Motor doping thread

[sniper]

If you wanna celebrate yes-man journalism whilst criticizing investigative journalism, so be it.

Did Walsh ever interview Lance?

 

[sniper]

Re: Re:

...
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.

I agree/concede they should've gone for a reaction from Lotto to make the story stronger, but "unbelievable" is a word you should reserve for journalism of the Mart Smeets/David Walsh (the 2nd)/Fotheringham/Moore/Wilcockson kind, i.e. journos who only take stuff from the horse's mouth and then print it as fact.

 

[Hawkwood]

Re:

If you wanna celebrate yes-man journalism whilst criticizing investigative journalism, so be it.

Did Walsh ever interview Lance?

I'm talking about real journalism, where you put hard questions to the other party, and if the answers don't stack up you nail them. I'm also talking about a basic journalistic technique, where you seek to protect your media outlet and yourself from printing something that might be completely wrong. I worked in the media for three years in the 1980s, I remember on one occasion sitting in a room with a fleet street editor being asked "can you stand this story up?", I couldn't, the story didn't run.

Why you should bring Walsh and Lance into this heaven only knows?

 

[GJB123]

Re: Re:

...
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.

I agree/concede they should've gone for a reaction from Lotto to make the story stronger, but "unbelievable" is a word you should reserve for journalism of the Mart Smeets/David Walsh (the 2nd)/Fotheringham/Moore/Wilcockson kind, i.e. journos who only take stuff from the horse's mouth and then print it as fact.

Nobody is claiming the likes of Mart Smeets even deserve the titel of journalist, because he doesn't. However this investigative journalism by Stade 2 was sloppy at best. The fact that you seem to like their conclusions doesn't make it better journalism. Not a single attempt to get a reaction from Lotto-Jumbo and not a single way of confirming their suspicions (because that is all it is for now). One source is no source. They should have done better and if they had we probably we wouldn't be having this discussion either way.

 

[GJB123]

Re: Re:

If you wanna celebrate yes-man journalism whilst criticizing investigative journalism, so be it.

Did Walsh ever interview Lance?

I'm talking about real journalism, where you put hard questions to the other party, and if the answers don't stack up you nail them. I'm also talking about a basic journalistic technique, where you seek to protect your media outlet and yourself from printing something that might be completely wrong. I worked in the media for three years in the 1980s, I remember on one occasion sitting in a room with a fleet street editor being asked "can you stand this story up?", I couldn't, the story didn't run.

Why you should bring Walsh and Lance into this heaven only knows?

It is called a straw man. It is trying to deflect from a valid point you were making.

 

[sniper]

Re: Re:

...
Nobody is claiming the likes of Mart Smeets even deserve the titel of journalist, because he doesn't. However this investigative journalism by Stade 2 was sloppy at best. The fact that you seem to like their conclusions doesn't make it better journalism. Not a single attempt to get a reaction from Lotto-Jumbo and not a single way of confirming their suspicions (because that is all it is for now). One source is no source. They should have done better and if they had we probably we wouldn't be having this discussion either way.

what they did still was so much more interesting than the vast majority cycling journalism.
but what you say is fair enough. Some criticism is warranted.

 

[sniper]

Re: Re:

If you wanna celebrate yes-man journalism whilst criticizing investigative journalism, so be it.

Did Walsh ever interview Lance?

I'm talking about real journalism, where you put hard questions to the other party, and if the answers don't stack up you nail them. I'm also talking about a basic journalistic technique, where you seek to protect your media outlet and yourself from printing something that might be completely wrong. I worked in the media for three years in the 1980s, I remember on one occasion sitting in a room with a fleet street editor being asked "can you stand this story up?", I couldn't, the story didn't run.

I know.
The vast majority of sports journalism works this way and adheres to these 'etiquettes'.
It's why sports journalism is so terribly lame, and it's one reason why sports cheating and sports fraud continues to flourish unabated, unchallenged, and unquestioned.
I'm glad Stade 2 showed some balls, even though I agree they c/should've gone further in corroborating certain parts of their story.

In any case, their thermal camera footage is evidence.
Lotto's denial means absolutely zilch.
But since procycling doesn't have a proper body to investigate this, we might as well move along.

 

[veganrob]

Re: Re:

If you wanna celebrate yes-man journalism whilst criticizing investigative journalism, so be it.

Did Walsh ever interview Lance?

I'm talking about real journalism, where you put hard questions to the other party, and if the answers don't stack up you nail them. I'm also talking about a basic journalistic technique, where you seek to protect your media outlet and yourself from printing something that might be completely wrong. I worked in the media for three years in the 1980s, I remember on one occasion sitting in a room with a fleet street editor being asked "can you stand this story up?", I couldn't, the story didn't run.

I know.
The vast majority of sports journalism works this way and adheres to these 'etiquettes'.
It's why sports journalism is so terribly lame, and it's one reason why sports cheating and sports fraud continues to flourish unabated, unchallenged, and unquestioned.
I'm glad Stade 2 showed some balls, even though I agree they c/should've gone further in corroborating certain parts of their story.

