Motor doping thread

[Libertine Seguros]

Re:

I'm surprised to see that she has put it back online. It's a great source of info and would be surprised if she keeps the fotos on there for long.

She actually raced three races on a row on bike nr 3 this season, so it may have been motorized at some point.

The white bicycle is a special paint job with several UEC logos on it. She got this one from a sponsor after winning the european championship. She does not race it.

You can see her riding bike nr 1 in december 2014 so she has been getting away with it for a long time.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=753708958037903&set=t.100002095749193&type=3&theater

Niels posted on FB in the middle of his publicised post of indignation that she deleted her FB pretty much straight away because of the storm, as you say it's surprising that it's gone back up.

It would be interesting to see if the same button-pressing action is used when racing bike 3 (or did she have to change bike due to eg a mechanical in those races?). Did she necessarily race all races with the motor? Certainly discovering that bike 1 has been used over a year changes the narrative; it had previously been my understanding that the suspicion had been piqued earlier this season due to people noticing (especially following Koppenbergcross) that this relatively unknown girl is very fast in certain conditions and then people noticed the suspect downtube and her not changing bikes, so that the same bike had been used without the same attention being drawn to it last season (although you had pointed out a surprising result she'd managed in a national race previously I think?). Has there been some improvement in the system used that increased the benefit? Had the bike previously not been motorized, but modified to enable it to be? Or is this still a case of potentially moving a single motor from bike to bike depending on conditions/suspicions, or two motors split between three bikes as we'd previously been of the understanding bike 1 and bike 2 had been motorized but not seen any evidence bike 3 had been? This now also opens up the possibility of three motors, though I think that your previous idea that she liked to keep a "clean" bike in the pits still has the strongest case behind it.

 

[Hawkwood]

Re: Re:

Any thoughts of wheel systems on the track?

1. Races here are often won by 1/100ths of a second so even a small system that gave say a 20 watt advantage would help a lot.
2. Additional weight is not so much of an issue and teams often add ballast into the bikes to make them up to 6.8 Kgs as the bikes don't have brakes gears etc.

My thoughts are that wheels are actually very easy to check for motors simply by weight. It wouldn't take long to create a spreadsheet with wheel, sprocket (cassette for road) and tyre weights of the main suppliers with a bit extra for the glue, click on wheel w, sprocket x and tyre y to arrive at weight z. In the case of handbuilt wheels you'd have rim, spoke, nipple and tyre weights to factor in. Any wheel plus or minus for example 50 or 100 grams could then be flagged as suspicious. The types of systems people have been postulating would add considerably to the wheel weights, plus wheels aren't areas that are ballasted to add weight as frames have been. Taking the example of Cancellara, we can even estimate fairly accurately what weights the wheels he used in the Ronde and PR were, just from the photos, or the Cycling News write ups on the bikes.

The whole, "BC team have rounder wheels hidden under covers" thing from 2012 Olympic track events all of a sudden -- for me -- has a whole new meaning.

There was definitely something different about their wheels. They weren't mavic wheels according to someone who worked on the support team.

Mavic appears to think it made the wheels.

 

[Farcanal]

Re: Re:

Any thoughts of wheel systems on the track?

1. Races here are often won by 1/100ths of a second so even a small system that gave say a 20 watt advantage would help a lot.
2. Additional weight is not so much of an issue and teams often add ballast into the bikes to make them up to 6.8 Kgs as the bikes don't have brakes gears etc.

My thoughts are that wheels are actually very easy to check for motors simply by weight. It wouldn't take long to create a spreadsheet with wheel, sprocket (cassette for road) and tyre weights of the main suppliers with a bit extra for the glue, click on wheel w, sprocket x and tyre y to arrive at weight z. In the case of handbuilt wheels you'd have rim, spoke, nipple and tyre weights to factor in. Any wheel plus or minus for example 50 or 100 grams could then be flagged as suspicious. The types of systems people have been postulating would add considerably to the wheel weights, plus wheels aren't areas that are ballasted to add weight as frames have been. Taking the example of Cancellara, we can even estimate fairly accurately what weights the wheels he used in the Ronde and PR were, just from the photos, or the Cycling News write ups on the bikes.

