Motor doping thread

[Tienus]

But static cameras would and if its sprinters you're after that wouldn't be too difficult as you don't have to cover the whole course just a couple of angles. If they are serious about it then they would be in place

You would have to analyse the video very quick and have plenty of staff after the finish line to catch the perpetrator before he disappaers with his bike.

 

[sniper]

Hell will freeze over before UCI catch and expose a motorized pro in the Tour de France.
Best chances of anything coming out, ever, is either through a whistleblower or through some half-decent investigative journalism.
Stade 2 came close.

 

[Hawkwood]

Re:

Hell will freeze over before UCI catch and expose a motorized pro in the Tour de France.
Best chances of anything coming out, ever, is either through a whistleblower or through some half-decent investigative journalism.
Stade 2 came close.

I thought the Stade 2 documentary was at times embarrassing. They appeared to think that the Hungarian could show them a rim drive, but he couldn't. He did show them a wheel with a load of holes cut in it and a handful of magnets, but there no explanation of how this could possibly work. And there was a computer simulation of a hub motor, but this showed no detail whatsoever of how it would function, and it appeared to have been created by someone with no knowledge of a cassette hub. We were shown the seat-tube motor, but then we knew about that already. I think `half-decent investigative journalism' should include an objective approach to the evidence.

 

[sniper]

yeah, perhaps you're right.
i meant they came close to exposing a pro-rider.
in fact, they did expose primoz.
but the UCI said nothing to see here, please move along, and so that's what everybody did.

 

[sniper]

The color difference in primoz rear hub was about as much as it was in the gazzetta dello sport photos of motorized bikes.
In other words, it's consistent with a motor.

 

[sniper]

Re: Re:

The color difference in primoz rear hub was about as much as it was in the gazzetta dello sport photos of motorized bikes.

I see - thank you Sniper, for these composite photos.

The scrutiny about the moto-doping is going to be intense,

I hope you're right, but I think you're wrong, at least if you're referring to the UCI.
UCI know what's going on, but evidently don't want to catch anybody. For good reasons. Their primary interest is to sell the sport. Exposing motorcheats doesn't really help does it.
If you mean journo's, yeah, I assume there's a bit more scrutiny than usual, but whether it's enough to scare off cheats, I doubt. Primoz/Lotto have just shown the world that even if you're caught on camera using a motor, nothing really happens.

so if Primoz is motorized, then I would expect him to fade away in the TT as mysteriously as he has arrived

that's a possibility. He will never be exposed, but maybe UCI tell him privately to stop this flirt with hub motors, as there's the increasing danger of some fan or journo using a thermal scanner.
Will be interesting to watch indeed.

 

[Hawkwood]

Re: Re:

The color difference in primoz rear hub was about as much as it was in the gazzetta dello sport photos of motorized bikes.

I see - thank you Sniper, for these composite photos.

The scrutiny about the moto-doping is going to be intense,

I hope you're right, but I think you're wrong, at least if you're referring to the UCI.
UCI know what's going on, but evidently don't want to catch anybody. For good reasons. Their primary interest is to sell the sport. Exposing motorcheats doesn't really help does it.
If you mean journo's, yeah, I assume there's a bit more scrutiny than usual, but whether it's enough to scare off cheats, I doubt. Primoz/Lotto have just shown the world that even if you're caught on camera using a motor, nothing really happens.

so if Primoz is motorized, then I would expect him to fade away in the TT as mysteriously as he has arrived

that's a possibility. He will never be exposed, but maybe UCI tell him privately to stop this flirt with hub motors, as there's the increasing danger of some fan or journo using a thermal scanner.
Will be interesting to watch indeed.

I would like to see how such a hub motor could work, I don't think Stade 2's computerised simulation of one was a viable design. Here's a quote from an article on motors in cycling:

`There are various ways in which motors can be integrated into a bicycle, They can be placed in either the wheel hub or at the bottom bracket. Hub motors, though, are complex and bulky items – certainly not fitting within a svelte carbon hub. Despite claims that electromagnetic wheels and hubs could be in use in the pro peloton, no working or even prototype samples have ever been found or pictured.'

