Motor doping thread

[Libertine Seguros]

There's a bit more on the video here, shows an ice-bucket challenge video of his, you can see he's not tall but pretty muscular. Hard to be too clear without seeing him and Femke next to one another or both photographed on the same bike at different times or something. I'd have thought the saddles would differ regardless though.

 

[Cloxxki]

So they find an illegal bike with her name on it in her pits.

compare to....

They find a bunch of EPO in a bag with her name on it, in her own car, which had been properly locked.

Do you get away with it if a friend says "yeah that's my EPO she held on to for me", more than "yeah, that's my bike with her name on it"?

No credibility that the bike was sold, if she rides it. Even if it's practice. Same for EPO, as her brother already got nipped for it.
I fail to see the difference between EPO possession and a motorbike.

 

[Jacques de Molay]

Re: Re:

And elsewhere - velonews starts an editorial piece with a tribute -
Read more at http://velonews.competitor.com/2016/01/commentary/making-sense-of-cyclings-self-destruction-394311_394311#pQI0yVQdg2yT98SG.99

Oh boy.

In the fall of 2006...I wrote a column for Outside magazine about how the only way I could continue to find joy in cycling was to completely divorce the activity from the sport.

These guys actually "believe" in sport.

You don't have to divorce yourself (a bit dramatic), you just don't have to take it seriously to begin with.

 

[BullsFan22]

Re: Re:

Btw., great reaction from Eddie M. suggesting there are relatively honest traditional dopers, and then those evil low budget U23 motogirls.

There are just too many great posts hitting the forum. Maxiton, that circuit diagram is great - too much to look at in one sitting, sniper's description of Cookson getting a hard-on when doing his selfie with Eddie and this from doperhopper, but lots lots more.

And elsewhere - velonews starts an editorial piece with a tribute -

Things keep getting worse. No matter how unhinged the skeptics have seemed, no matter how outlandish their conspiracy theories, professional cycling continues to prove them right.
Read more at http://velonews.competitor.com/2016/01/commentary/making-sense-of-cyclings-self-destruction-394311_394311#pQI0yVQdg2yT98SG.99

Yeah - that's us !

So, if I read Mr. Bradley's piece right, he had faith, then lost it, then found it, then....he's keeping it even though nobody's (apparently himself included) really learned their lesson about (as he points out), professional sports and we naively watch? Sounds about right. Although, if you want clean competition and fair vs fair, I suggest avoiding professional sports. Is that way overboard? Perhaps, but, as Bradley himself said, professional cycling continues to prove the skeptics right, and why should professional sports i general be any different? Best way to beat this is using the fans as a weapon towards the system. Ignore the events, don't spend a fortune on tickets, don't travel a long way to watch something that you'll probably find out later was either fixed, everyone involved was juicing or using other methods to outdo the opponent(s), and/or that the powers that be had a hand on the whole stinking thing and money is being pushed in and out like a daily pick-me-up in Sicily. It's not gonna happen though, but it would be one way to start cleaning sports FOR REAL, and not this half-assed effort we see once in a while at the lower levels or when it's at the higher levels, someone that's an outlier or made a scapegoat. People were outraged at the New England Patriots for spy gate, now for deflate gate, but they still probably watch their games, people still comment on stories related to that team, and nothing ever changes at those levels. It attracts negative attention, but it's attention nonetheless and the Patriots eventually won the SB and made more profit that in all likelihood erased most of the bad publicity generated from the suspected cheating.

Remember the 2007/2008 NBA officiating scandal? Tim Donaghy was busted for betting on games and having ties to the mafia in the US. He was quickly swept out of the league, but no further inquiries were made into the games that he bet on and probably helped fix. Anyone remember the 2002 NBA Western Conference Final between the Kings and Lakers? One of the most biased games you can watch. A lot of people were upset, not just the Kings fans, and people wanted an explanation, but nothing really came out. It was made to be like it was just another game, with perhaps some missed calls here and there, and that Kings fans were making excuses. I see a lot of comments during and after games, in bars, with friends, in game threads, in online articles...just about everywhere you can make a comment, and you always see a significant amount of use of the word 'fix' and 'how much were the refs paid,' or 'how much does the league win when it's a big market team that wins,' etc, etc. The media quickly tries to quash that and say 'it's ludicrous and it's conspiracy theorists,' or sore losers...The more I think about certain sporting events, the more I realize just how corrupt things are capable of getting and how blind we are to it. Yet we still come back for more. Bradley is no different.

