Motor doping thread

[noddy69]

Froome and Poels today super motored!!!!!

Look at Poels talking to Froome as he goes past on the steep part of the corner like it was flat. FFS!!!!!!!!!


https://twitter.com/Archidux/status/906557462580514817

Poels in that clip leaves me zero doubt that a motor was engaged. He:
- speeds up on the steepest section of the hairpin
- takes an unnatural line
- almost loses his back wheel
- drops Zakarin like a fly
- has a chat about the weather with Froome as he goes by
- doesn't change cadence

I did think it looked like it was doctored but maybe just so unbelievable - Looking back at it - does Poels do something with his hands before he speeds up the incline ? Looks like he nearly turns/pulls down on the crossbar like revving an engine---or am I losing it altogether and just seeing things that aren't there ?

Yes, he changes gears in the rear cassette using his right hand.

Not seeing it here guys. I do see the rocking of his body characteristic of a large burst of effort right at the point of acceleration and gear change.

Its the left hand

[Jacques (7 ch)]

Even Froome looks at him in bewilderment as he passes - like 'are you taking the pi** '

Agree with that and Red"s comment.

On the Eurosport preview (shown in the live coverage) of Angliru, which also contained the clip of Flecha riding with SDB, Flecha concluded by saying Sky would be have a 34 x 32 for the steeps (maybe SDB had mentioned it, or maybe Flecha, who may have put on a pound or two, worked it out himself). Poels' cadence on the hairpin was suggestive of the big ring!

[veganrob]

That's hilarious. The bike actually lurches forward with no additional pedalling input from Froome.

[Random Direction]

That's hilarious. The bike actually lurches forward with no additional pedalling input from Froome.

Nice bike throw. The force is strong with this one.

ok, someone who is stronger in physics than I please play with Newton's Second Law to work out the additional force required to do what Froome and Poels did, and see if it is doable holding mass and pedaling rate constant. To me it seems to be addition of instantaneous force with no discernable extra effort on the part of the rider (this is backed up by the Mt. Ventoux HR data).

[ScienceIsCool]

That's hilarious. The bike actually lurches forward with no additional pedalling input from Froome.

Nice bike throw. The force is strong with this one.

ok, someone who is stronger in physics than I please play with Newton's Second Law to work out the additional force required to do what Froome and Poels did, and see if it is doable holding mass and pedaling rate constant. To me it seems to be addition of instantaneous force with no discernable extra effort on the part of the rider (this is backed up by the Mt. Ventoux HR data).

Blergh, Work = force times distance. Work is another name for energy. So if something lurches forward, that means it's pushing some force for some length of time and distance. And that requires an input of energy... Now solve for where that energy came from.

John Swanson

[Parker]

The Velonews podcast saw the Poels clip. They were pretty scathing about it.

[the delgados]

sky went full MOtard

Nice one.
I'm far removed from riding up hills in a 39-27 and have no idea what gear ratios these guys are using, but that does not look normal. Especially when you consider the gradient of the climb which was near the very end of a GT.
Guy looks like he got a huge push from a spectator at the steepest part of the incline so he could have a chat with the Vroomster.

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere Sky riders were using 34 small ring on the front and a 11-32 on the back.

That explains a lot.
I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Poels, or anyone else was riding with a motor; but if not, the gear ratios used by the team makes it seem entirely plausible he hit that incline on his own steam.
Keep in mind he was waiting for Froome to catch up, so he had some time to take a breather before going into mountain bike mode to keep up.

I don't think smaller gears explain that clip in any way. There's nothing magic about a smaller gear. You just spin faster for the same speed. If anything he appears to be in way too big a gear for the incline but is putting in little visible effort.

I'm not trying to be a contrarian for the sake of being contrarian. I highly suspect motors have/are being used in the peloton.
With all due respect, please tell me what gear he was pushing. I mean, you said it was too big, but unless you're seeing a different video, I have no clue what gear ratio he was using. That's pretty much impossible to determine. Please let us know what gear you think he was pushing.
You're absolutely right--there's nothing magic about smaller gears. That said, they allow you to keep a high cadence at a steep pitch without losing too much of your rhythm.
I am open to being completely wrong, but
I see a guy who got a bit of a breather while waiting for the Vroomster to catch up before switching into a very low gear and keep a high cadence and speed for a very short period of time while his leader said a quick "hi' before taking off into the distance.
(run-on sentence, but I hope my point's are clear.)

