Motor doping thread

[jahn]

Re: Re:

@sniper
For me the camera angle makes it too difficult to see whats happening. It looks like his index finger moves outward which could be a result of his right thumb pressing a button.
The week before when he is crossing the line in de Waalse pijl you can see four fingers extend and move away from the brake lever.
At 1:46:10
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUQpX-F8i80
This looks similar to what I have seen from Femke and Fabian and I think it is most probably button pressing.
I also looks like Froome is doing the same here at 2:28
http://www.nieuwsblad.be/cnt/dmf20130714_041

two brilliant spots.
It's like they're switching off their engines. literally.
Can anybody give a non-motor explanation for that clicking right on the finish line?

I couldn't make anything strange out in the Ventoux finish clip but the Waalse pijl 2016 one looks like standard behavior of pausing the computer the second you cross the line. Hard to tell exactly at that resolution.

Here's the infamous Ventoux button press however, which could just be a satellite shifter:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usNpx2BOabE&t=28m17s

 

[.Froomestrong.]

If any of these guys are actually running a motor, the button/activation mechanism is not something that is going to draw attention. Ive already posted pics here of a button already integrated in the Di2 hoods.
Why would a well funded team, bent on mechanical cheating, use crap material?

 

[nogav1ca]

Re: Re:

two brilliant spots.
It's like they're switching off their engines. literally.
Can anybody give a non-motor explanation for that clicking right on the finish line?

First he changed his gear to easier one. Usually one uses all four fingers since you have to move whole brake lever to change to bigger ring (front and back) and to change it to smaller, you move only the smaller gear lever (what you have seen in LBL behind Sanchez). Second click was him stopping his bike computer.

And since electric shifters, they can also use button to change gears. Climbers usually have them on tops, while sprinters have them on the curvy part of the bottoms, so they can shift easier.

 

[sniper]

cheers, thanks for clarifying.
sounds plausible.
still, the stem looking is dodgy. why only froome and poels?

 

[jmdirt]

Re:

If any of these guys are actually running a motor, the button/activation mechanism is not something that is going to draw attention. Ive already posted pics here of a button already integrated in the Di2 hoods.
Why would a well funded team, bent on mechanical cheating, use crap material?

I keep thinking this too. The button should be well hidden (top of the water bottle?) or controlled from the car to avoid being detected. If its as simple as pushing an obvious button the officials could just grab the bars and start squeezing to see if they find a button that isn't shifting a derailer, or if they got lucky, spins the rear wheel. The Di2 button would be easy to flesh out too.

 

[sniper]

Van Poppel: too much torque on the rear wheel?
http://cycling-today.com/video-danny-van-poppels-incredible-crash-save/

 

[GJB123]

Re:

Van Poppel: too much torque on the rear wheel?
http://cycling-today.com/video-danny-van-poppels-incredible-crash-save/

Is this a serious question (this isn't meant a s troll, but is a serious question)? How would too much torque on the rear wheel get the rear wheel to lift? Do you ever watch MotoGP? They pull wheelies using (too much) torque on the rear wheel and it actually makes the front wheel lift up (remember that next time you see Sagan pull a wheelie ). Lifting the rear wheel can only be done by slowing down the front wheel too much or too quickly. In other words, in order to avoid clattering into Sagan he apparently squeezed his front wheel brake too hard thus lifting his rear wheel.

Nice save though by Van Poppel to stay upright and what the h.ll were they thinking putting a 90 degree turn in the final 200 meters of a sprint finish?

 

[sniper]

definitely a nice save and i acknowledge your point about wheelies.

my (tinfoil hat) hypothesis:
he's probably pushing both his breaks (front and rear wheel) but maybe the rear wheel break is sort of 'overruled'/cancelled out by the excessive torque on the rear wheel?
I mean why would he only be pressing his front wheel break?
You hardly ever see that.

 

[Ryo Hazuki]

Re:

definitely a nice save and i acknowledge your point about wheelies.

my (tinfoil hat) hypothesis:
he's probably pushing both his breaks (front and rear wheel) but maybe the rear wheel break is sort of 'overruled'/cancelled out by the excessive torque on the rear wheel?
I mean why would he only be pressing his front wheel break?
You hardly ever see that.

because he completely misjudged that corner and acted in panic.

 

[GJB123]

Re:

definitely a nice save and i acknowledge your point about wheelies.

my (tinfoil hat) hypothesis:
he's probably pushing both his breaks (front and rear wheel) but maybe the rear wheel break is sort of 'overruled'/cancelled out by the excessive torque on the rear wheel?
I mean why would he only be pressing his front wheel break?
You hardly ever see that.

If you squeeze both brakes very hard your front wheel and back wheel will both lock up but given the speed at which you are traveling and the laws of physics (inertia in this case) will still lift up your rear wheel and when unlucky send you flying over your handle bars (rotate you over the front pivot point also know as your front wheel). Been there, done that unfortunately. It has nothing to do with motors but just with squeezing your front brake too hard in what is more or less a (panicky) reflex.