Some interesting ideas on how things might be done, but that's not how they are done. The bike is weighed as a whole entity. The mechanic will take bikes to the commissaire for checking, well before a race and then again just before the start, removing and weighing wheels a few mins before a start ain't gonna happen.

Anyway, re track racing, rims have been made heavier on the track for some endurance events, citing a flywheel effect.

Someone once told me there's a track team who build and design there own kit. Anyone on here know the wheel weights?

Yeah, I heard that some people think a heavier rim will help because it makes a flywheel. Only a complete moron would try that. He'd be easy to spot. He's the one out the back every time there's a slight change of pace.

A flywheel stores energy I hear you say? Sure it does, it stores kinetic energy due to it's increased inertia. How does the energy get in there? The rider has to put it there in the first place, which is more effort at starting. Sure, if he eases his effort slightly occasionally the (fly)wheel will help to even out the speed but what happens when someone puts the hammer down? Matey has to try harder than everyone else to put yet more energy into his flywheel because it has higher inertia.

Inertia not only encourages moving things to keep going but it also discourages things increasing in speed. Track events, even endurance, change pace much more frequently and proportionally than road events, so this guy is really going to struggle if he is up against evenly matched competitors.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re: Re:

I might be digressing a bit too much, and it is probably covered somewhere, but.. This entire notion of button pressing seems very misguided to me. Not that it doesn't exist, but it is so completely amateur. The kind of system mentioned here would be quite easy to implement.

Ah, but in that post I am not talking about the theoretical side but referring to the specific case. Femke can be seen at the end of Koppenbergcross making an action which looks suspiciously like she presses a button on the right hand side of her handlebars. She did that race on the bike we've dubbed "bike 2" which is very similar to the previously presumed unmodified "bike 3".

 

[Benotti69]

Re: Re:

Any thoughts of wheel systems on the track?

1. Races here are often won by 1/100ths of a second so even a small system that gave say a 20 watt advantage would help a lot.
2. Additional weight is not so much of an issue and teams often add ballast into the bikes to make them up to 6.8 Kgs as the bikes don't have brakes gears etc.

My thoughts are that wheels are actually very easy to check for motors simply by weight. It wouldn't take long to create a spreadsheet with wheel, sprocket (cassette for road) and tyre weights of the main suppliers with a bit extra for the glue, click on wheel w, sprocket x and tyre y to arrive at weight z. In the case of handbuilt wheels you'd have rim, spoke, nipple and tyre weights to factor in. Any wheel plus or minus for example 50 or 100 grams could then be flagged as suspicious. The types of systems people have been postulating would add considerably to the wheel weights, plus wheels aren't areas that are ballasted to add weight as frames have been. Taking the example of Cancellara, we can even estimate fairly accurately what weights the wheels he used in the Ronde and PR were, just from the photos, or the Cycling News write ups on the bikes.

The whole, "BC team have rounder wheels hidden under covers" thing from 2012 Olympic track events all of a sudden -- for me -- has a whole new meaning.

There was definitely something different about their wheels. They weren't mavic wheels according to someone who worked on the support team.

Mavic appears to think it made the wheels.

It supplied the stickers......

 

[Robert21]

Re: Re:

A flywheel stores energy I hear you say? Sure it does, it stores kinetic energy due to it's increased inertia. How does the energy get in there? The rider has to put it there in the first place, which is more effort at starting. Sure, if he eases his effort slightly occasionally the (fly)wheel will help to even out the speed but what happens when someone puts the hammer down?