I hope a big name, megastar is busted for using 'bike engines' and people wake up for real and there is a concerted effort to make the powers that be aware that we won't fall for this crap any longer, either clean your act up completely or you'll completely lose the fans trust and eventually, money. We have the power to say that. But being the pessimist that I am, I am not sure we can follow through.

 

[compete_clean]

Re: Re:

If the forks are 1-2 mm from the front rim, the front fork tubes have a very long front-to-back dimension, and you have a powerful battery, maybe . . . But it won't look anything like a WT racebike.

Here is a video of someone's prototype eddy current brake. You can see he needs a large conductive disk, and the magnets are very large and mounted very close to that disc. http://youtu.be/FRepnCIa01k Even with that, the wheel takes a while to stop - the device is not creating much torque.

Come to think of it, if we wanted to build something like this, best to wait until disc brakes get adopted. Embed rare earth magnets in the disc, replace the brake pads with electromagnets, now we have a <1 mm air gap and some chance of actually getting a working stealth motor. The problem is that the brake won't work anymore as a brake, so best to use the rear brake . . .

I imagine a completely different design where the rotor magnet is the spoke and rim, with stator windings along the entire stays and seat tube. A 2.5lb brushless servo can generate 500W+. I can imagine a wheel structure design that creates 75W.

I wonder if the reason sky are so secretive about Froomes numbers is that they are too low to produce his times. Most think the reason Froomes doesn't want his numbers put out for analysis is that they are equal power numbers to the EPO era. But what if this wrong? What if his numbers are too low to account for his climbing speed?

Maybe that is why he is not worried about having his urine and blood frozen for ten years. They don't freeze bikes and keep them for retrospective testing.

 

[BullsFan22]

Re: Mechanical doping: first rider caught

Business Insider(!?!?!) telling us what we already knew, but I am happy to see it in non-cycling sites as well:

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/19-old-belgian-cyclist-got-125400902.html

Again, great to see Cancellara, Hesjedal, Contador, possible doped bikes and the Kiriyenka bike inspection.

 

[blackcat]

Re: Re:

There are just too many great posts hitting the forum. Maxiton, that circuit diagram is great - too much to look at in one sitting, sniper's description of Cookson getting a hard-on when doing his selfie with Eddie and this from doperhopper, but lots lots more.

And elsewhere - velonews starts an editorial piece with a tribute -

Things keep getting worse. No matter how unhinged the skeptics have seemed, no matter how outlandish their conspiracy theories, professional cycling continues to prove them right.
Read more at http://velonews.competitor.com/2016/01/commentary/making-sense-of-cyclings-self-destruction-394311_394311#pQI0yVQdg2yT98SG.99

Yeah - that's us !

Clinic12 #FTW

should we give JV any credit for baptising us the Clinic 12?

Jon the Baptist?

 

[blackcat]

Re: Re:

what will be the likely opprobrium by the Belgian people over this?

Better yet, what will be the response from that indignant group of entitled twats known as The Pro Peloton?

Chemical doping was 10 years ago. Just ask any pro. 10 years ago.

Mechanical doping? That was in January. Last month. Why harp on that? Focus on the future.

2016: The year the Peloton moved beyond mechanical doping.

Also anxiously awaiting the hilarious punchlines from JV & Ryder.

the sport just folded in on itself. it is not even threshold FTP for any Wildean drollery.
It hit the blackhole horizon and it aint coming out.

You just cannot Wilde this sport. I was using Oscar as a verb, but he would be ok with that, so I am ok with that.

#Poe's_law

 

[jyl]

Re: Re:

If the forks are 1-2 mm from the front rim, the front fork tubes have a very long front-to-back dimension, and you have a powerful battery, maybe . . . But it won't look anything like a WT racebike.