Most journalists are just fanboys with a typewriter. They don't want to upset their heroes and lose their access.

 

[GJB123]

Re: Re:

If you wanna celebrate yes-man journalism whilst criticizing investigative journalism, so be it.

Did Walsh ever interview Lance?

I'm talking about real journalism, where you put hard questions to the other party, and if the answers don't stack up you nail them. I'm also talking about a basic journalistic technique, where you seek to protect your media outlet and yourself from printing something that might be completely wrong. I worked in the media for three years in the 1980s, I remember on one occasion sitting in a room with a fleet street editor being asked "can you stand this story up?", I couldn't, the story didn't run.

I know.
The vast majority of sports journalism works this way and adheres to these 'etiquettes'.
It's why sports journalism is so terribly lame, and it's one reason why sports cheating and sports fraud continues to flourish unabated, unchallenged, and unquestioned.
I'm glad Stade 2 showed some balls, even though I agree they c/should've gone further in corroborating certain parts of their story.

Actually it is much worse. Much of sports journalism don't do any investigations whatsoever so no need on their part to corroborate any stories or ask the other side for a reaction. Actually I think sports journalism is a contradictio in terminis. We are in agreement there and in that respect Stade needs to be commanded for their effort. It just could have been so much better if they hadn't been so sloppy.

 

[GJB123]

Re: Re:

If you wanna celebrate yes-man journalism whilst criticizing investigative journalism, so be it.

Did Walsh ever interview Lance?

I'm talking about real journalism, where you put hard questions to the other party, and if the answers don't stack up you nail them. I'm also talking about a basic journalistic technique, where you seek to protect your media outlet and yourself from printing something that might be completely wrong. I worked in the media for three years in the 1980s, I remember on one occasion sitting in a room with a fleet street editor being asked "can you stand this story up?", I couldn't, the story didn't run.

I know.
The vast majority of sports journalism works this way and adheres to these 'etiquettes'.
It's why sports journalism is so terribly lame, and it's one reason why sports cheating and sports fraud continues to flourish unabated, unchallenged, and unquestioned.
I'm glad Stade 2 showed some balls, even though I agree they c/should've gone further in corroborating certain parts of their story.

In any case, their thermal camera footage is evidence.
Lotto's denial means absolutely zilch.
But since procycling doesn't have a proper body to investigate this, we might as well move along.

Then they should have shown and proven that.

 

[Hawkwood]

Re: Re:

If you wanna celebrate yes-man journalism whilst criticizing investigative journalism, so be it.

Did Walsh ever interview Lance?

I'm talking about real journalism, where you put hard questions to the other party, and if the answers don't stack up you nail them. I'm also talking about a basic journalistic technique, where you seek to protect your media outlet and yourself from printing something that might be completely wrong. I worked in the media for three years in the 1980s, I remember on one occasion sitting in a room with a fleet street editor being asked "can you stand this story up?", I couldn't, the story didn't run.

I know.
The vast majority of sports journalism works this way and adheres to these 'etiquettes'.
It's why sports journalism is so terribly lame, and it's one reason why sports cheating and sports fraud continues to flourish unabated, unchallenged, and unquestioned.
I'm glad Stade 2 showed some balls, even though I agree they c/should've gone further in corroborating certain parts of their story.

I'm not for one moment suggesting that Stade should have been nice to Lotto, I'm simply suggesting that they could have taken their investigations further and possibly trapped Lotto with nowhere to go. Some shots of the bike at the finish would have been really handy, and might have disproved the neutral service wheel defence, and hence catching Lotto out on a lie.

 

[sniper]

Then they should have shown and proven that.

I'm not sure if/how Stade 2 could've proven that.
They would've had to anticipate Lotto's wheel-change story.

Alternatively, if UCI meant business, they could pressure Lotto to prove that the wheel they claim Primoz was using is capable of creating such a nice full moon on a thermal scanner.

 

[elduggo]

Is it too much of a stretch to start suspecting that the announcement of a significant increase in bike checks (for motors), as well as new tests for micro-dosing is responsible for the lower average speeds in the tour so far?

And for certain riders, whom you'd expect to perform better in the mountains, underperforming?

 

[Hawkwood]

Re:

Then they should have shown and proven that.

I'm not sure if/how Stade 2 could've proven that.
They would've had to anticipate Lotto's wheel-change story.

Alternatively, if UCI meant business, they could pressure Lotto to prove that the wheel they claim Primoz was using is capable of creating such a nice full moon on a thermal scanner.

You'd sit down with your producer, and also preferably someone with some cycling experience, and then go through the scenarios, for example, `what excuses might a team come out with?'. I guess that they didn't have the resources to put in place a big enough team to cover the Lotto part of the documentary effectively. I understand that Stade `stretched' the colour palette for the footage for dramatic effect, so the glow from the hub didn't indicate that much difference in temperature, 5 degrees warmer than the tires which were also glowing. There are various theories as to why the hub was warmer than the tires. I'm almost tempted to get a thermometer to check the temperature of my hub/cassette on a ride.

 

[ScienceIsCool]

Re: Re:

Then they should have shown and proven that.