For a sustained speed effort on the track, especially an extended one such as the hour, a 'flywheel' might (might...) be of benefit. As anyone who has ridden a steep banked track will attest, the torque needed to maintain speed varies significantly between the straights and the curves, so most people's speed on the track varies every few seconds. As Michael Hutchinson put it in his book 'The Hour',

The rhythms of the hour are as insistent as they are complex. My breathing is fast, but regular. Pedalling cadence is faster, about 104rpm. But not regular; it edges up a little through each curve as I lean in towards the track centre, closer to horizontal than vertical, and the wheels slingshot round the track outside me. Like a rider on the wall of death, my wheels will travel further than I will. For the 6 seconds of the curve the cadence increases as the bike accelerates and the gear feels easier. Then as I straighten up, the bike slows, the gear gets heavier again and the cadence eases down.

As with most things cycling, how effective this would be in practice is a matter of controversy, and any gains might be very marginal, but when Ondrej Sosenka broke the hour record he used a rear wheel weighing 3.2kg for exactly this reason. Francesco Moser did the same when he used his over-sized rear wheel.

 

[gillan1969]

Re: Re:

Any thoughts of wheel systems on the track?

1. Races here are often won by 1/100ths of a second so even a small system that gave say a 20 watt advantage would help a lot.
2. Additional weight is not so much of an issue and teams often add ballast into the bikes to make them up to 6.8 Kgs as the bikes don't have brakes gears etc.

My thoughts are that wheels are actually very easy to check for motors simply by weight. It wouldn't take long to create a spreadsheet with wheel, sprocket (cassette for road) and tyre weights of the main suppliers with a bit extra for the glue, click on wheel w, sprocket x and tyre y to arrive at weight z. In the case of handbuilt wheels you'd have rim, spoke, nipple and tyre weights to factor in. Any wheel plus or minus for example 50 or 100 grams could then be flagged as suspicious. The types of systems people have been postulating would add considerably to the wheel weights, plus wheels aren't areas that are ballasted to add weight as frames have been. Taking the example of Cancellara, we can even estimate fairly accurately what weights the wheels he used in the Ronde and PR were, just from the photos, or the Cycling News write ups on the bikes.

The whole, "BC team have rounder wheels hidden under covers" thing from 2012 Olympic track events all of a sudden -- for me -- has a whole new meaning.

There was definitely something different about their wheels. They weren't mavic wheels according to someone who worked on the support team.

Mavic appears to think it made the wheels.

well, they have after all bought the right to let you think that they think that........

 

[Farcanal]

Re: Re:

Any thoughts of wheel systems on the track?

1. Races here are often won by 1/100ths of a second so even a small system that gave say a 20 watt advantage would help a lot.
2. Additional weight is not so much of an issue and teams often add ballast into the bikes to make them up to 6.8 Kgs as the bikes don't have brakes gears etc.

My thoughts are that wheels are actually very easy to check for motors simply by weight. It wouldn't take long to create a spreadsheet with wheel, sprocket (cassette for road) and tyre weights of the main suppliers with a bit extra for the glue, click on wheel w, sprocket x and tyre y to arrive at weight z. In the case of handbuilt wheels you'd have rim, spoke, nipple and tyre weights to factor in. Any wheel plus or minus for example 50 or 100 grams could then be flagged as suspicious. The types of systems people have been postulating would add considerably to the wheel weights, plus wheels aren't areas that are ballasted to add weight as frames have been. Taking the example of Cancellara, we can even estimate fairly accurately what weights the wheels he used in the Ronde and PR were, just from the photos, or the Cycling News write ups on the bikes.

The whole, "BC team have rounder wheels hidden under covers" thing from 2012 Olympic track events all of a sudden -- for me -- has a whole new meaning.

There was definitely something different about their wheels. They weren't mavic wheels according to someone who worked on the support team.

"according to someone..."? Do we have a reference or citation? That's a very definitive factual statement.

 

[blackcat]

Re: Re:

There was definitely something different about their wheels. They weren't mavic wheels according to someone who worked on the support team.

Mavic appears to think it made the wheels.

Mavic might be happy giving them wheel bags and the free advertising.

