Motor doping thread

[sniper]

Re:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/uci-road-world-championships-2016/elite-women-road-race/results/
During the lap, Olga Zabelinskaya was removed from the race after being disqualified for an illegal bike change – or more accurately, the jury tried to remove her. The Russian simply kept on going.

She took a bike from someone at the side of the road with no team car present.

https://nos.nl/video/2137880-jury-haalt-russische-kopvrouw-zabelinskaja-uit-de-strijd.html

Salient.

I wonder did the commentators address the elephant in the room or, more likely, did they completely ignore it and just play dumb.

 

[jmdirt]

Re: Re:

Someone posted that MvdP and others had been using bottles in the early part of the season clearly insinuating that it was a battery for their motor. I did not see Koksijde, but none of the photos show the top guys with bottles...where is the battery now?

the bottles were used in the American world cup races, the weather was hot and riders suffered a lot.
if they use motors, it would be too dumb to use bottle batteries nowadays with the level of attention

They were used in some of the Belgian races too because they were unseasonably warm. I wasn't the one who implied that they were batteries.

 

[Craigee]

Re:

There's no masking agent or technique to hiding a motor like there is for doping. Not comparable. One exists physically 24 hours a day, one exists invisibly and has half life and mostly doesn't exist 24 hours a day.

Of course you can mask a motor and keep it invisible. Inside the bike frame or wheel hub. Who would have a motor on the outside of a bike?

Sorry for being obtuse but still it's true. Just like the UCI did nothing about Lance and his whole team, if they chose to do nothing about motors how easy would it be?

 

[sniper]

Falco is one of several commercial ebike suppliers who still offer hidden motors with bottle-batteries.
https://www.google.pl/search?q=falco+battery&client=firefox-b-ab&dcr=0&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwig1dyD4IbXAhXLKFAKHWTYBIcQ_AUICigB&biw=1269&bih=547#imgrc=sb9xfLufkcXrmM:
Bottle batteries are en vogue still among semi-pros and amateurs. After all, why go all expensive when there is literally zero testing (see the Norman Alvis thread).
And I've seen some indications they're very much en vogue still in the UK TT scene.
Guys doing 20 km TTs with two bidons, for instance.
Many Falco bikes there, too.
Check out this monster, for example:
https://www.facebook.com/falcobikeglobal/photos/a.568867989845395.1073741826.568857386513122/1013794402019416/

 

[ScienceIsCool]

Here's a Lightweight prototype of a magnets-in-the-wheel motor. It worked well enough that they "limited" the output to 500 Watts... So I guess they are possible after all. Note that this was a public display three years ago. I wonder if you could design a normal looking one that gave ~50 Watts. Sounds feasible.
http://road.cc/content/news/128979-lightweight-show-e-bike-concept-eurobike

John Swanson

 

[sniper]

Re:

Here's a Lightweight prototype of a magnets-in-the-wheel motor. It worked well enough that they "limited" the output to 500 Watts... So I guess they are possible after all. Note that this was a public display three years ago. I wonder if you could design a normal looking one that gave ~50 Watts. Sounds feasible.
http://road.cc/content/news/128979-lightweight-show-e-bike-concept-eurobike

John Swanson

Track, yes.
I was told magnets in the wheel would be a less likely approach for road bikes though due to the clearance issues from frame to whell. This would require a fair amount of current to overcome needing a pretty hefty battery.

More feasible for on the road would be a bespoke hub motor with embedded coils in the alu housing and the magnets on the axle. Small power required to run this at 10 watts or so. Maybe even possible from di2 or campag battery, not for too long, but enought for a good attack.

Contacts could be in each dropout with a simple "Pip" and spring type affair.

Presumably it would also be possible to have a couple of small batteries linked to switch over from one to the other as one battery dies, so as to allow for multiple attacks.
But we don't know what they're using for power.
It's possible they have the batteries in the seat stays. But di2 is also possible.
In which case you'd expect to see many Di2 issues with flat batteries.
Reminds you of someone?

 

[samhocking]

At 14.5kg for a 1x full carbon bike and bars and need for a wraparound seatube/stay it's pretty clear the technology is decades off what is being claimed to be in use at only 0.8kg heavier than a standard road wheel and bike be it 10w or 500w and looks visually identifiable immediately to me and of course the magnets kind of give it away lol. That rear wheel with the magnets over it must be around 5kg at least.