I'm not sure if/how Stade 2 could've proven that.
They would've had to anticipate Lotto's wheel-change story.

Alternatively, if UCI meant business, they could pressure Lotto to prove that the wheel they claim Primoz was using is capable of creating such a nice full moon on a thermal scanner.

You'd sit down with your producer, and also preferably someone with some cycling experience, and then go through the scenarios, for example, `what excuses might a team come out with?'. I guess that they didn't have the resources to put in place a big enough team to cover the Lotto part of the documentary effectively. I understand that Stade `stretched' the colour palette for the footage for dramatic effect, so the glow from the hub didn't indicate that much difference in temperature, 5 degrees warmer than the tires which were also glowing. There are various theories as to why the hub was warmer than the tires. I'm almost tempted to get a thermometer to check the temperature of my hub/cassette on a ride.

Did you know that ~10% of your power gets dumped into the tires due to rolling resistance? So if you're putting out 150 Watts, each tire is soaking up ~7-8 Watts. That's why the tires were glowing. To be warmer than that suggests a significant source of heat. And if your hub is dumping that much heat solely due to friction, it'll probably be accompanied by some horrifying crunching/grating sounds. Also, I think it's perfectly reasonable to adjust the dynamic range to that of what you're measuring. It does no good to measure the width of a hair with a ruler...

John Swanson

 

[GJB123]

Re:

Then they should have shown and proven that.

I'm not sure if/how Stade 2 could've proven that.
They would've had to anticipate Lotto's wheel-change story.

Alternatively, if UCI meant business, they could pressure Lotto to prove that the wheel they claim Primoz was using is capable of creating such a nice full moon on a thermal scanner.

It's in the post right above yours. If you have Roglic with a glowing hub, you make sure you have extra images of particularly that bike. Normal video images, photos at the finish, etc. Now its seems they were just shooting some random images with a heat sensitive camera and that was it. No preparation what to do if they found an anomalous heat readings, no plan to follow-up, just shoot some images and throw them out there with next to no context or follow-up.

Like I said, they started out with a commendable idea, but is still was very sloppy execution which leaves us with almost nothing than some conjecture, speculation and innuendo. There could have been so much more.

 

[Tienus]

Just tuned in for the tour and within five minutes I see a Kawasaki motorcycle live checking bikes with a thermal heat camera. One minute later there is a replay of the UCI checking bikes before the departure. At least now all the viewers know that nobody will cheat with mechanical dopping this tour.

 

[thehog]

Re:

Just tuned in for the tour and within five minutes I see a Kawasaki motorcycle live checking bikes with a thermal heat camera. One minute later there is a replay of the UCI checking bikes before the departure. At least now all the viewers know that nobody will cheat with mechanical dopping this tour.

So Froome won't attack today? :surprised:

 

[Rollthedice]

Re: Re:

Just tuned in for the tour and within five minutes I see a Kawasaki motorcycle live checking bikes with a thermal heat camera. One minute later there is a replay of the UCI checking bikes before the departure. At least now all the viewers know that nobody will cheat with mechanical dopping this tour.

So Froome won't attack today? :surprised:

The announced mechano doping and micro-dosing tests have a remarkable effect on all the peloton, nobody attacks, nothing really happens and all the GC guys come to the line together. Could this be it?

 

[thehog]

Re: Re:

Just tuned in for the tour and within five minutes I see a Kawasaki motorcycle live checking bikes with a thermal heat camera. One minute later there is a replay of the UCI checking bikes before the departure. At least now all the viewers know that nobody will cheat with mechanical dopping this tour.

So Froome won't attack today? :surprised:

The announced mechano doping and micro-dosing tests have a remarkable effect on all the peloton, nobody attacks, nothing really happens and all the GC guys come to the line together. Could this be it?

The anti-mutant device works a treat on the peloton, causes FDJ to start a mountain train and have a 60 strong main pack finish together :lol:

 

[Benotti69]

Apparently the TdF is fast, ahead of schedule.

 

[jilbiker]

I am wondering if Froome's lack of explosion yet is because of reserving the motor trigger for the last week or the strong focus of the french on catching the doped bike. So far he looks pretty normal, not alien.

 

[jilbiker]

Re: Re:

Just tuned in for the tour and within five minutes I see a Kawasaki motorcycle live checking bikes with a thermal heat camera. One minute later there is a replay of the UCI checking bikes before the departure. At least now all the viewers know that nobody will cheat with mechanical dopping this tour.

So Froome won't attack today? :surprised:

The announced mechano doping and micro-dosing tests have a remarkable effect on all the peloton, nobody attacks, nothing really happens and all the GC guys come to the line together. Could this be it?

Yes, its baffling. Froome is not one to hold back, blast and intimidate.

 

[sniper]

how froome performs will have little if anything to do with motortesting or microdose testing.
froome is firmly protected.
if there was any intention to catch froome, they c/would've done so long ago.

that said, the threat of fans or the rare investigative journo with thermal cameras might actually scare him off.
still I expect him to perform.

 

[T_S_A_R]

Motors for descents only now.