Just cos the bags say Mavic, or, the stickers say Mavic, does not necessarily mean the wheels are out of Mavic

 

[Robert21]

the French were suspicious about Great Britain's wheels: "They hide their wheels a lot. The ones for the bikes they race on are put in wheel covers at the finish [of a race]. Do they really have Mavic wheels?"

...Asked about the French claim that the British had a "magic" item of kit that made them go faster, and the speculation that might be wheels – "We know that they work with McLaren", said Gautheron – the head of marginal gains at British Cycling, Matt Parker, would say only: "We make sure the riders have the very best equipment available to them." Parker is a leading member of the "Secret Squirrels" led by Chris Boardman, who have the job of perfecting the technology used by the British team.

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2012/aug/05/london-2012-wheels-gb-cycling

 

[Farcanal]

Re: Mechanical doping: first rider caught

Do none of you really understand that everything said by the BC team was taking the p*ss out of the French's sour grapes and their obscenely ridiculous accusations? The only unusual mechanical feature of the 'wheelgate' fiasco was clockwork - <edited by mods>

 

[wrinklyvet]

Re: Mechanical doping: first rider caught

Do none of you really understand that everything said by the BC team was taking the p*ss out of the French's sour grapes and their obscenely ridiculous accusations? The only unusual mechanical feature of the 'wheelgate' fiasco was clockwork - <edited by mods>

I think they do understand, but it doesn't fit the narrative. I have been looking at some of these posts about reinventing the wheel. Nobody can deny that the motor in the frame has been used in a race and found so there may be other occasions when it was not found.

But I ask myself whether anyone connected with a major professional team (any team at all) would want to fit motorised wheels (even if they work) and I don't buy it. There are issues of practicality, weight, lack of performance when the power fails or is not being applied and above all massive risk to the whole enterprise. If it happened now it would be crying out to be discovered. What sponsor would be associated with such a team? What national team would bear the risk of discovery?

 

[Benotti69]

Re: Mechanical doping: first rider caught

Do none of you really understand that everything said by the BC team was taking the p*ss out of the French's sour grapes and their obscenely ridiculous accusations? The only unusual mechanical feature of the 'wheelgate' fiasco was clockwork - winding up the .......

I think they do understand, but it doesn't fit the narrative. I have been looking at some of these posts about reinventing the wheel. Nobody can deny that the motor in the frame has been used in a race and found so there may be other occasions when it was not found.

But I ask myself whether anyone connected with a major professional team (any team at all) would want to fit motorised wheels (even if they work) and I don't buy it. There are issues of practicality, weight, lack of performance when the power fails or is not being applied and above all massive risk to the whole enterprise. If it happened now it would be crying out to be discovered. What sponsor would be associated with such a team? What national team would bear the risk of discovery?

What narrative would that be? The lies that Brailsford continually puts out?

 

[wrinklyvet]

Re: Mechanical doping: first rider caught

Do none of you really understand that everything said by the BC team was taking the p*ss out of the French's sour grapes and their obscenely ridiculous accusations? The only unusual mechanical feature of the 'wheelgate' fiasco was clockwork - winding up the .......

I think they do understand, but it doesn't fit the narrative. I have been looking at some of these posts about reinventing the wheel. Nobody can deny that the motor in the frame has been used in a race and found so there may be other occasions when it was not found.

But I ask myself whether anyone connected with a major professional team (any team at all) would want to fit motorised wheels (even if they work) and I don't buy it. There are issues of practicality, weight, lack of performance when the power fails or is not being applied and above all massive risk to the whole enterprise. If it happened now it would be crying out to be discovered. What sponsor would be associated with such a team? What national team would bear the risk of discovery?

What narrative would that be? The lies that Brailsford continually puts out?

No, the narrative that professional cyclists, professional teams and national teams (Sky and BC included but not just them) will go to any lengths to cheat, whatever the illegality and whatever the risk. It surely happens, but not to that extent.