[Random Direction]

That's hilarious. The bike actually lurches forward with no additional pedalling input from Froome.

Nice bike throw. The force is strong with this one.

ok, someone who is stronger in physics than I please play with Newton's Second Law to work out the additional force required to do what Froome and Poels did, and see if it is doable holding mass and pedaling rate constant. To me it seems to be addition of instantaneous force with no discernable extra effort on the part of the rider (this is backed up by the Mt. Ventoux HR data).

Blergh, Work = force times distance. Work is another name for energy. So if something lurches forward, that means it's pushing some force for some length of time and distance. And that requires an input of energy... Now solve for where that energy came from.

John Swanson

Can you do a frame analysis to determine the incremental amount of force?

[ScienceIsCool]

That's hilarious. The bike actually lurches forward with no additional pedalling input from Froome.

Nice bike throw. The force is strong with this one.

ok, someone who is stronger in physics than I please play with Newton's Second Law to work out the additional force required to do what Froome and Poels did, and see if it is doable holding mass and pedaling rate constant. To me it seems to be addition of instantaneous force with no discernable extra effort on the part of the rider (this is backed up by the Mt. Ventoux HR data).

Blergh, Work = force times distance. Work is another name for energy. So if something lurches forward, that means it's pushing some force for some length of time and distance. And that requires an input of energy... Now solve for where that energy came from.

John Swanson

Can you do a frame analysis to determine the incremental amount of force?

I suppose you could estimate a few things that would be illuminating. The first would be to estimate the before and after speeds (vi, and vf). If we then estimate the cadence, and we know the wheel diameter we can determine the gear-inches that were being used. That would tell us, if the acceleration was due to a gear change, how many gears would have had to be shifted since cadence was constant.

Likewise, since power is the integral of dE/dt, we can estimate how much power the acceleration took. In this case dE = 1/2 m(vf^2 - vi^2) where we have to guess at m, the weight of rider plus bike and the time it took, dt.

Now of course, none of this would be especially accurate, but you would get a ballpark figure that you could use as a sanity check. For example, if the estimate suggested dropping two gears and putting out an extra two hundred watts, you could probably talk yourself into it being normal. However, if it took a massive gear change and an extra thousand watts, you could have a good chuckle about motor bikes.

John Swanson

[red_flanders]

I don't think smaller gears explain that clip in any way. There's nothing magic about a smaller gear. You just spin faster for the same speed. If anything he appears to be in way too big a gear for the incline but is putting in little visible effort.

I'm not trying to be a contrarian for the sake of being contrarian. I highly suspect motors have/are being used in the peloton.
With all due respect, please tell me what gear he was pushing. I mean, you said it was too big, but unless you're seeing a different video, I have no clue what gear ratio he was using. That's pretty much impossible to determine. Please let us know what gear you think he was pushing.
You're absolutely right--there's nothing magic about smaller gears. That said, they allow you to keep a high cadence at a steep pitch without losing too much of your rhythm.
I am open to being completely wrong, but
I see a guy who got a bit of a breather while waiting for the Vroomster to catch up before switching into a very low gear and keep a high cadence and speed for a very short period of time while his leader said a quick "hi' before taking off into the distance.
(run-on sentence, but I hope my point's are clear.)

I don't know why the exact gear has any bearing, of course I don't know. What matters is that we have all ridden bikes for a really long time (some of us for way too long) and we know what an effort and an acceleration should look like at a given grade, ESPECIALLY when we can watch other riders move over the same spot. Smaller gears make it easier, and make you go slower and/or spin faster. This is not what I see in this video.

He appears to me, and a great many others, to be moving way too fast, with too little effort for whatever gear he appears to be using. He appears to accelerate without any additional effort. If you see it otherwise, I won't argue with you about it. But smaller gears do not answer, TO ME, what I see in that clip. What I see in that clip is someone being assisted, and it's probably the most obvious evidence of motor use I've ever seen, Cancellara, Froome, Hesjedahl, Stade2 or any other event inclusive. My personal opinion.