The article goes on to describe and test the seat-tube motor we're already aware of.

 

[sniper]

i would like to see primoz' hubmotor, too.

and i would also like to see what PEDs made froome go from zero to hero.
point being: the fact that we don't know know what's inside Froome's lunchbox doesn't mean he isnt doping.
the fact that we don't know how the hubmotor works doesnt mean primoz isnt using one.

Have you seen Stade 2's thermal images of different riders with no color at all in the rear hub and then suddenly primoz' glowing hub passing by?
good luck explaining that. You can't. Not without a motor.

edit: and i remember well having similar discussions in the "Cancellara/motorized bike exists!" thread. According to some the technology for a neatly tucked away tube-motor isn't/wasn't available in 2010, ergo Cancellara wasn't using a motor.
let;s not make that same mistake again.

Recall also that L'Equipe made mention of bike motors operated/piloted by means of heart rate monitor equipment. Here too, we can only guess at how exaclty that works, but the source seems reliable and it's not something you'd make up.

 

[Hawkwood]

Re:

i would like to see primoz' hubmotor, too.

and i would also like to see what PEDs made froome go from zero to hero.
point being: the fact that we don't know know what's inside Froome's lunchbox doesn't mean he isnt doping.
the fact that we don't know how the hubmotor works doesnt mean primoz isnt using one.

Have you seen Stade 2's thermal images of different riders with no color at all in the rear hub and then suddenly primoz' glowing hub passing by?
good luck explaining that. You can't. Not without a motor.

edit: and i remember well having similar discussions in the "Cancellara/motorized bike exists!" thread. According to some the technology for a neatly tucked away tube-motor isn't/wasn't available in 2010, ergo Cancellara wasn't using a motor.
let;s not make that same mistake again.

Recall also that L'Equipe made mention of bike motors operated/piloted by means of heart rate monitor equipment. Here too, we can only guess at how exaclty that works, but the source seems reliable and it's not something you'd make up.

Where do I start? How about we don't even know whether any mini hub motors have even been designed, but in your post you appear to accept they have been and are being used. As for the `glowing' rear hub, I thought the same footage showed all sorts of things were glowing, and not just the hub, look at his tyres for example? Posters on other sites have said the footage proves nothing, even bearing drag might cause the relatively cool `glow'. According to Lotto the wheel in question was from a neutral service car, if so this totally debunks your theory. Many posters on other sites have The L'Equipe heart rate monitor idea may have come from the Falco electric wheel, as an online search shows similar claims being made by the company. However the Falco hub motor is enormous, and would be impossible to hide in a typical pro bike wheel.

 

[sniper]

you thought wrong.
let me know when you have watched the footage.
you find all links upthread.

and "according to lotto"?
well, according to Lance...
I mean, let's not even go there.

The falco hub motor is an interesting link, thanks for that.

 

[ScienceIsCool]

The Falco hub motor has several design characteristics. It's a large diameter multi-phase motor with huge coils so that it doesn't need any gearing to achieve decent torque. They are designed for 250 to 1500 Watts. I am certain that they are designed to hit a price point rather than a minimum envelope.

Compare that to a hub motor that you would design for cheating. You'd probably want something like 40 Watts and matched with a planetary gear to hit the correct torque. The battery and electronics could be placed externally and hidden just about anywhere in the frame. Ring contacts at the inside of the dropouts are all that would be visible.

So it's an apples and oranges kind of thing. Kind of like looking at a dump truck and saying there's no way you could make a SMART car.

John Swanson

 

[Hawkwood]

Re:

you thought wrong.
let me know when you have watched the footage.
you find all links upthread.

and "according to lotto"?
well, according to Lance...
I mean, let's not even go there.

The falco hub motor is an interesting link, thanks for that.

Where did I think wrong? And I've watched the footage. And if Lotto is correct about the wheel change then the theory goes right out of the window. Apart from the theory being dubious to begin with.