And to my other dear friend, may I say that mockery does not become anyone.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Re: Mechanical doping: first rider caught

Do none of you really understand that everything said by the BC team was taking the p*ss out of the French's sour grapes and their obscenely ridiculous accusations? The only unusual mechanical feature of the 'wheelgate' fiasco was clockwork - winding up the frogs

I think they do understand, but it doesn't fit the narrative. I have been looking at some of these posts about reinventing the wheel. Nobody can deny that the motor in the frame has been used in a race and found so there may be other occasions when it was not found.

But I ask myself whether anyone connected with a major professional team (any team at all) would want to fit motorised wheels (even if they work) and I don't buy it. There are issues of practicality, weight, lack of performance when the power fails or is not being applied and above all massive risk to the whole enterprise. If it happened now it would be crying out to be discovered. What sponsor would be associated with such a team? What national team would bear the risk of discovery?

Ah ok. So your logic is:

1. a frame was found with a motor in it therefor it may have happened before.

But because
2. no wheel with motor has been found, it's not believable.

You mention pro team, after confessing having read the preceding posts, yet the discussion has been about the BC track team at the Olympics, not a pro team.

Best of all, for track races, which are very short. Not much battery life required. Absolutely no mention was made of wheels being inspected at the time. For the Brit team. At a Brit Olympics.

And then talk about risk to the enterprise.

Uh huh.

 

[wrinklyvet]

Re: Mechanical doping: first rider caught

Do none of you really understand that everything said by the BC team was taking the p*ss out of the French's sour grapes and their obscenely ridiculous accusations? The only unusual mechanical feature of the 'wheelgate' fiasco was clockwork - winding up the frogs

I think they do understand, but it doesn't fit the narrative. I have been looking at some of these posts about reinventing the wheel. Nobody can deny that the motor in the frame has been used in a race and found so there may be other occasions when it was not found.

But I ask myself whether anyone connected with a major professional team (any team at all) would want to fit motorised wheels (even if they work) and I don't buy it. There are issues of practicality, weight, lack of performance when the power fails or is not being applied and above all massive risk to the whole enterprise. If it happened now it would be crying out to be discovered. What sponsor would be associated with such a team? What national team would bear the risk of discovery?

Ah ok. So your logic is:

1. a frame was found with a motor in it therefor it may have happened before.

But because
2. no wheel with motor has been found, it's not believable.

You mention pro team, after confessing having read the preceding posts, yet the discussion has been about the BC track team at the Olympics, not a pro team.

Best of all, for track races, which are very short. Not much battery life required. Absolutely no mention was made of wheels being inspected at the time. For the Brit team. At a Brit Olympics.

And then talk about risk to the enterprise.

Uh huh.

So you think all the post were about the British track team? For some, that may have been the focus. But you have a short memory of the posts on this thread if you think that's all there is to see here.

Strangely enough, I do think the motorised wheel concept is less practicable but as you indicate, time will tell.

My main point is about risk and reward or more significantly risk and consequences. I think it starts to become less likely a way of winning when you weigh the thing up, to venture a pun.

 

[Hawkwood]

Re: Mechanical doping: first rider caught

Do none of you really understand that everything said by the BC team was taking the p*ss out of the French's sour grapes and their obscenely ridiculous accusations? The only unusual mechanical feature of the 'wheelgate' fiasco was clockwork - winding up the frogs

I think they do understand, but it doesn't fit the narrative. I have been looking at some of these posts about reinventing the wheel. Nobody can deny that the motor in the frame has been used in a race and found so there may be other occasions when it was not found.

But I ask myself whether anyone connected with a major professional team (any team at all) would want to fit motorised wheels (even if they work) and I don't buy it. There are issues of practicality, weight, lack of performance when the power fails or is not being applied and above all massive risk to the whole enterprise. If it happened now it would be crying out to be discovered. What sponsor would be associated with such a team? What national team would bear the risk of discovery?

Ah ok. So your logic is:

1. a frame was found with a motor in it therefor it may have happened before.

But because
2. no wheel with motor has been found, it's not believable.

You mention pro team, after confessing having read the preceding posts, yet the discussion has been about the BC track team at the Olympics, not a pro team.

