The Cycling News forum is still looking to add volunteer moderators with. If you're interested in helping keep our discussions on track, send a direct message to
In the meanwhile, please use the Report option if you see a post that doesn't fit within the forum rules.
Thanks!
It would have been quite the story! It had a basket on the front and back. She could have loaded it up with grocery's and bread. Then headed up the mountain. In fact anyone with a set of balls should do something like that at this years tour! Get a bafang motor 1000 watt kit and trick out a hybrid. Put saddle / commuter bags on it. The bafang is very obviously a motor but that is the point. Just sit at the mid of a queen stage and bang! See how far you get before the police knock you off of it. The TV entertainment alone would be awesome.sniper said:Good anecdote.Semper Fidelis said:...
This may sound stupid but my first introduction to a bicycle with a small motor and battery was in Japan. Maybe around 2005. My mother in-law had one. And she gave me the key to the lock so I go make a trip to the grocery store. Showed me the two gear levels and operation buttons and I took off. I told my ex wife when I got back to the house.....I should take one of these to the TDF fan areas on a mountain and ride next to the pro's. That motor was larger and had more battery capacity than the one we have seen for a pro set up. But it was extremely easy to take off on hills and a bit dangerous.
Did she try to climb the Muur with it?![]()
That's as nonsensical as it gets.sniper said:For what it's worth, a major kudos to Greg here.
It may or may not be about Lance for him, but to be honest I couldnt care less.
He has put himself in the cross fire here, when really he didn't need to.
He must be absolutely convinced and gutted by it. Hi involvement is very important, first because he's close to the peloton, second because his reputation is as impeccable as it gets and so it's not as easy to discredit him.
At this point I believe they are all protected.CTQ said:if Team Sky is a protected team , why they didn't use the famous wheel at the World Champ? 9 th at 1 min 42 sec behind BMC in 2015
Yeah it all depends on who is in the cross-hairs does it not?Tom the Engine said:That's as nonsensical as it gets.sniper said:For what it's worth, a major kudos to Greg here.
It may or may not be about Lance for him, but to be honest I couldnt care less.
He has put himself in the cross fire here, when really he didn't need to.
He must be absolutely convinced and gutted by it. Hi involvement is very important, first because he's close to the peloton, second because his reputation is as impeccable as it gets and so it's not as easy to discredit him.
- It does matter whether it's mainly about a personal feud or not. Motivations and possible conflicts of interests matter.
- Conviction alone is nothing admirable (without presenting good arguments for it). Strong conviction without reason is dangerous in general.
- Relying on impeccable reputation is bollocks as is argument by authority to not get discredited.
- Closeness to the peloton requires to present stronger evidence than an outsider. Otherwise it's worthless.
I really wish that this will turn out well for Greg someday and he's proven right because I respect him a lot. But in this CBS documentary he looked awful. I felt bad for him.
Not for me. I'm not a fan and I'm as bloodthirsty as anyone here to get proof for the cheats. But stupid arguments remain stupid even when I agree with its intentions.Semper Fidelis said:Yeah it all depends on who is in the cross-hairs does it not?
So I listed 4 points that you could have addressed and disagreed with. But instead you chose to discredit me by suggesting closeness to Sky because of the use of a British English word? Good job.Semper Fidelis said:I do like the use of bollocks adds some flair.
samhocking said:King Boonen said:Tom the Engine said:Maybe I got it wrong, but as I understood they're not talking about these magic magnetic wheels in this story about the 2015 TdF with the "increased" weights of the Sky TTT bikes. They are referring to a "normal" rear-hub motor.King Boonen said:Apparently the wheels work by magic. Or, at least, that's about as likely following Varjas' description:
"Magnets are hidden inside the rim of the wheel. When battery powered coils in the wheel are activated, it creates a magnetic field which propels the magnets forward spinning the wheel faster".
From the transcript:
Stefano Varjas told us that in addition to the motors in the bike frames, he’s designed a motor that can be hidden inside the hub of the back wheel seen here in a video he gave us.
Kathy LeMond: Stefano had said, “Weigh the wheels. You’ll find the wheels. The wheels are in the peloton.”
According to Varjas the enhanced wheels weigh about 800 grams—or 1.7 pounds more than normal wheels.
We're talking about two different things here, I'm talking about the wheels in the overtime video. These are the same wheels samhocking is talking about, the ones shown with the cut-outs and plastic bobbins.