 

[Hawkwood]

Re:

The Falco hub motor has several design characteristics. It's a large diameter multi-phase motor with huge coils so that it doesn't need any gearing to achieve decent torque. They are designed for 250 to 1500 Watts. I am certain that they are designed to hit a price point rather than a minimum envelope.

Compare that to a hub motor that you would design for cheating. You'd probably want something like 40 Watts and matched with a planetary gear to hit the correct torque. The battery and electronics could be placed externally and hidden just about anywhere in the frame. Ring contacts at the inside of the dropouts are all that would be visible.

So it's an apples and oranges kind of thing. Kind of like looking at a dump truck and saying there's no way you could make a SMART car.

John Swanson

The Falco hub came up as it's possibly L'Equipe's source for the heart rate monitor idea. I guess L'Equipe's journalists simply did an internet search and found something Falco had put up.

A genuine question, what sort of space do you think you'd need for a 40 watt motor and planetary gears?

 

[ScienceIsCool]

Re: Re:

The Falco hub motor has several design characteristics. It's a large diameter multi-phase motor with huge coils so that it doesn't need any gearing to achieve decent torque. They are designed for 250 to 1500 Watts. I am certain that they are designed to hit a price point rather than a minimum envelope.

Compare that to a hub motor that you would design for cheating. You'd probably want something like 40 Watts and matched with a planetary gear to hit the correct torque. The battery and electronics could be placed externally and hidden just about anywhere in the frame. Ring contacts at the inside of the dropouts are all that would be visible.

So it's an apples and oranges kind of thing. Kind of like looking at a dump truck and saying there's no way you could make a SMART car.

John Swanson

The Falco hub came up as it's possibly L'Equipe's source for the heart rate monitor idea. I guess L'Equipe's journalists simply did an internet search and found something Falco had put up.

A genuine question, what sort of space do you think you'd need for a 40 watt motor and planetary gears?

I think it really depends how you want to construct it and what limitations you have. Though for a given volume of 30mm diameter x 70mm you can buy a geared 40 Watt motor for $10 from a billion different places in China. So that's one benchmark, and probably doesn't define the limits of what's possible.

I've held off describing one of the design ideas I had, but there is potentially a fairly large volume inside the free hub. Take a look at the inside of a fulcrum hub. http://www.bikemag.com/gear/north-american-hand-made-bike-show-highlights/#pptXAk3orHgAmLDj.97

Now make the axle out of tungsten and shrink it to 5mm diameter (tungsten is very, very stiff but heavy). Get a bit crazy with the bearings and ditch the cartridge or customize one; move the placement or remove the one from the free hub. I think a clever engineer could work with that.

John Swanson

 

[Hawkwood]

Re: Re:

The Falco hub motor has several design characteristics. It's a large diameter multi-phase motor with huge coils so that it doesn't need any gearing to achieve decent torque. They are designed for 250 to 1500 Watts. I am certain that they are designed to hit a price point rather than a minimum envelope.

Compare that to a hub motor that you would design for cheating. You'd probably want something like 40 Watts and matched with a planetary gear to hit the correct torque. The battery and electronics could be placed externally and hidden just about anywhere in the frame. Ring contacts at the inside of the dropouts are all that would be visible.

So it's an apples and oranges kind of thing. Kind of like looking at a dump truck and saying there's no way you could make a SMART car.

John Swanson

The Falco hub came up as it's possibly L'Equipe's source for the heart rate monitor idea. I guess L'Equipe's journalists simply did an internet search and found something Falco had put up.

A genuine question, what sort of space do you think you'd need for a 40 watt motor and planetary gears?

I think it really depends how you want to construct it and what limitations you have. Though for a given volume of 30mm diameter x 70mm you can buy a geared 40 Watt motor for $10 from a billion different places in China. So that's one benchmark, and probably doesn't define the limits of what's possible.