I think half of the frenzy about motors on this thread has been nonsense, but this, to me, is obvious.

[the delgados]

I don't think smaller gears explain that clip in any way. There's nothing magic about a smaller gear. You just spin faster for the same speed. If anything he appears to be in way too big a gear for the incline but is putting in little visible effort.

I'm not trying to be a contrarian for the sake of being contrarian. I highly suspect motors have/are being used in the peloton.
With all due respect, please tell me what gear he was pushing. I mean, you said it was too big, but unless you're seeing a different video, I have no clue what gear ratio he was using. That's pretty much impossible to determine. Please let us know what gear you think he was pushing.
You're absolutely right--there's nothing magic about smaller gears. That said, they allow you to keep a high cadence at a steep pitch without losing too much of your rhythm.
I am open to being completely wrong, but
I see a guy who got a bit of a breather while waiting for the Vroomster to catch up before switching into a very low gear and keep a high cadence and speed for a very short period of time while his leader said a quick "hi' before taking off into the distance.
(run-on sentence, but I hope my point's are clear.)

I don't know why the exact gear has any bearing, of course I don't know. What matters is that we have all ridden bikes for a really long time (some of us for way too long) and we know what an effort and an acceleration should look like at a given grade, ESPECIALLY when we can watch other riders move over the same spot. Smaller gears make it easier, and make you go slower and/or spin faster. This is not what I see in this video.

He appears to me, and a great many others, to be moving way too fast, with too little effort for whatever gear he appears to be using. He appears to accelerate without any additional effort. If you see it otherwise, I won't argue with you about it. But smaller gears do not answer, TO ME, what I see in that clip. What I see in that clip is someone being assisted, and it's probably the most obvious evidence of motor use I've ever seen, Cancellara, Froome, Hesjedahl, Stade2 or any other event inclusive. My personal opinion.

I think half of the frenzy about motors on this thread has been nonsense, but this, to me, is obvious.

I completely agree that the video looks highly suspicious. I mean, shades of PR 2010-suspicious. I already mentioned that a while back. I'm just asking a question and making an almost entirely uninformed observation (I say "almost" because I rode competitively, so I know how to ride a bike and I know the effect gear ratios have at certain gradients. Mr. Swanson is the guy to fill us in on the scientific details. I'm as dumb as a carp.)
At risk of sounding like a redundant a-hole, his acceleration doesn't look entirely implausible given the supposed gear ratios used.
God forbid you or anyone else would ride a mountain bike (I'm a road rider snob, and I kid--mountain biking is fun), but it's not out of the realm of possibility for a mountain bike rider to maintain a certain speed for a short period of time when gearing up in a ridiculously small front chain ring.
Again, it looks suspicious, but I contend that he could give some gas at a high rate of cadence in a small gear to momentarily keep up with Vroome. Which is exactly what he did.

[adamfo]

I watched it live and thought at the time Poels probably had cyclocross experience. Faced with an obstacle you don't spin it up but drop a gear and torque it up and over. Notice Poels brace his arms whilst keep his weight back to stop the wheel spinning out. The instinctive thing would be to get out of the saddle but that would lead to weaving and lost traction.
We can discount hub motors in this case. He runs normal size Dura Ace. Any such micro-motor would have very low torque and be useless in such a move.

[Huapango]

I watched it live and thought at the time Poels probably had cyclocross experience. Faced with an obstacle you don't spin it up but drop a gear and torque it up and over. Notice Poels brace his arms whilst keep his weight back to stop the wheel spinning out. The instinctive thing would be to get out of the saddle but that would lead to weaving and lost traction.
We can discount hub motors in this case. He runs normal size Dura Ace. Any such micro-motor would have very low torque and be useless in such a move.

The normal thing to do is make motorcycle noises while making one of the hardest climbs in the world look like child's play.

[jmdirt]

I watched it live and thought at the time Poels probably had cyclocross experience. Faced with an obstacle you don't spin it up but drop a gear and torque it up and over. Notice Poels brace his arms whilst keep his weight back to stop the wheel spinning out. The instinctive thing would be to get out of the saddle but that would lead to weaving and lost traction.
We can discount hub motors in this case. He runs normal size Dura Ace. Any such micro-motor would have very low torque and be useless in such a move.