 

[Tienus]

At 14.5kg for a 1x full carbon bike and bars and need for a wraparound seatube/stay it's pretty clear the technology is decades off what is being claimed to be in use

It includes a 7.8ah battery wich gives 80km autonomy and other stuff you don't need in the pro peloton.

what is being claimed to be in use at only 0.8kg heavier than a standard road wheel and bike

Who is claiming this?
If a bike or a wheel is 800 grams heavier it does not mean that thats the weight of the motor system.
I think riders have been tuning their bike to well below the UCI min weight to compensate for a motor.

 

[samhocking]

Re: Re:

There's no masking agent or technique to hiding a motor like there is for doping. Not comparable. One exists physically 24 hours a day, one exists invisibly and has half life and mostly doesn't exist 24 hours a day.

Of course you can mask a motor and keep it invisible. Inside the bike frame or wheel hub. Who would have a motor on the outside of a bike?

Sorry for being obtuse but still it's true. Just like the UCI did nothing about Lance and his whole team, if they chose to do nothing about motors how easy would it be?

You saw Varjas's 'magic' invisible wheel. It was only invisible if you didn't look at the hub. No tablet needed, live TV would be enough.

 

[sniper]

Re: Re:

There's no masking agent or technique to hiding a motor like there is for doping. Not comparable. One exists physically 24 hours a day, one exists invisibly and has half life and mostly doesn't exist 24 hours a day.

Of course you can mask a motor and keep it invisible. Inside the bike frame or wheel hub. Who would have a motor on the outside of a bike?

Sorry for being obtuse but still it's true. Just like the UCI did nothing about Lance and his whole team, if they chose to do nothing about motors how easy would it be?

You saw Varjas's 'magic' invisible wheel. It was only invisible if you didn't look at the hub. No tablet needed, live TV would be enough.

A disc would suffice to cover that one up, neatly proving Craigee's point.

And if you still think Varjas' tech is the state of the art, you're probably the only one.

 

[samhocking]

But people are posting videos of normal spoked wheels spinning with manufacturers original hubs clearly obvious, not disc wheels or cranks spinning or oversized rear hubs, even slightly oversized. As you can see, a rim-based motor would have to look more like Lightweight's example. i.e. the rim magnets have to be 'very' close to the coils in a seat tube or stays to work and keep the magnets small and lightweight. Ideally have the whole seat tube wrap over and around the rim to get the number of coils required. The fact there's not a single rear stay being used in the peloton with the required close tolerance immediately rules out rim with frame-based coils etc, just by simple physics. That gap has to be within a mm or two to be efficient, otherwise the magnets need to increased in size the bigger that gap and therefore much weight added so watts are maintained. Even not making that Velocite rim motor invisible, coils being within 1mm of the rim magnets, it still weighs 2.2kg without the battery and around 8kg with the battery. The fact all hubs in the peloton are standard manufacturers hubs rules out hub-based motors too. You are left with the only retro-fittable motor that would be invisible to the naked eye being that of the seat tube motor and easily identifiable as we have seen several times now.

End of the day, the cranks are what should be moving if it's not a disc wheel and standard C50 or whatever deep section or medium section wheel is being claimed to spin in a normal rear stay which simply can't unless the coils in the stays are designed to pickup a rim magnet very close or are huge which the stays cleary arn't. In fact stays have got significantly smaller not larger in diameter since carbon frames became normal and to accommodate 28mm tyres the distance between stay and rim has increased significantly to.

 

[Tienus]

The fact all hubs in the peloton are standard manufacturers hubs rules out hub-based motors too. You are left with the only retro-fittable motor that would be invisible to the naked eye being that of the seat tube motor and easily identifiable as we have seen several times now.

What about Hesjedahl and his hubmotor?

http://sports.orange.fr/videos/plus-de-sport/cyclisme/chronique-cyrille-guimard-je-crains-un-scandale-sur-le-tour-de-france-VID0000001Ng0s.html
listen to Guimard from 3:40
I will translate the part in case you don't speak French:
And remember the bike of Hesjedahl who turned on the road under its own power and we know it works.

