Motor doping thread

[Brian Butterfield]

Re: Mechanical doping: first rider caught

"What is this strange, cleverly concealed button on this unfamiliar, yet perfectly fitting professional bicycle I am riding? What!? Now I am going very fast, but luckily up this steep cobbled and muddy section! I am unaccountably in front riding this strange bicycle! This is too much!"

 

[Tienus]

Re: Mechanical doping: first rider caught

Its easy to prove that she has been riding Nico's bike in previous races. From pictures and videos it looks like she's riding three different bikes this season. I assume this is the fastest one as she beat the rest of the field by ten seconds uphill:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinoakhill/22860731792/in/photostream/
Im sure the photographer has a higher res pic as he used a Canon EOS 7D but this is one is sufficient.
I can easily recognise this bike as there are multiple differences, most notable the paint scheme on the seat tube.

I'm convinced she pushes the on/off button with her right thumb as seen in the last second of this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=816tCVvCOpY
And at 57:38 in this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1-y5BfW00Y

 

[jyl]

Would it be possible for someone to post links to photos of the bike that has a motor, of the bike she was riding on the Kloppenberg, and of some of her other bikes?. I would be incredibly interested to see if there is photographic evidence that she has, in fact, ridden the motor doped bike in a very recent race. (Presumably she rode it in races many months ago, before she sold it, if that story is true.)

And do we have any idea when she supposedly sold the bike?

 

[WillemS]

Re: Mechanical doping: first rider caught

I'm convinced she pushes the on/off button with her right thumb as seen in the last second of this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=816tCVvCOpY
And at 57:38 in this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1-y5BfW00Y

Great finds. I've included the time in the YouTube-urls, 10 seconds prior to the alleged press. Setting the playback speed to 0.25x (click the settings cog) is really revealing:

Possible button press right thumb at 1m50

Possible button press @ 57m38

 

[BullsFan22]

Re: Mechanical doping: first rider caught

People should just switch to track and field and running specifically. Pretty simple. Yes you train a lot and do all the other good and cool things that professional athletes do, but as far as equipment is concerned, it's the shoes (que in the Spike Lee/Michael Jordan Nike ad from 20+ years ago) that matter and not much else. Oh wait, never mind. You have to figure in the air pumps. Crap. There's equipment doping there too!

 

[Benotti69]

Apparently Femke was photographed using the 'Moto' Bike the day before race on the course

http://www.1limburg.nl/stultiens-ontving-foto-van-verdacht-frame-met-motortje?context=section-2

 

[sniper]

Re: Mechanical doping: first rider caught

I'm convinced she pushes the on/off button with her right thumb as seen in the last second of this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=816tCVvCOpY
And at 57:38 in this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1-y5BfW00Y

Great finds. I've included the time in the YouTube-urls, 10 seconds prior to the alleged press. Setting the playback speed to 0.25x (click the settings cog) is really revealing:

Possible button press right thumb at 1m50

Possible button press @ 57m38

good work indeed.
again, so reminiscent of fabian cancellara. The italian guy in the Gazetta dello Sport was right. This is oldschool stuff from femke.
i'd love it if somebody with some video-editing skills would put the two side by side.
i mean that jump from femke uphill (posted earlier) vs. cance on the muur.
and the clicking.

 

[Maxiton]

Re: Mechanical doping: first rider caught

The explanation of Femke Van den Driessche (and her father) for how she was caught riding, without her knowledge, a bike with a motor in the seat tube:

Note the dual nature of this diagram, particularly poignant, wherein the extra power produced by the scheme, inadvertently experienced, produces simultaneously the holy water of innocent tears shed in the arena of sport.

As a bonus, revealed here for the first time, thanks to the largess of a highly placed source in the Sky team, is the latest, newest iteration of Froome's ride, which is set to make its appearance in the upcoming (2016) Tour de France.

Dubbed the Rupert Murdoch Hi-Cadence De-luxe Special, Froome is expected to ride it to great effect. A mighty champion he is.