The normal thing to do is make motorcycle noises while making one of the hardest climbs in the world look like child's play.

BRRRAAAAAHP! BRAHP! BRAAAAAAHP! BRP!

[Random Direction]

Someone please tell me a plausible non-motorized reason why Poels wheel would wobble going up a switchback on Angrilu. Perhaps oil on the road. Didn't see any cyclo cross obstacles, nor was it MOTO.gp.

A LARGE addition of force was applied to the rear wheel while cornering. How large is the question. Perhaps I should head to my local switchbacks and try to do it tomorrow. Except I ran an ultra last week and my legs are fried.

Who is sky's F1 partner and how does the money flow?

[Tienus]

We can discount hub motors in this case. He runs normal size Dura Ace. Any such micro-motor would have very low torque and be useless in such a move.

No we can't.

Varjas demonstrated a small hub motor with incredible power. We also got to see an x-ray of it.
John is much more knowledgeable on the subject than me, here is his view on it again:

viewtopic.php?p=2185740#p2185740

[adamfo]

We can discount hub motors in this case. He runs normal size Dura Ace. Any such micro-motor would have very low torque and be useless in such a move.

No we can't.

Varjas demonstrated a small hub motor with incredible power. We also got to see an x-ray of it.
John is much more knowledgeable on the subject than me, here is his view on it again:

viewtopic.php?p=2185740#p2185740

No he didn't. The hub motor shown working was around 4 times larger than a Dura Ace sized hub.
The X-ray was of a rim motor with parts missing and no mention made of the additional seat stay components.

[adamfo]

Someone please tell me a plausible non-motorized reason why Poels wheel would wobble going up a switchback on Angrilu. Perhaps oil on the road. Didn't see any cyclo cross obstacles, nor was it MOTO.gp.

A LARGE addition of force was applied to the rear wheel while cornering. How large is the question. Perhaps I should head to my local switchbacks and try to do it tomorrow. Except I ran an ultra last week and my legs are fried.

Who is sky's F1 partner and how does the money flow?

Poels cut the corner and rode up the steepest part. Wheels deflect putting that much force through them.

[Tienus]

No he didn't. The hub motor shown working was around 4 times larger than a Dura Ace sized hub.
The X-ray was of a rim motor with parts missing and no mention made of the additional seat stay components.

He did. I suggest you look properly at the stade 2 broadcast.

https://youtu.be/jBxfQJOHJxc?t=10m15s
At 10:15 you see the x-ray

The hub motor is small enough for a Dura Ace sized hub as John explained in the post I linked. You can also see how the skewer gets true as some have been wondering in this thread.

[jmdirt]

No he didn't. The hub motor shown working was around 4 times larger than a Dura Ace sized hub.
The X-ray was of a rim motor with parts missing and no mention made of the additional seat stay components.

He did. I suggest you look properly at the stade 2 broadcast.

https://youtu.be/jBxfQJOHJxc?t=10m15s
At 10:15 you see the x-ray

The hub motor is small enough for a Dura Ace sized hub as John explained in the post I linked. You can also see how the skewer gets true as some have been wondering in this thread.

No.
-The xray shows a hub that is disassembled. Show it complete and ready to race.
-The part that shows a typical axle for a QR skewer to go through is the one in bubble wrap. There is a peek through the wrap, and you can see that it is a larger hub. Show a picture/video of a motor that fits in a standard hub.

It is a possibility that the test hub motors aren't QR, which would explain some of the bike changes. If they get a flat they would have no choice but to switch bikes. Even without QR, I think that its would be pretty tough to fit all of the necessary parts into a standard size hub, have it produce the needed watts, and survive even a few uses.

Consumer motors: I frequently see this guy commuting on his townie going 20-25 mph while lightly peddling. I finally had the chance to talk with him. The (very large) rear hub houses the motor, and the (large) battery pack is mounted on a rear rack. The top of the battery has a solar panel to top off the charge when the bike is just sitting, pedaling and coasting also charge the battery, as does the front dyno hub which also runs his bright lights (he can program charging). He can also plug it in to charge it, but says he rarely has to. Very cool setup!