I've held off describing one of the design ideas I had, but there is potentially a fairly large volume inside the free hub. Take a look at the inside of a fulcrum hub. http://www.bikemag.com/gear/north-american-hand-made-bike-show-highlights/#pptXAk3orHgAmLDj.97

Now make the axle out of tungsten and shrink it to 5mm diameter (tungsten is very, very stiff but heavy). Get a bit crazy with the bearings and ditch the cartridge or customize one; move the placement or remove the one from the free hub. I think a clever engineer could work with that.

John Swanson

I've wondered about a hollowed out cassette, and/or stub axles at each end to create more inside space, but you're still a bit stuffed by the quick-release skewer, unless you ditch it completely and have allen bolts securing the axle to the drop-outs. I still think you're pushed for space within a normal cassette hub though.

 

[jmdirt]

Re:

The color difference in primoz rear hub was about as much as it was in the gazzetta dello sport photos of motorized bikes.
In other words, it's consistent with a motor.

In the slightly wider view of this freeze-frame, and in the doc, the guy's chamois is the same color as the seat tube so he either has a rectal motor or the heat isn't very significant.

I still question why they claim to have a smoking gun, yet show a different gun as their main photo?

 

[thehog]

Re: Re:

The color difference in primoz rear hub was about as much as it was in the gazzetta dello sport photos of motorized bikes.
In other words, it's consistent with a motor.

In the slightly wider view of this freeze-frame, and in the doc, the guy's chamois is the same color as the seat tube so he either has a rectal motor or the heat isn't very significant.

I still question why they claim to have a smoking gun, yet show a different gun as their main photo?

Which is entirely consistent on how thermography works, it detects heat, in humans and inanimate objects. All the heat is contained in your buttocks because it is stuck to the seat as the legs are moving.

Infrared thermography (IRT), thermal imaging, and thermal video are examples of infrared imaging science. Thermographic cameras usually detect radiation in the long-infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum (roughly 9,000–14,000 nanometers or 9–14 µm) and produce images of that radiation, called thermograms. Since infrared radiation is emitted by all objects with a temperature above absolute zero according to the black body radiation law, thermography makes it possible to see one's environment with or without visible illumination. The amount of radiation emitted by an object increases with temperature; therefore, thermography allows one to see variations in temperature. When viewed through a thermal imaging camera, warm objects stand out well against cooler backgrounds; humans and other warm-blooded animals become easily visible against the environment, day or night. As a result, thermography is particularly useful to the military and other users of surveillance cameras.

Some physiological changes in human beings and other warm-blooded animals can also be monitored with thermal imaging during clinical diagnostics. Thermography is used in allergy detection and veterinary medicine. It is also used for breast screening, though primarily by alternative practitioners as it is considerably less accurate and specific than competing techniques. Government and airport personnel used thermography to detect suspected swine flu cases during the 2009 pandemic.[1]

 

[blackcat]

Re: Re:

The color difference in primoz rear hub was about as much as it was in the gazzetta dello sport photos of motorized bikes.
In other words, it's consistent with a motor.

In the slightly wider view of this freeze-frame, and in the doc, the guy's chamois is the same color as the seat tube so he either has a rectal motor or the heat isn't very significant.

I still question why they claim to have a smoking gun, yet show a different gun as their main photo?

well were not the Sky GC riders shifting to a liquid nutrition rectal transmission diet?

Rick Santorium, the GOP primary candidate in 08? santorum, not sanatorium
#Santorum #RickSantorum http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=santorum&defid=942955

 

[blackcat]

^Race Radio was the source for that.

 

[Hawkwood]

Re: Re:

The color difference in primoz rear hub was about as much as it was in the gazzetta dello sport photos of motorized bikes.
In other words, it's consistent with a motor.

In the slightly wider view of this freeze-frame, and in the doc, the guy's chamois is the same color as the seat tube so he either has a rectal motor or the heat isn't very significant.

I still question why they claim to have a smoking gun, yet show a different gun as their main photo?