 

[AJ101]

This is becoming a joke now. How can she say that it's her friends bike and expect people to believe that? EVERY SINGLE TIME WE GET A BS EXCUSE. When will someone just front it when they mess up? Its becoming like the Austin Powers Defense every single time

 

[BullsFan22]

Re: Mechanical doping: first rider caught

I'm convinced she pushes the on/off button with her right thumb as seen in the last second of this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=816tCVvCOpY
And at 57:38 in this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1-y5BfW00Y

Great finds. I've included the time in the YouTube-urls, 10 seconds prior to the alleged press. Setting the playback speed to 0.25x (click the settings cog) is really revealing:

Possible button press right thumb at 1m50

Possible button press @ 57m38

good work indeed.
again, so reminiscent of fabian cancellara. The italian guy in the Gazetta dello Sport was right. This is oldschool stuff from femke.
i'd love it if somebody with some video-editing skills would put the two side by side.
i mean that jump from femke uphill (posted earlier) vs. cance on the muur.
and the clicking.

And Froome, especially on the Ventoux and Aix 3 and probably countless others. And what about Contador? Specifically on the Peyresourde 2007 vs Rasmussen? It's funny how all these crazy performances come back to make people think, years after the fact. All it took was a naive 19 year old Belgian girl and a manipulative, mafia-like father or hers, to get us thinking.

Can you imagine the shockwaves if guys like Cancellara, Froome, Contador, Hesjedal....are busted, not for doping their bodies, but their bikes!?!? Yes, Contador failed a test already, and the others are suspicious one way or another, but engines in bikes? Suspicious wheel make-up? What's next? Short-cut takers ala Rosie Ruiz??

 

[doperhopper]

Re: Re:

so that girls father was bankrupt. Her brother was caught for dope. And the story was last year she gave a bike to a friend (sure), that friend added the motor (sure), then brought the bike to the material camper (sure) and then the mechanics accidentely mistook it for Femke's spare bike and brought it with the race.

Most laughable excuse story but also clearly a no good family

They sold him the bike

Well, I'd rather choose to believe in Tyler's vanishing twin or Bertie's steak.

Btw., great reaction from Eddie M. suggesting there are relatively honest traditional dopers, and then those evil low budget U23 motogirls.

 

[blackcat]

I think an interesting question that Helmut Roole may be able to answer, or the Belgians on this thread, I think the two posters, Boonen and Merckx Index, some derivation thereof, what will be the likely opprobrium by the Belgian people over this?

 

[Jacques de Molay]

Re: Mechanical doping: first rider caught

I really can't be bothered to this whole thread.
Total joke of sport

The owner of the bike has come forward.

Belgian paper Het Nieuwsblad reported on Monday evening that Nico Van Muylder has claimed that he is as the owner of the bike, supporting the explanation given by Van den Driessche that it was not her machine and that she knew nothing about the hidden motor.

Van Muylder is a friend of the Van den Driessche family. According to Van den Driessche’s explanation, Van Muylder’s bike was mistakenly picked up by her mechanics and given to the rider for use during the race.

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/latest-news/owner-of-electric-bike-seized-during-cyclocross-world-championships-comes-forward-209771?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Social&xid=cycling-weekly_socialflow_facebook

Well, I guess he'll be saddled with the guilt of causing two lifetime bans: His, and the young girl's. Oh well.

This is a watershed moment for the UCI. All or nothing. Lifetime bans, or just let everyone do it. There can be no grey area here for this inaugural event.

 

[jyl]

Re: Mechanical doping: first rider caught

In principle, wheel drives could work like regenerative braking, especially if the magnets were placed in calipers and the travel/throw on the calipers large. But, like jyl says, inverse cube law. And you've only got two points to cross the field, seat stays and chain stays. Even with rare earth magnets, it doesn't seem like you'd gain that many watts, however, in a race with frequent braking, it might be worthwhile. I'm decades out of doing the math, so I'll happily be schooled about the achievable current.

Also, there used to be an iphone app called "EMF meter", which accessed the all of the iphone's EMF sensors, and displayed the raw outputs. Just slowly swipe it around a bike and you'll see a signal jump and find any motors.