 

[samhocking]

Anyone can get their bike to spin around like Hesjedahl's, you can do it yourself. I copied what this guy did and it span around no difficulty first attempt.

https://youtu.be/aN7HjwZI-k0?t=32s

Ohh look, another rider who didn't realise they had a motor like Hesjedahl until they copied him crashing lol!

https://www.instagram.com/p/sh0fSPirPW/

 

[Tienus]

One of the videos you posted is made bij Rasmussen who was a team mate of Cancellara in 2010.

Those videos are not good copies of what happened and it has been discussed here multiple times before.
Most recent:
viewtopic.php?p=2205903#p2205903


It is exceptional that someone like Guimard speaks out like this.

 

[samhocking]

Re:

One of the videos you posted is made bij Rasmussen who was a team mate of Cancellara in 2010.

Those videos are not good copies of what happened and it has been discussed here multiple times before.
Most recent:
viewtopic.php?p=2205903#p2205903


It is exceptional that someone like Guimard speaks out like this.

It doesn't matter, a bike is a bike. Just turn your levers to the ground like Ryder's, spin rear wheel upto 20mph and let go of bike and it spins around. It's easier than riding a bike. As long as the bars are rotated like Ryder's it works every time.

 

[samhocking]

Re:

At 14.5kg for a 1x full carbon bike and bars and need for a wraparound seatube/stay it's pretty clear the technology is decades off what is being claimed to be in use

It includes a 7.8ah battery wich gives 80km autonomy and other stuff you don't need in the pro peloton.

what is being claimed to be in use at only 0.8kg heavier than a standard road wheel and bike

Who is claiming this?
If a bike or a wheel is 800 grams heavier it does not mean that thats the weight of the motor system.
I think riders have been tuning their bike to well below the UCI min weight to compensate for a motor.

Sky's disc wheels were claimed at 800g heavier due to hidden motor, because that's how much heavier their TT bikes were than others. Lightweight claimed their Velocitie motor is 2.2kg without the battery and rest of wheel and other half of the motor inside the seat tube. Clearly there's a huge difference between lightweight making the lightest motor they say is possible and what is being claimed in pro peloton.

 

[ScienceIsCool]

Re: Re:

One of the videos you posted is made bij Rasmussen who was a team mate of Cancellara in 2010.

Those videos are not good copies of what happened and it has been discussed here multiple times before.
Most recent:
viewtopic.php?p=2205903#p2205903


It is exceptional that someone like Guimard speaks out like this.

It doesn't matter, a bike is a bike. Just turn your levers to the ground like Ryder's, spin rear wheel upto 20mph and let go of bike and it spins around. It's easier than riding a bike. As long as the bars are rotated like Ryder's it works every time.

Yes, that works. Energy from the wheel can be used to spin the bike around a different axis. What doesn't work is crashing (a highly dynamic event) where the wheel touches the pavement once, twice, three times (!!) before coming to a halt and sustaining constant acceleration rather than an impulse.

As an exercise, you can watch the Rasmussen video and try to make an approximate graph of angular position versus time. This is simple to do. The bike takes off and then slows down. Now do the same for Ryder's mishap. Oops! The graphs don't look the same. I wonder why that is?

John Swanson

 

[samhocking]

You can't possibly calculate what forces are in Ryder's wheel from a video, so the best you got is to simulate it as best as you can and it spins around. From what I can tell, his right foot is clipped in, the wheel is clearly spinning still, then he unclips and is not attached to bike and then the spinning wheel carries the bike down the descent, which is how it works when I simulate it. I don't see his rear wheel stop spinning, others claim they see it start spinning after he unclips, but I just don't see the wheel stop spinning during or after the crash until the motorbike runs over it. If the bike was rotating up the descent it would be odd, but down the descent it corresponds to my tests simulating what I see.

 

[Tienus]

Sky's disc wheels were claimed at 800g heavier due to hidden motor, because that's how much heavier their TT bikes were than others.

No Varjas said the wheels where about 800g heavier. The police wanted to weigh the wheels but the UCI did not allow them.


https://www.electricbike.com/gruber-assist/
The entire drive unit (motor, gear, electronic control) weighs 900 grams.

Maybe the battery was in the frame.

 

[samhocking]

That's not how it was reported.