Best of all, for track races, which are very short. Not much battery life required. Absolutely no mention was made of wheels being inspected at the time. For the Brit team. At a Brit Olympics.

And then talk about risk to the enterprise.

Uh huh.

The discussion wasn't originally about the British track team, it was about the discovery of a motor in the cyclo cross race, it then went into a longer discussion about how other such motors might be designed.

 

[Hawkwood]

Re:

their wheels aint rounder. they reinvented the wheels. the wheels needed to be designed much better, and have some muscular christianity and gordonstoun pluck inserted in them.

Actually I think the `rounder wheels' was partly a joke and gamesmanship, but also probably true, that is the British track team worked with Mavic to select the best wheels from the batches. This wouldn't unusual, back in the mid-80s Hinault's chief mechanic checked all new equipment from Campagnolo and the other suppliers for straightness, bearing smoothness etc and rejected the items that didn't meet his standards. The British have some history of this, I was once told that the British cannonballs used at Trafalgar were tested for roundness by passing them through a round hoop three or four ways, whilst the French and Spanish only tested theirs one way.

 

[Snapper19]

Re: Mechanical doping: first rider caught

[quote="
I think they do understand, but it doesn't fit the narrative. I have been looking at some of these posts about reinventing the wheel. Nobody can deny that the motor in the frame has been used in a race and found so there may be other occasions when it was not found.

But I ask myself whether anyone connected with a major professional team (any team at all) would want to fit motorised wheels (even if they work) and I don't buy it. There are issues of practicality, weight, lack of performance when the power fails or is not being applied and above all massive risk to the whole enterprise. If it happened now it would be crying out to be discovered. What sponsor would be associated with such a team? What national team would bear the risk of discovery?

Why doesn't it fit the narrative? Look, if a motor has been found in the bike of a lower ranked cyclocross racer then you can bet your life that those motors must be fairly widespread, if somebody of a relatively low calibre can afford one then I would say there is nothing particularly new or innovative about the technology. We can also consider that the MO of the controlling bodies is to do everything they can to avert the sanctioning of the higher ranked riders because that is bad for business, and notably bad for sponsorship. We can suspect that most of the well-known riders are protected in this way, financial clout at that level is what we are seeing in action. We know this to be true, from recent revelations in athletics. Why would cycling be any different. I would wager that there are far more bikes then we realise with this technology and at least some of them have been found. If this were not a very real phenomenon then I wonder why the Dutch rider was discovered in the manner described.

You have a problem accepting that this technology is being used, but do you accept that heavy use of doping is commonplace? We know that massive quantities of drugs are often in force, sometimes compounds which aren't even licensed for human applications. What does that tell you? It tells me that riders/teams will do anything, literally anything, to gain an advantage. And they have the mechanisms to do that - often with impunity, depending on who you are. Meanwhile the governing bodies need to pay lipservice to each development as it arises, and that means finding somebody to pop - preferably someone who cannot launch a robust defence.

 

[poupou]

I am sure that no nation would bought the Olympic games, the football WC,....
We would be stupid to think they would dare to do it!

 

[GJB123]

Re: Mechanical doping: first rider caught

[quote="
I think they do understand, but it doesn't fit the narrative. I have been looking at some of these posts about reinventing the wheel. Nobody can deny that the motor in the frame has been used in a race and found so there may be other occasions when it was not found.

But I ask myself whether anyone connected with a major professional team (any team at all) would want to fit motorised wheels (even if they work) and I don't buy it. There are issues of practicality, weight, lack of performance when the power fails or is not being applied and above all massive risk to the whole enterprise. If it happened now it would be crying out to be discovered. What sponsor would be associated with such a team? What national team would bear the risk of discovery?