I think you'd generate, at best, as much power as the Magnic lights generate, which is very little - less than an aero helmet saves. The bike will look pretty darn weird. And to generate that small power, you'd be creating a constant small drag, unless you have moveable magnets, even weirder looking.

No, I think the idea of an undetectable "rim drive" system is not feasible.

I did think up a different concept, though.
- You could conceal batteries in the carbon deep section rim, use spokes as wires to conduct electricity to a motor in the hub, use a very tight connection between axle and dropout to substitute for a reaction arm, and some sort of wireless switch concealed under the bar tape. Now we have a heavy rim, a difficult wheel change, but we might have a working and inconspicuous hub drive. But . . .
- The problem is that a road hub is pretty tiny. For example, the Mavic Cosmic rear hub (I picked that because Hesjesdal's Cannondale SuperSix supposedly uses those wheels) is only about 1 inch (25 mm) in diameter, and you still have to fit an axle in there, leaving at best 1/2" (12 mm) for a motor.
- So how much power does a super minature motor produce? I found this company that sells miniature, high torque, geared reduction motors. Their 12 mm diameter model produces - wait for it - 133 mW or 0.13 watt output power. https://catalog.precisionmicrodrives.com/order-parts/product/212-008-12mm-dc-gearmotor-22mm-type
- I'm not sure even that motor could fit, but that's an example of how much power you can get out of a miniature motor that can fit in a standard road bike hub like those used in the WT. So let's suppose we somehow build a motor that is 10X better, now we can output 1 watt. We need to do 100X better to get a power boost that we can even feel, maybe (10 watts), and can our minature motor with its tiny gears survive 10 or 20 minutes at that power, before stripping?.
- I just don't see this going anywhere. Maybe if we had the best engineers on it, they could do 300X better and build us an undetectable hub drive that adds 30 watts for a very short time before it self destructs. Might sell a few to Bouhanni or some other desperate French sprinter. Probably not.

 

[doperhopper]

... and let's not forget the expert's verdict following the recent VroomTest: "the engine was always there" (and suddenly, better batteries appeared..)

 

[jyl]

Ha ha. I'm thinking the next frontier is . . . bionics. It only cost Six Million Dollars to build a guy who could run 60 rpm, I bet Steve Austin could pedal a bike 200 mph.

 

[Jacques de Molay]

Re:

what will be the likely opprobrium by the Belgian people over this?

Better yet, what will be the response from that indignant group of entitled twats known as The Pro Peloton?

Chemical doping was 10 years ago. Just ask any pro. 10 years ago.

Mechanical doping? That was in January. Last month. Why harp on that? Focus on the future.

2016: The year the Peloton moved beyond mechanical doping.

Also anxiously awaiting the hilarious punchlines from JV & Ryder.

 

[Jacques de Molay]

Re: Mechanical doping: first rider caught

There also seems to be the notion (in some circles) that mechanical doping and chemical doping are somehow mutually exclusive.

Imagine a highly motivated, highly trained, elite athlete under the influence of both chemical and mechanical doping. What would that look like?

Froome and Gilbert (among others) want to know.

 

[jyl]

Re:

Apparently Femke was photographed using the 'Moto' Bike the day before race on the course

http://www.1limburg.nl/stultiens-ontving-foto-van-verdacht-frame-met-motortje?context=section-2

I'm confused. The bike shown in the photo you linked is not the same bike as the one shown in the photo that Tienus linked. Different stripe pattern at the lower headtube. Also different wheels and tires but those can be changed from day to day.

Which is the motor bike that was seized by the UCI?. Surely someone photographed it as it was being scanned and confiscated?

 

[jyl]

Re:

I don't post much but here it is.

When I first heard about motorized doping I hypothesised a brushless DC motor with the front wheel acting as the permanent magnet with stator windings in the forks. Battery storage could be anywhere in the frame.
The kicker is that regenerative charging would be MUCH better than the seat tube BB system.

Using the front or rear with stator windings in stays, fork and or seat tube won't be a high-power output but 40-75 watts is a game changer.

I think that looking for otherworldly jumps is a red herring, having 75 watts as needed could look very subtle but have a completely dominating effect.

