at the same speed than they do accelerating. so being able to dial in the perfect gear for the speed, wind and gradient is more important than being able to accelerate smoothly.

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

#319

Post by sjw987 »

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…

Perhaps there's drugs which mask the actual performance enhancers now. The women's marathon record was broken last year by Ruth Chepngetich by a considerable margin. Seemed too good to be true, and many of the groups I'm in called out doping straight away.

She has just been suspended for 2 years for a drug which I believe (may be wrong) masks other performance enhancing drugs.

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

#320

Post by Mawr »

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.

Not compared to any real team game like football, etc.

Teams in cycling are just there to leverage drafting. It's all pretty boring and just comes down to power output in the end.

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