You're talking about the wheel in that incredibly blurry, impossible to see video where the hub looks several times the size of a normal hub (although it's impossible to tell)? The one he decided not to let CBS try out or even show to them?
Yes, i'm talking about the rims in terms of using this in the mountains or road stages. The hub obviously would only work if built into a disc wheel at the scale shown in the blurry video to hide it behind the disc of the wheel itself.
Also, Unless i'm mistaken on what the electromagnetic wheel is and how it works, it's simply a brushless motor. i.e. an inside out traditional motor where you put the permanent magnets on the rotor (inside rim) and you move the electromagnets to the stator (inside frame).
18-Valve. (pithy) said:^ So I guess Nibali on Hautacam can't have been moto-doping?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eofJgcSH_24
1:55 onwards
No doubt about this.ScienceIsCool said:It would be shocking to think that only Varjas is building motors and that he is at the forefront of wheel engineering... The technology is not complicated, there is nothing that requires a lab for R&D. All you would need is a mechanical engineer, an electrical engineer, and somebody willing to travel to China for prototyping. I'm convinced a small team with a modest budget could have a well and truly hidden hub motor with less than two years' effort.
John Swanson
Semper Fidelis said:I belive you are correct.pastronef said:Semper Fidelis said:Someone is keeping the Producers from saying or publishing everything. Maybe a updated story is coming.
I think Varjas has a plan, it cannot just end this way.
and there is a French investigation going on.
it's not finished with the CBS tv show at all.
Note that when the reporter was indicating that he had listened in on a conversation between Dr. F and Stefano that they only showed a still shot of them in the car together. Reasons we all can guess.
Also note that the French Police are involved with the location of the drop site for the cycles left off at a storage site.
I don't think for a moment this is the end. It is just the tip of the iceberg.
And after the comments with respect to 1998 I'm going to say it is hard not to question anything from then forward. Just hard. Unless this Stefano is a pathological liar. Then there are some unanswered questions out there for more than one cyclist.
I'm not trying to discredit you or your comments. I truly like the use of the word bollocks. Serious.Tom the Engine said:Not for me. I'm not a fan and I'm as bloodthirsty as anyone here to get proof for the cheats. But stupid arguments remain stupid even when I agree with its intentions.Semper Fidelis said:Yeah it all depends on who is in the cross-hairs does it not?
So I listed 4 points that you could have addressed and disagreed with. But instead you chose to discredit me by suggesting closeness to Sky because of the use of a British English word? Good job.Semper Fidelis said:I do like the use of bollocks adds some flair.
Seems it would be more of an issue than just a storage site. now that you pointed it out ....makes it more interesting for me.King Boonen said:Semper Fidelis said:I belive you are correct.pastronef said:Semper Fidelis said:Someone is keeping the Producers from saying or publishing everything. Maybe a updated story is coming.
I think Varjas has a plan, it cannot just end this way.
and there is a French investigation going on.
it's not finished with the CBS tv show at all.
Note that when the reporter was indicating that he had listened in on a conversation between Dr. F and Stefano that they only showed a still shot of them in the car together. Reasons we all can guess.
Also note that the French Police are involved with the location of the drop site for the cycles left off at a storage site.
I don't think for a moment this is the end. It is just the tip of the iceberg.
And after the comments with respect to 1998 I'm going to say it is hard not to question anything from then forward. Just hard. Unless this Stefano is a pathological liar. Then there are some unanswered questions out there for more than one cyclist.
Yes, Beaulieu-Sur-Mer wasn't it?
The funny thing is if you look up Varjas' patents you'll find them registered to Typhoon Bikes Limited. They have a webpage. I decided to have a look at their dealer locations:
http://www.typhoonbicycles.com/dealers/
That address in France sure seems familiar... Just a coincidence of course...
Semper Fidelis said:Seems it would be more of an issue than just a storage site. now that you pointed it out ....makes it more interesting for me.King Boonen said:Semper Fidelis said:I belive you are correct.pastronef said:Semper Fidelis said:Someone is keeping the Producers from saying or publishing everything. Maybe a updated story is coming.
I think Varjas has a plan, it cannot just end this way.
and there is a French investigation going on.
it's not finished with the CBS tv show at all.
Note that when the reporter was indicating that he had listened in on a conversation between Dr. F and Stefano that they only showed a still shot of them in the car together. Reasons we all can guess.
Also note that the French Police are involved with the location of the drop site for the cycles left off at a storage site.
I don't think for a moment this is the end. It is just the tip of the iceberg.