Here is a video of someone's prototype eddy current brake. You can see he needs a large conductive disk, and the magnets are very large and mounted very close to that disc. http://youtu.be/FRepnCIa01k Even with that, the wheel takes a while to stop - the device is not creating much torque.

Come to think of it, if we wanted to build something like this, best to wait until disc brakes get adopted. Embed rare earth magnets in the disc, replace the brake pads with electromagnets, now we have a <1 mm air gap and some chance of actually getting a working stealth motor. The problem is that the brake won't work anymore as a brake, so best to use the rear brake . . .

I imagine a completely different design where the rotor magnet is the spoke and rim, with stator windings along the entire stays and seat tube. A 2.5lb brushless servo can generate 500W+. I can imagine a wheel structure design that creates 75W.

I wonder if the reason sky are so secretive about Froomes numbers is that they are too low to produce his times. Most think the reason Froomes doesn't want his numbers put out for analysis is that they are equal power numbers to the EPO era. But what if this wrong? What if his numbers are too low to account for his climbing speed?

Maybe that is why he is not worried about having his urine and blood frozen for ten years. They don't freeze bikes and keep them for retrospective testing.

I think that's not going to work.
- The spokes can't be part of the rotor magnet, they have to be steel to support the load of being spokes, rare earth does not have that kind of tensile strength and elasticity - it is brittle and weak. Also, the spokes are quite far from the stays.
- Magnets could be concealed in the interior of the rim at the brake track, but they'd still be about 2 cm separated from the seat stay and about that much separated from the chainstay. Magnets placed further along the rim, toward the spoke bed, are even further away from the stays. Exact distances depend on the frame.
- The whole stay can't be the stator, only the four sections, of a centimeter or so length, that are closest to the rim brake track.
- So you basically have an electric motor with a rotor that is call it 4 cm^2 area, and a stator of similar area, separated by around 2 cm air gap.
- That doesn't describe any electric motor you or I have ever seen, because it would be a terrible one, if it worked at all.

To illustrate the importance of the air gap, go to this site

https://www.kjmagnetics.com/calculator.asp?calcType=block

Input a block shape magnet 10 mm high x 10 mm wide x 5 mm deep (that's something you could attach to the inside of the rim brake track area). Use the highest grade magnet (N52). Now imagine the same magnet is hidden in the stay. Have the applet calculate the attraction between these two magnets if the stay is 1 mm from the rim (air gap 1 mm). 5.12 lb. Now change the distance to 10 mm. 0.39 lb. Now change to 20 mm. 0.05 lb.

Air gap is critical. If the stays of the bike are 1 mm from the rim, then maybe something could work. Wouldn't be a powerful motor, might not be worth all the extra weight from lining the rim with magnets, but we could maybe get the bike to roll on flat ground. But if the stays are 10 mm from the rim, this rim drive "motor" is now 10X weaker. At 20 mm, which is about what the real bike would be, the motor is 100x weaker. With a reasonable battery, I'd guess we be doing well to get the wheel to turn even on a workstand.

Now, if we could build the frame and wheels custom, then it might work. We'd use a disc rear wheel, and shape the stays so that they were 1-3 mm separated from the disc wheel surface from hub to tire. We'd shape the stays like blades. I think we'd embed magnets in the inner surface of the stays, and embed windings on the outer surface of the wheel disc. Place battery and electronics inside the wheel. Use a wireless control. It would be cool. But hardly stealth . . .

 

[MarkvW]

Re: Re:

what will be the likely opprobrium by the Belgian people over this?

Better yet, what will be the response from that indignant group of entitled twats known as The Pro Peloton?

Chemical doping was 10 years ago. Just ask any pro. 10 years ago.

Mechanical doping? That was in January. Last month. Why harp on that? Focus on the future.

2016: The year the Peloton moved beyond mechanical doping.

Also anxiously awaiting the hilarious punchlines from JV & Ryder.

the sport just folded in on itself. it is not even threshold FTP for any Wildean drollery.
It hit the blackhole horizon and it aint coming out.