EDIT: it happend to me when a little kid ran out on to the road from in-between two parked cars. In a reflex I squeezed both brakes as hard a I could in order to avoid the little kid and yep, it lifted up my back wheel and sent me flying through the air over my handle bars. I was lucky because in this days one didn't wear helmets when riding a race bike and I escaped more or less unscathed.

In short, you are searching for something that isn't there. I am not saying he doesn't have a motor in his bike (although he would probably win more if he had) but this incident is in no way proof that he has. My advice, let it rest and make sure the tinfoil hat isn't too tight.

 

[sniper]

fair points, conceded, though again, you hardly see this happening in pro races.
but fair enough, a non-motor explanation seems plausible here.

 

[GJB123]

You hardly ever see it in pro races because other than me they actually do have bike handling skills and their reflexes are usually honed so much that the tend not to squeeze the front brake so hard that they are sent flying. It does happen though every now and then.

However, you are missing the point. Not only is a non-motor explanation plausible here (I would personally rather use the word "correct"), the motor explanation you tried to give doesn't make any sense at all if we are take into account common laws of physics. I know Froome and Sky are sometimes called extra-terrestrial but I don't think their marginal gains can negate common laws of physics on this earth.

 

[sniper]

Re:

You hardly ever see it in pro races because other than me they actually do have bike handling skills and their reflexes are usually honed so much that the tend not to squeeze the front brake so hard that they are sent flying. It does happen though every now and then.

cheers, fair enough.

However, you are missing the point. Not only is a non-motor explanation plausible here (I would personally rather use the word "correct"), the motor explanation you tried to give doesn't make any sense at all if we are take into account common laws of physics. I know Froome and Sky are sometimes called extra-terrestrial but I don't think their marginal gains can negate common laws of physics on this earth.

you might be correct, but we still know rather little about the state of the art of motorization in the propeloton.
We've see some suspicious stuff going on at Sky (Froome, Poels), and now we see Van Poppel's rear wheel lifting off rather awkwardly.
Who knows whether, and if so how, the breaks and the motorization system are connected?
Right now, the only fair assumption is that motorization is being used among the top pros.
So we might as well speculate about such atypical footage.

 

[GJB123]

Re: Re:

You hardly ever see it in pro races because other than me they actually do have bike handling skills and their reflexes are usually honed so much that the tend not to squeeze the front brake so hard that they are sent flying. It does happen though every now and then.

cheers, fair enough.

However, you are missing the point. Not only is a non-motor explanation plausible here (I would personally rather use the word "correct"), the motor explanation you tried to give doesn't make any sense at all if we are take into account common laws of physics. I know Froome and Sky are sometimes called extra-terrestrial but I don't think their marginal gains can negate common laws of physics on this earth.

you might be correct, but we still know rather little about the state of the art of motorization in the propeloton.
We've see some suspicious stuff going on at Sky (Froome, Poels), and now we see Van Poppel's rear wheel lifting off rather awkwardly.
Who knows whether, and if so how, the breaks and the motorization system are connected?
Right now, the only fair assumption is that motorization is being used among the top pros.
So we might as well speculate about such atypical footage.

To the first bolded: you are correct we know very little about the state of motorization on the pro peloton, however we do know a lot about common laws of physics.

To the second bolded: naturally you are allowed to speculate as much as you like but it would be rather helpful if you would keep common laws of physics in the back of your mind when doing so. It might help prevent clogging a thread with superfluous speculation.

 

[sniper]

maybe the motor system was overriding the rear wheel breaks.
where am i breaking laws of physics?

but sure, if you say Danny simply doesn't know how to break properly, I can live with that hypothesis, too.

 

[GJB123]

Re:

maybe the motor system was overriding the rear wheel breaks.
where am i breaking laws of physics?

but sure, if you say Danny simply doesn't know how to break properly, I can live with that hypothesis, too.

That in itself wouldn't lift the back wheel. The back wheel lifted because the front wheel locked-up, basic inertia. You were suggesting that a malfunction of a motor on the back wheel (i.e. it turning hard enough to override the rear brakes) could cause the back wheel to lift. Even you are correct that there is motor malfunctioning i such a way, this would not cause what we see here. It is just not possible, as I already explained, unless common laws of physics do not apply here.

And a a side note, we are clogging the thread now! You simply cannot seem to unequivocally accept when you are wrong here and seem to want to leave a caveat that you might be right for something you apparently do not understand or have insufficient or little knowledge off.

 

[wansteadimp]

I assumed that Van Poppel had gone in too quickly and his brake lever jammed into Sagan's arse causing the endo.

Much like this example from Motogp.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEZf5thwTJI

 

[sniper]

Re: Re:

You simply cannot seem to unequivocally accept when you are wrong here and seem to want to leave a caveat that you might be right for something you apparently do not understand or have insufficient or little knowledge off.

in fact, i do unequivocally accept that i have insufficient or little knowledge of motorization. Hence I am not discarding that this incident was caused by it. And I'm saying that without discarding the non-motor explanation that you put forward, which, as I said, is indeed plausible.
However, I don't see any evidence in the footage that his front wheel locked-up. He was going into the curve with considerable speed and seemed to break/slow down more or less gradually. At least not as abruptly as would be required for the frontwheel to block.