And after the comments with respect to 1998 I'm going to say it is hard not to question anything from then forward. Just hard. Unless this Stefano is a pathological liar. Then there are some unanswered questions out there for more than one cyclist.
Yes, Beaulieu-Sur-Mer wasn't it?
The funny thing is if you look up Varjas' patents you'll find them registered to Typhoon Bikes Limited. They have a webpage. I decided to have a look at their dealer locations:
http://www.typhoonbicycles.com/dealers/
That address in France sure seems familiar... Just a coincidence of course...
Yeah as per Tienus' post Varjas worked for Typhoon but left on bad terms after a dispute.King Boonen said:Yes, Beaulieu-Sur-Mer wasn't it?
The funny thing is if you look up Varjas' patents you'll find them registered to Typhoon Bikes Limited. They have a webpage. I decided to have a look at their dealer locations:
Tom the Engine said:That's as nonsensical as it gets.sniper said:For what it's worth, a major kudos to Greg here.
It may or may not be about Lance for him, but to be honest I couldnt care less.
He has put himself in the cross fire here, when really he didn't need to.
He must be absolutely convinced and gutted by it. Hi involvement is very important, first because he's close to the peloton, second because his reputation is as impeccable as it gets and so it's not as easy to discredit him.
- It does matter whether it's mainly about a personal feud or not. Motivations and possible conflicts of interests matter.
- Conviction alone is nothing admirable (without presenting good arguments for it). Strong conviction without reason is dangerous in general.
- Relying on impeccable reputation is bollocks as is argument by authority to not get discredited.
- Closeness to the peloton requires to present stronger evidence than an outsider. Otherwise it's worthless.
I really wish that this will turn out well for Greg someday and he's proven right because I respect him a lot. But in this CBS documentary he looked awful. I felt bad for him.
yaco said:I wonder about the involvement of the French Police - As far as I know its not a criminal offence to have a motor in a bike - Can someone explain.
Tom the Engine said:Yeah as per Tienus' post Varjas worked for Typhoon but left on bad terms after a dispute.King Boonen said:Yes, Beaulieu-Sur-Mer wasn't it?
The funny thing is if you look up Varjas' patents you'll find them registered to Typhoon Bikes Limited. They have a webpage. I decided to have a look at their dealer locations:
So when he mentioned Beaulieu-Sur-Mer in the documentary there's no way that he didn't know its relation to Typhoon. But he didn't say anything. I didn't know this while I was watching the documentary. But I was wondering why he explicitly mentioned a town that was nowhere near the start of the TdF (Netherlands) or the TTT (north-west of France).
Is this just a cheap-shot to make Typhoon look bad in an act of revenge? (Because people would find the connection between Beaulieu-Sur-Mer and Typhoon very soon anyway and draw some conclusions from it.)
Or does he indeed know that Typhoon is involved in technological fraud and this is his way of giving the hint (on where to start digging) without having to say it explicitly?
It would be pretty stupid from Typhoon to order material from Varjas (in a way such that he knows who the customer really is - like: please deliver it to Beaulieu-Sur-Mer) that they intend to use in the TdF after he has publicly sworn vengeance..
I don't know. But the one thing that I'm fairly convinced of is that it cannot be a sheer coincidence that Varjas claimed to have delievered bikes to the same small town where the dealer of a company he's in conflict with resides.
Valv.Piti said:sniper, less than 2 weeks ago:
4. with Varjas it's really wait and see for me.
No reason yet to think it won't be interesting.
He said "Festina".
We'll soon know whether he's full of **** or not.
Some more or less reputed cycling folks seem to think he knows what he's talking about.
Ger Gilroy, Greg Lemond, Davide Cassani spring to mind.
Journalists also run to him and print what he says. Investigative journos usually do check their sources, so on the basis of that evidence it would seem that he does have credibility in certain circles.
But if the upcoming documentary doesn't deliver, Varjas will indeed be fully deserving of lables such as "quack" and/or "charlatan".
So where we at? Still no proofs of anything. I can understand that some are skeptical that a few riders have used/experimented with those, but beginning to speculate wildly about motors in bikes from late 90's turns me so much off. Are you serious? Seriously? Seriously?
To put it like sniper did, Varjas fully deserves the lables such as "quack and/or "charlatan". Did the documentary deliver, sniper? To me it was some weak ****. Nothing substantial as usual with those documentaries, wild speculations about some Team Sky bikes from 2015 when Froome rode his worst ITT in TdF and they lose to BMC. Congratz.