You just cannot Wilde this sport. I was using Oscar as a verb, but he would be ok with that, so I am ok with that.

#Poe's_law

Oscar Wilde would probably be a fan of the "sport." It's all good. It's always been filthy. This is just a new kind of dirt.

 

[Robert21]

Re: Re:

she's a deer in the headlights; she's a U23 women's cyclocross rider.

It does seem that what you are saying is that she deserves a higher level of sympathy not just because she is an under 23 rider but also a female under 23 rider, a veritable innocent and vulnerable Bambi-like figure. Sorry, but this is just special pleading, and in its suggestion that her gender should influence people's attitudes towards her, deeply sexist.

Yes, we can have some sympathy for her, but it is clear that she was complicit in this affair, perhaps even the central driving character, and the more she continues with the lies, the less our sympathy should be.

 

[Robert21]

Re: Re:

Things keep getting worse. No matter how unhinged the skeptics have seemed, no matter how outlandish their conspiracy theories, professional cycling continues to prove them right.
Read more at

http://velonews.competitor.com/2016/01/commentary/making-sense-of-cyclings-self-destruction-394311_394311#pQI0yVQdg2yT98SG.99

On Sunday, the website SB Nation began its story about Femke Van den Driessche with “Cycling has the best cheating” and concluded with a request for other sports to cheat better, with things like “magnets inside of receiving gloves and footballs full of metal filings.” When people are angry at your sport, they’re taking it seriously. When they’re laughing at it, you’ve lost them.

That pretty much sums up what Van den Driessche and her accomplices have done. Riding a motorised bike represents a whole different league of cheating and, on reflection, the UCI really do need to 'come down like a ton of bricks' on everybody involved, including handing out life bans.

 

[coinneach]

Re: Re:

she's a deer in the headlights; she's a U23 women's cyclocross rider.

It does seem that what you are saying is that she deserves a higher level of sympathy not just because she is an under 23 rider but also a female under 23 rider, a veritable innocent and vulnerable Bambi-like figure. Sorry, but this is just special pleading, and in its suggestion that her gender should influence people's attitudes towards her, deeply sexist.

Yes, we can have some sympathy for her, but it is clear that she was complicit in this affair, perhaps even the central driving character, and the more she continues with the lies, the less our sympathy should be.

You are kidding here, aren't you? Or making a clever pun?

 

[Robert21]

Re: Re:

Yes, we can have some sympathy for her, but it is clear that she was complicit in this affair, perhaps even the central driving character, and the more she continues with the lies, the less our sympathy should be.

You are kidding here, aren't you? Or making a clever pun?

I said perhaps. We just don't know yet.

She might be a driven, highly demanding individual whose will to win led her to pressure others into doing all they could to help her get to the top. Or are we now supposed to believe that only males can have such qualities, and women are more the passive, 'deer in the headlights' type, doing whatever the men in their lives tell them to, as some seem to be suggesting? As I said, we just don't know.

Just because she is youngish does not mean that she could not have such qualities either. After all, plenty on here looked to Armstrong supposedly doping as a 17 year-old triathlete and saw this as just further proof of his inherent determination and ruthlessness, or can only someone with testosterone flowing in their veins act with such single-mindedness?

 

[Jacques de Molay]

Re: Mechanical doping: first rider caught

Anyone heard from this guy in the past couple of days?

June, 2010

UCI President Pat McQuaid has played down the possibility of riders using bikes fitted with hidden motors. "This is a story that has gone around the world like wildfire. Whereas there is no foundation for it," McQuaid told the Associated Press.

 

[Tienus]

Re: Re:

Apparently Femke was photographed using the 'Moto' Bike the day before race on the course

http://www.1limburg.nl/stultiens-ontving-foto-van-verdacht-frame-met-motortje?context=section-2

I'm confused. The bike shown in the photo you linked is not the same bike as the one shown in the photo that Tienus linked. Different stripe pattern at the lower headtube. Also different wheels and tires but those can be changed from day to day.

Which is the motor bike that was seized by the UCI?. Surely someone photographed it as it was being scanned and confiscated?