If the forks are 1-2 mm from the front rim, the front fork tubes have a very long front-to-back dimension, and you have a powerful battery, maybe . . . But it won't look anything like a WT racebike.

Here is a video of someone's prototype eddy current brake. You can see he needs a large conductive disk, and the magnets are very large and mounted very close to that disc. http://youtu.be/FRepnCIa01k Even with that, the wheel takes a while to stop - the device is not creating much torque.

Come to think of it, if we wanted to build something like this, best to wait until disc brakes get adopted. Embed rare earth magnets in the disc, replace the brake pads with electromagnets, now we have a <1 mm air gap and some chance of actually getting a working stealth motor. The problem is that the brake won't work anymore as a brake, so best to use the rear brake . . .

 

[Merckx index]

Re: Mechanical doping: first rider caught

The problem is that a road hub is pretty tiny. For example, the Mavic Cosmic rear hub (I picked that because Hesjesdal's Cannondale SuperSix supposedly uses those wheels) is only about 1 inch (25 mm) in diameter, and you still have to fit an axle in there, leaving at best 1/2" (12 mm) for a motor.
- So how much power does a super minature motor produce? I found this company that sells miniature, high torque, geared reduction motors. Their 12 mm diameter model produces - wait for it - 133 mW or 0.13 watt output power. https://catalog.precisionmicrodrives.com/order-parts/product/212-008-12mm-dc-gearmotor-22mm-type
- I'm not sure even that motor could fit, but that's an example of how much power you can get out of a miniature motor that can fit in a standard road bike hub like those used in the WT.

Exactly. As I said before, all the literature I've seen on hub motors says they stand out like a sore thumb, if they have enough power to be meaningful, they can't be hidden, they're too obvious.

Another problem with hub motors is that the power is added without increasing the rider's pedaling cadence, which means that a rider using one looks more suspicious to anyone watching a race. A bottom bracket motor doesn't have this problem. If the motor is activated, the crank turns faster, so the rider appears to be putting out more effort, even though he isn't.

 

[Freddythefrog]

Re: Re:

Btw., great reaction from Eddie M. suggesting there are relatively honest traditional dopers, and then those evil low budget U23 motogirls.

There are just too many great posts hitting the forum. Maxiton, that circuit diagram is great - too much to look at in one sitting, sniper's description of Cookson getting a hard-on when doing his selfie with Eddie and this from doperhopper, but lots lots more.

And elsewhere - velonews starts an editorial piece with a tribute -

Things keep getting worse. No matter how unhinged the skeptics have seemed, no matter how outlandish their conspiracy theories, professional cycling continues to prove them right.
Read more at http://velonews.competitor.com/2016/01/commentary/making-sense-of-cyclings-self-destruction-394311_394311#pQI0yVQdg2yT98SG.99

Yeah - that's us !

 

[Tonton]

Re: Mechanical doping: first rider caught

This should end the "let's legalize doping, it's too hard/costly to fight it" BS that some have promoted. Cheating is cheating, and here we are with another cheating method. ENOUGH!!! And here we are with another Virenque (unbeknownst to me) excuse, another Sammy Sosa corked bat justification. Since when can't an elite player/rider tell the difference between their bat/bike and a doctored one, different weight/balance? ENOUGH!!! How about the buttons? You won't make me believe that she didn't notice that her old bike had new features. ENOUGH!!! Cheating is hurting cycling. The "win at all cost" mentality is replacing sportsmanship, with modern means to an end making it more difficult to fight than ever.

 

[jyl]

Anyone know the respective heights of Nico Van Muylder and Femke van den dreissche?

I can't read the local language and don't know where to hunt for that info, sorry. Just in case one of you might know.

From a pic on his racing pigeon site, he does look like he might be a short-ish guy.

 

[Tonton]

Re:

Anyone know the respective heights of Nico Van Muylder and Femke van den dreissche?

I can't read the local language and don't know where to hunt for that info, sorry. Just in case one of you might know.

From a pic on his racing pigeon site, he does look like he might be a short-ish guy.

I thought about it, how she could have given a 52cm frame to a 6-foot guy .