The 60 Minutes report said that the programme had been told by French authorities that at that year’s race, they had weighed bikes before a time trial stage and that of all the teams, it was Sky’s bikes that weighed the most – fully 800 grams heavier than those of any other team tested.

 

[ScienceIsCool]

Re:

You can't possibly calculate what forces are in Ryder's wheel from a video, so the best you got is to simulate it as best as you can and it spins around. From what I can tell, his right foot is clipped in, the wheel is clearly spinning still, then he unclips and is not attached to bike and then the spinning wheel carries the wheel down the descent, which is how it works when I simulate it. I don't see his rear wheel stop spinning, others claim they see it start spinning after he unclips, but I just don't see the wheel stop spinning during or after the crash until the motorbike runs over it.

You most certainly can!! Physics to the rescue!! First, estimate the speed at the time of the crash. There are lots of visual cues. Put some error bars on that estimate. Great. Now from my own measurements, I've got lots of data on the moment of inertia for rear wheels plus tire, but you can also look that up. This gives a nice, tightly bracketed range of values. So the energy it has is a quick calculation: E = 0.5 I w^2, where I is the moment of inertia and w is the angular velocity.

That's you *maximum* energy budget.

Now, make a quick calculation of what the bike's moment of inertia is. Done. Alright. Now before we continue on to the calculus and setting up the equations to solve for the transfer of energy between systems, let's figure out if it's worth attempting. Just assume that all the energy transfers with no losses. Check that against the final rotational velocity of the bike. The answer is that using all favourable numbers, there's just barely enough energy.

So let's take a look at the other aspects. The energy available in the wheel decreases as the bike speeds up (i.e., the energy transfers from one to the other). This would result in an impulse. An impulse is a changing rate of acceleration. In this case we would expect it to accelerate quickly and then slow down over time as friction takes over. This is clearly what Cassani's video shows. Ryder's bike does not display an impulse. It displays an acceleration followed by constant or accelerating speed.

What does that mean? There needs to be an additional energy source! Is it gravity? Nope, that's off by a few orders of magnitude (look up pendulums if you're interested).

Also troubling is that the wheel clearly touches the ground three times during the crash. There's no conceivable way that was frictionless. Ergo, our assumptions about the initial energy of the wheel are over-estimated.

Conclusion: Something was adding energy to the system. That would be a motor.

John Swanson

 

[samhocking]

You don't have any forces, you have a video. You don't know the length of his QR and stem and bar reach for a start. That makes a huge difference in my tests. At some angles you can't even get the wheel to touch the floor how you claim because the QR acts as a pivot point preventing it.

 

[ScienceIsCool]

Re:

You don't have any forces, you have a video. You don't know the length of his QR and stem and bar reach for a start. That makes a huge difference in my tests. At some angles you can't even get the wheel to touch the floor how you claim because the QR acts as a pivot point preventing it.

How would that affect the energy budget? In physics, you can save a lot of time by ignoring forces and all the integrals by using energy. If you have 1000 Joules, can you put a ping pong ball in orbit? The easy way to do it is to look at the initial and final states and calculate the energy requirements, both potential and kinetic. If it's within an order of magnitude "yes", then you do the math.

In Ryder's case, it simply doesn't work out. Both the energy requirements, and how the specifics shake out.

John Swanson

 

[red_flanders]

Re:

One of the videos you posted is made bij Rasmussen who was a team mate of Cancellara in 2010.

Those videos are not good copies of what happened and it has been discussed here multiple times before.
Most recent:
viewtopic.php?p=2205903#p2205903


It is exceptional that someone like Guimard speaks out like this.

Not sure citing the same people who are arguing this point in one thread is evidence of anything in another thread. Maybe a motor in Ryder's bike, but I have time for anyone who points out it's other than conclusive. What actually happens is that a moto appears to run it over before it stops. But that stop seems well within the range of the time needed for it to slow down. Doesn't really appear to slow down. Suspicious? Yes. Enough to draw a conclusion? Not for me.

 

[Huapango]

Re:

You don't have any forces, you have a video. You don't know the length of his QR and stem and bar reach for a start. That makes a huge difference in my tests. At some angles you can't even get the wheel to touch the floor how you claim because the QR acts as a pivot point preventing it.

Ryder won the Giro d'Italia. Let that sink in for a minute.