Let me explain what I did. I looked at the replay of the under 23cc world championship race:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEEP7EGFk_U

Femke is riding the bike you see in the article from Benotti, the picture in the article is actually taken at the world championship race. This bike is quite different from the other two I've seen her use this season. For example it has different paint scheme, different front derailleur clamp and a white saddle. Lets call it the white saddle bike.

The UCI and the press claim that her dirty bike had been confiscated in the first lap from the pits. I therefore assumed the white saddle bike is clean. I should not have made this assumption as the UCI cannot be trusted. Why did the UCI not confiscate all three of her bikes? In the video above she walks with the white saddle bike after a broken chain (44:15). At 45:49 she is seen in the pits jumping on bike nr3, which has not been confiscated. The white saddle bike has disappeard.

Looking at this video from Koppenberg she is riding the same bike throughout the race and its not bike nr3. I will call it Nico's bike.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AlvQJqkfpk
By the way I hope its not Nico with her dad in the pits at 33:05.
Plenty of picture available from this race like the one I linked earlier. There are a few here as well: http://www.sportfoto.nl/albums/image/334fc20bd4c43a068389588508c080c537a65ea8/
I'm sure you can get some high resolution ones if you pay.

On the day before the race some riders where apparantly shown a picture of Nico's bike. Not nescessary taken on the day before the race. I think the UCI found out about this and actually saw this picture. They pretended they had some kind of app to scan bikes and took Nico's bike.

I got suspicious when I saw Femke had a really good result with the white saddle bike in Leuven:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGiyRsz6hHk
The race is really hard from the start and she bridges a gap to the front group, which consists of the best elite riders, a few times. To me it looks like she switches of her engine at 52:19.

Spot the difference on the frame in these pictures:
http://s3.nieuwsbladcdn.be/Assets/Images_Upload/2015/02/18/cd71a9b0-b769-11e4-a8c0-abf7dfebd1f7_original.jpg?scale=both&format=jpg
http://ciclicornale.altervista.org/wilier/telaio_ciclocross_carbon_disc.jpg

Her dad and brother seem busy steeling Parakeets at the moment:
http://www.hln.be/regio/nieuws-uit-jabbeke/-die-familie-deinst-voor-niets-terug-a2603590/

I'll take my alu hat of now

 

[MartinGT]

Re: Mechanical doping: first rider caught

Love how Mercx is calling for a lifetime ban of Mechanical Doping, yet never heard him talk much about 'traditional' doping.

 

[sniper]

Re: Re:

Apparently Femke was photographed using the 'Moto' Bike the day before race on the course

http://www.1limburg.nl/stultiens-ontving-foto-van-verdacht-frame-met-motortje?context=section-2

I'm confused. The bike shown in the photo you linked is not the same bike as the one shown in the photo that Tienus linked. Different stripe pattern at the lower headtube. Also different wheels and tires but those can be changed from day to day.

Which is the motor bike that was seized by the UCI?. Surely someone photographed it as it was being scanned and confiscated?

Let me explain what I did. I looked at the replay of the under 23cc world championship race:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEEP7EGFk_U

Femke is riding the bike you see in the article from Benotti, the picture in the article is actually taken at the world championship race. This bike is quite different from the other two I've seen her use this season. For example it has different paint scheme, different front derailleur clamp and a white saddle. Lets call it the white saddle bike.

The UCI and the press claim that her dirty bike had been confiscated in the first lap from the pits. I therefore assumed the white saddle bike is clean. I should not have made this assumption as the UCI cannot be trusted. Why did the UCI not confiscate all three of her bikes? In the video above she walks with the white saddle bike after a broken chain (44:15). At 45:49 she is seen in the pits jumping on bike nr3, which has not been confiscated. The white saddle bike has disappeard.

Looking at this video from Koppenberg she is riding the same bike throughout the race and its not bike nr3. I will call it Nico's bike.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AlvQJqkfpk
By the way I hope its not Nico with her dad in the pits at 33:05.
Plenty of picture available from this race like the one I linked earlier. There are a few here as well: http://www.sportfoto.nl/albums/image/334fc20bd4c43a068389588508c080c537a65ea8/
I'm sure you can get some high resolution ones if you pay.