As you probably know the main photo is of a guinea-pig using a down-tube motor, so they knew for a fact that there was a motor present. The Primoz case is interesting, according to Lotto he was using a wheel from a neutral service car, so Stade 2 should really have investigated this claim. However on another forum it's been posted that Stade 2 didn't approach Lotto with their allegations before the story went out. In the UK it would be pretty much standard for the media to approach a subject with an allegation to give him/her/it an opportunity to defend themselves. Why Stade 2 apparently didn't do this heaven only knows. Also surely Stade should have had a photographer at the finish to snap Primoz's bike to see whether anything looked suspicious? Or even on the route so we could see what wheel it was and whether there was anything untoward apparent. Again on another forum it's been said that the hub is possibly 5 degrees warmer than the tires, but here could be a number of reasons for this, including the cassette of a neutral service car wheel not being accurately lined up with the derailleur. But posters are saying that as there's been no research into the heat of various elements on a bike it's difficult to say. I think for a hub motor to work you'd be looking at building one from the ground up, and I'm not convinced that you could make one that looks like a conventional one from Shimano, Campagnolo. Fulcrum.... at this time.

 

[sniper]

In the UK it would be pretty much standard for the media to approach a subject with an allegation to give him/her/it an opportunity to defend themselves.

thanks for aptly summing up UK media.

Why Stade 2 apparently didn't do this heaven only knows

"did you cheat?"
"no, I didn't, really".
"ok, glad we got that sorted. Now then, on to our next item..."

 

[GJB123]

Re:

In the UK it would be pretty much standard for the media to approach a subject with an allegation to give him/her/it an opportunity to defend themselves.

thanks for aptly summing up UK media.

Why Stade 2 apparently didn't do this heaven only knows

"did you cheat?"
"no, I didn't, really".
"ok, glad we got that sorted. Now then, on to our next item..."

Even outside the UK it is quite common to have a party you accuse react to the accusation before you go to print. It is common journalistic etiquette , as I already pointed put in the Roglic thread. There is no need to defend Stade 2 in this respect. It is sloppy journalism. If they had asked Lotto-Jumbo they could then have check their video or images to determine whether or not they were lying about the wheel change from the neutral car. If it turned out to be alive by Lotto-Jumbo, how damning would that have been?

Your joking on how that conversation would have gone aside, they could and should have asked the pertinent questions of Lotto-Jumbo.

 

[sniper]

You're right, no need to single out the UK press here.
The big elephant in the room is of course that the vast majority of the press *only* take stuff from the horse's mouth.

Now Stade 2 actually did some investigation, and you call that sloppy journalism.
Way to go.

 

[Hawkwood]

Re:

You're right, no need to single out the UK press here.
The big elephant in the room is of course that the vast majority of the press *only* take stuff from the horse's mouth.

Now Stade 2 actually did some investigation, and you call that sloppy journalism.
Way to go.

No it was not `sloppy journalism' it was exceptionally sloppy journalism. Unbelievable that the accusation wasn't put to Lotto, if only to get a `no comment' which Stade could then have used to make their story stronger. In the UK one of the reasons the media put the allegation to the other party is to at least have some defence if that party goes after them in a libel action. As for the investigation, Stade 2 showed us the seat-tube motor we already knew about, a computer simulation of a hub motor that couldn't work, and a rim with some holes cut in it, but with no other information as to how it would work also. Why didn't Stade approach some experts for their views as to how to make rim/hub motors that might work? I think the Stade team must have been shocked when they interviewed Varjas, the `horse's mouth', and discovered he couldn't actually show them a rim motor system.

 

[Hawkwood]

Re:

In the UK it would be pretty much standard for the media to approach a subject with an allegation to give him/her/it an opportunity to defend themselves.

thanks for aptly summing up UK media.

Why Stade 2 apparently didn't do this heaven only knows

"did you cheat?"
"no, I didn't, really".
"ok, glad we got that sorted. Now then, on to our next item..."

So you're suggesting that it was right for Stade 2 to run the documentary without making any real attempt to stand the story up? And you also appear to think it's right that the media can act as judge and jury and not give the other side any opportunity to defend themselves.