Why doesn't it fit the narrative? Look, if a motor has been found in the bike of a lower ranked cyclocross racer then you can bet your life that those motors must be fairly widespread, if somebody of a relatively low calibre can afford one then I would say there is nothing particularly new or innovative about the technology. We can also consider that the MO of the controlling bodies is to do everything they can to avert the sanctioning of the higher ranked riders because that is bad for business, and notably bad for sponsorship. We can suspect that most of the well-known riders are protected in this way, financial clout at that level is what we are seeing in action. We know this to be true, from recent revelations in athletics. Why would cycling be any different. I would wager that there are far more bikes then we realise with this technology and at least some of them have been found. If this were not a very real phenomenon then I wonder why the Dutch rider was discovered in the manner described.

You have a problem accepting that this technology is being used, but do you accept that heavy use of doping is commonplace? We know that massive quantities of drugs are often in force, sometimes compounds which aren't even licensed for human applications. What does that tell you? It tells me that riders/teams will do anything, literally anything, to gain an advantage. And they have the mechanisms to do that - often with impunity, depending on who you are. Meanwhile the governing bodies need to pay lipservice to each development as it arises, and that means finding somebody to pop - preferably someone who cannot launch a robust defence.

I think I agree with you that crank motors have probably been used before Femke. To what extent remains mere speculation.

That however isn't the narrative. The narrative is that some cyclist with large amounts of cash at their team's disposal (Sky, British Cycling) even went further and developed and used rim motors (and/or hub motors) because they would equally effective and even more difficult to detect as nobody would be long out for those types of cheating. As you quite rightly state that would hardly be necessary as it is more likely that even the crank motors would have gone undetected or blind eye would be turned for the right people or the right amounts of money.

So stating that rim motors are highly impractical from a physics point of view and highly unlikely because of the vost involved doesn't fit the narrative of some people here. Never mind that you wouldn't even have to go all out on something as elaborate as inventing and producing an undetectable rim motor because crank motors will go unnoticed anyway (either by choice or lack of testing). It's Occam's razor all over again really.

 

[Teddy Boom]

Re: Re:

Ah, but in that post I am not talking about the theoretical side but referring to the specific case. Femke can be seen at the end of Koppenbergcross making an action which looks suspiciously like she presses a button on the right hand side of her handlebars. She did that race on the bike we've dubbed "bike 2" which is very similar to the previously presumed unmodified "bike 3".

And thanks for that detailed analysis, it is great, if a bit over my head I guess in specific terms, I'm asking just how suspicious those motions really seem? I've looked at the videos, but.. I think I'm not qualified to judge.

Meanwhile, on the side of things I am qualified to judge, I know that overtly having a hard wired physical switch seems pretty stupid. Like, you could have a system that auto-senses cadence, or auto-cadence only after the first hour of racing. You could tap into SRM data and only boost performance at threshold power, or a million other power output based algorithms. You could even have a wireless switch, a toe switch in a modified shoe comes to mind. None of that is hard to make. It might all suck though, in practice. It might turn out that having a turbo boost button on the handlebars is the best alternative..

EDIT:
I can't help thinking of the scene in The Right Stuff:
https://youtu.be/C-qEmmpGYvA?t=28
Maybe the riders just can't imagine not being in control

 

[Cloxxki]

Clap skates were first introduced in lower ranks and female top level. This of course was highly visible and legal.
Pro men were extremely sceptical.
Women were winning big tournament before one man at big tournament level felt OK to give them a go in racing. As I recall at least.
Some couldn't get used to them initially and retired (Gerard van Velde) only to come back better than ever.

 

[blackcat]

Re:

I am sure that no nation would bought the Olympic games, the football WC,....
We would be stupid to think they would dare to do it!

my reply to this is, Gordonstoun, Chariots of Fire, Oxbridge, muscular christianity.

Brits know how to win the right way!

 

[blackcat]

Re:

Clap skates were first introduced in lower ranks and female top level. This of course was highly visible and legal.
Pro men were extremely sceptical.
Women were winning big tournament before one man at big tournament level felt OK to give them a go in racing. As I recall at least.
Some couldn't get used to them initially and retired (Gerard van Velde) only to come back better than ever.

sounds like Dara Torres. She came back at 40, and whipped everyone's butt.