@wansteadimp: I don't think that example applies here.

 

[GJB123]

Re: Re:

You simply cannot seem to unequivocally accept when you are wrong here and seem to want to leave a caveat that you might be right for something you apparently do not understand or have insufficient or little knowledge off.

in fact, i do unequivocally accept that i have insufficient or little knowledge of motorization. Hence I am not discarding that this incident was caused by it. And I'm saying that without discarding the non-motor explanation that you put forward, which, as I said, is indeed plausible.
However, I don't see any evidence in the footage that his front wheel locked-up. He was going into the curve with considerable speed and seemed to break/slow down more or less gradually. At least not as abruptly as would be required for the frontwheel to block.

@wansteadimp: I don't think that example applies here.

In the footage show his front wheel is obscured from view, however what we do see combined with physics provide a perfectly sensible explanation. The fact that he didn't go flying over the handlebars is probably due to the speed he still carried and his bike handling skills in releasing the front brake again before it was too late. And you don't have to fully lock-up your front wheel to lift up the back wheel. A little already goes along way (as is stated I know from experience ).

BTW, I meant that you apparently have very little or know knowledge of common physics, but is nice of you to confirm you have no knowledge of motorization either.

 

[sniper]

Re: Re:

You simply cannot seem to unequivocally accept when you are wrong here and seem to want to leave a caveat that you might be right for something you apparently do not understand or have insufficient or little knowledge off.

in fact, i do unequivocally accept that i have insufficient or little knowledge of motorization. Hence I am not discarding that this incident was caused by it. And I'm saying that without discarding the non-motor explanation that you put forward, which, as I said, is indeed plausible.
However, I don't see any evidence in the footage that his front wheel locked-up. He was going into the curve with considerable speed and seemed to break/slow down more or less gradually. At least not as abruptly as would be required for the frontwheel to block.

@wansteadimp: I don't think that example applies here.

In the footage show his front wheel is obscured from view, however what we do see combined with physics provide a perfectly sensible explanation. The fact that he didn't go flying over the handlebars is probably due to the speed he still carried and his bike handling skills in releasing the front brake again before it was too late. And you don't have to fully lock-up your front wheel to lift up the back wheel. A little already goes along way (as is stated I know from experience ).

fair enough.

but is nice of you to confirm you have no knowledge of motorization either.

don't worry. if you think femke represents the state of the art, i'm not gonna burst your bubble.

 

[GJB123]

If there is indeed something like the magical motorized wheel rim (as you seem to be suggesting), why is it that we haven't seen any evidence of it yet.? I mean how hard can it be for a investigative journalist to obtain a working example of it albeit with the help of willing cyclist. The motor down the seat tube has been demonstrated by at least three people on public television (LeMond, The Dutch sports program and, I think, Cassani), yet only vage claims from one guy that such rims actually exist, work and won't look any different than regular rims.

 

[sniper]

Re:

If there is indeed something like the magical motorized wheel rim (as you seem to be suggesting), why is it that we haven't seen any evidence of it yet.? I mean how hard can it be for a investigative journalist to obtain a working example of it albeit with the help of willing cyclist. The motor down the seat tube has been demonstrated by at least three people on public television (LeMond, The Dutch sports program and, I think, Cassani), yet only vage claims from one guy that such rims actually exist, work and won't look any different than regular rims.

no, wasn't talking about rim systems.
just saying that we don't really know how these motor systems are controlled these days.
if you do know, please share. If not, tone down your vortex.
In the l'equipe article about motors one or two years ago there was talk about the control system being linked to the heart rate monitor.

 

[Tienus]

To me it looks like the Vivax / Varjas motor is still the main one used in the peleton. The email from the UCI to typhoon is an indication of that. It is the most powerfull of the models I have seen so far. Why would you have a better hidden one if you know the UCI won't check the bike?

 

[thehog]

Re:

To me it looks like the Vivax / Varjas motor is still the main one used in the peleton. The email from the UCI to typhoon is an indication of that. It is the most powerfull of the models I have seen so far. Why would you have a better hidden one if you know the UCI won't check the bike?

What is the control / engagement mechanism on Vivax? Just one button? Can you vary the power?

 

[thehog]

Re: Re:

To me it looks like the Vivax / Varjas motor is still the main one used in the peleton. The email from the UCI to typhoon is an indication of that. It is the most powerfull of the models I have seen so far. Why would you have a better hidden one if you know the UCI won't check the bike?

What is the control / engagement mechanism on Vivax? Just one button? Can you vary the power?

Answered my own question:

Functionality:
The basic function of the bike is not impaired: No other motor combines sports cycling with comfort and electronic support like the Vivax Assist 4.0. Press the button and the motor delivers 200 watts to the crankshaft; press the button again and the motor stops. Without motor power you can ride a Vivax-equipped bike as normal - without any kind of resistance.