On the day before the race some riders where apparantly shown a picture of Nico's bike. Not nescessary taken on the day before the race. I think the UCI found out about this and actually saw this picture. They pretended they had some kind of app to scan bikes and took Nico's bike.

I got suspicious when I saw Femke had a really good result with the white saddle bike in Leuven:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGiyRsz6hHk
The race is really hard from the start and she bridges a gap to the front group, which consists of the best elite riders, a few times. To me it looks like she switches of her engine at 52:19.

Spot the difference on the frame in these pictures:
http://s3.nieuwsbladcdn.be/Assets/Images_Upload/2015/02/18/cd71a9b0-b769-11e4-a8c0-abf7dfebd1f7_original.jpg?scale=both&format=jpg
http://ciclicornale.altervista.org/wilier/telaio_ciclocross_carbon_disc.jpg

Her dad and brother seem busy steeling Parakeets at the moment:
http://www.hln.be/regio/nieuws-uit-jabbeke/-die-familie-deinst-voor-niets-terug-a2603590/

I'll take my alu hat of now

good spot wrt Leuven. Indeed her little finger makes a Fabian-esque flick exactly at 52:19.

jezus flippin christ, i thought you were joking about the parakeets!

could you summarize what you're saying about UCI? How exactly do you think they got onto the trail of Femke's motor? I've lost track a bit. You make a good point about why they didn't take her other bikes as well.

 

[ice&fire]

Re: Mechanical doping: first rider caught

Love how Mercx is calling for a lifetime ban of Mechanical Doping, yet never heard him talk much about 'traditional' doping.

He should have been asked if he thinks that this motor provides more power than what Nibali got from his car in stage 2 of last Vuelta.

 

[VO2 Max]

Re: Mechanical doping: first rider caught

Love how Mercx is calling for a lifetime ban of Mechanical Doping, yet never heard him talk much about 'traditional' doping.

There's a reasonable argument that motor-cheating is worse in the sense of it making such a total mockery of the sport. It's like the funny-old-days of riders taking the train in the middle of races, except happening right now live on the telly. Of course that's not to say that Merckx isn't a complete hypocrite.

 

[Tienus]

@sniper

The UCI claims they found a dirty bike with a new scan method:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BBNpEMCHF4k/
A bike that had not been used during the race is confiscated from the pits. The UCI announces how they are on the ball with their technology and no cheater is safe.

Then the news comes out that there where rumours for months about her using an e-bike. A suspicious picture of her bike is also being spread before she is caught. It makes the official UCI story a bit strange.

The UCI as usual creates mist. They are not showing any pictures of the confiscated bike. The UCI states that the confiscated bike has not been used at the world championships, insinuating Femke was riding a normal bike. I'm saying in the WC she is using the same bike as in Leuven which was motorized on the 3rd of January.

 

[King Boonen]

Re: Re:

Spot the difference on the frame in these pictures:
http://s3.nieuwsbladcdn.be/Assets/Images_Upload/2015/02/18/cd71a9b0-b769-11e4-a8c0-abf7dfebd1f7_original.jpg?scale=both&format=jpg
http://ciclicornale.altervista.org/wilier/telaio_ciclocross_carbon_disc.jpg

They're two completely different frames. I'm struggling to follow your train of thought here I must admit.

 

[Metabolol]

Re: Mechanical doping: first rider caught

Love how Mercx is calling for a lifetime ban of Mechanical Doping, yet never heard him talk much about 'traditional' doping.

He should have been asked if he thinks that this motor provides more power than what Nibali got from his car in stage 2 of last Vuelta.

The moto doping might also explain why Nibali doesn't really feel he did anything wrong. He obviously knows what is going on.

 

[LaFlorecita]

That stuff about the parakeets is hilarious and sad

 

[Tienus]

@King Boonen
I agree. Those two pictures are going round on twitter at the moment. I added them for fun like the parakeet story.