Motor doping thread

[BikeCentric]

Re:

youtube - femke bike closeup in interview

LOL her bike handling skills are sloppy as Hell. Some "Champion!" What an utter fraud this sport has become.

 

[May0maniac]

Re: Re:

La Gazzetta implies Izaguirre is bike doping - video of spinning wheel included

http://www.gazzetta.it/Ciclismo/03-02-2016/volta-valenciana-bici-terra-ruota-continua-girare-video-izaguirre-140533589109.shtml

Couldn't it just be spinning if he didn't have time to hit the back brake? It rested on its side the entire time, so nothing would have stopped it spinning. At least to my eyes.

To me it looks exactly the same.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

If Izagirre is bike doping here, he's even more naïve than Van den Driessche. After all, it's literally this week become a huge news story within the sport, people are looking out for all kinds of telltale signs, and really:
1) Femke's illegal bike was at major races that got her a World Championships start and the World Championships
2) Izagirre is racing an early February warmup race, if he does badly people will just say he's not in form, his goals are later on, working for somebody else, so if he's used a motorized bike in the past, underperformance due to not using it would not be seen as suspicious.

 

[MarkvW]

Re:

The way the UCI is handling this it looks like they had to bust her (or they wouldn't have done anything of course) but at the same time they are trying to give her a way out. Bust her before she was caught in some other way to be able to have a little more control of the narrative.

The INSTANT a team is found to be using a motor bike, ALL bicycles of that team should have been impounded and tested. Only two reasons exist for not doing this: (1) insane ineptitude; or (2) corruption.

You have GOT to love the UCI. They are sooooooo bad!!!

 

[jyl]

Re: Re:

La Gazzetta implies Izaguirre is bike doping - video of spinning wheel included

http://www.gazzetta.it/Ciclismo/03-02-2016/volta-valenciana-bici-terra-ruota-continua-girare-video-izaguirre-140533589109.shtml

Couldn't it just be spinning if he didn't have time to hit the back brake? It rested on its side the entire time, so nothing would have stopped it spinning. At least to my eyes.

The rear wheel is rotating when the bike is fully on its side and the tire is not touching anything. Then he grasps the top tube and starts to lift the bike, the rear tire touches the ground, and the rear wheel immediately stops rotating. View it frame by frame and you can see this. Note that he doesn't touch the handlebars before the wheel stops rotating, so he isn't touching any hidden button on the bars.

 

[Maxiton]

Re: Re:

The way the UCI is handling this it looks like they had to bust her (or they wouldn't have done anything of course) but at the same time they are trying to give her a way out. Bust her before she was caught in some other way to be able to have a little more control of the narrative.

The INSTANT a team is found to be using a motor bike, ALL bicycles of that team should have been impounded and tested. Only two reasons exist for not doing this: (1) insane ineptitude; or (2) corruption.

You have GOT to love the UCI. They are sooooooo bad!!!

Yep. Clear as day. That they aren't doing this is more indicative of corruption than even the motor in the bike.

 

[jyl]

Re: Re:

youtube - femke bike closeup in interview

This is bike nr3. I think its a clean one.

Racing fans and photographers must be scouring the internet and their hard drives for photos of the bike that was seized, and her other bikes, and trying to determine in which races she rode the seized bike. But I haven't seen any clear exposition of this.

I know you've been examining this closely. Can you post a confirmed photo (or link to a photo) of the motorized bike that was seized at the Worlds and contained the motor?

If you read my post above you realise we need pictures from the confiscated bike. I know two of her bikes have been motorized. Possibly she changed the engine from one bike into another after everyone got suspiscious. I could find this out by searching videos and photos on the net but I dont think its important.

I initially thought that the bike being seized was the one I call Nico's bike. But for this to be true I have to be sure the UCI statement is correct. Its the bike she was riding atthe Koppencross.

If she was riding a motorized bike in the WC race, I think it is likely she'd have done better. It is very unlikely she or her mechanic would have forgotten to charge the batteries. If they did, or if the motor malfunctioned, then she'd have noticed that and come in for a bike change to the motorized bike that was sitting in the pits.

Even if the UCI actually did take that bike during the first lap, there's no rider radios in CX (even at Worlds, is that right?), so she wouldn't have known her spare bike had been seized.

Also, has there been actual confirmation that UCI did not check the bike she rode in the WC race? Witnesses, interview, statement?

Concerning the uncertainty about when the bike was taken, maybe UCI started checking bikes during lap one, and got to hers by the last lap?

Granted, It seems to me that, if she was knowingly using a motorized bike, then she would have probably have started on it at the WC race. Why would she have left her secret weapon in the pits? If she had any worries at all about bike checks, it would seem safer to start on a motorized bike than to finish on one.

 

[Benotti69]

Re: Re:

La Gazzetta implies Izaguirre is bike doping - video of spinning wheel included

http://www.gazzetta.it/Ciclismo/03-02-2016/volta-valenciana-bici-terra-ruota-continua-girare-video-izaguirre-140533589109.shtml

Couldn't it just be spinning if he didn't have time to hit the back brake? It rested on its side the entire time, so nothing would have stopped it spinning. At least to my eyes.

His rear wheel definitely hits the armco strut and that should've stopped the wheel spinning.

Also that he wanted to keep the original bike rather than take the spare don't make sense.

 

[Son of Amsterhammer]

Re: Re:

La Gazzetta implies Izaguirre is bike doping - video of spinning wheel included

http://www.gazzetta.it/Ciclismo/03-02-2016/volta-valenciana-bici-terra-ruota-continua-girare-video-izaguirre-140533589109.shtml

Couldn't it just be spinning if he didn't have time to hit the back brake? It rested on its side the entire time, so nothing would have stopped it spinning. At least to my eyes.

His rear wheel definitely hits the armco strut and that should've stopped the wheel spinning.

Also that he wanted to keep the original bike rather than take the spare don't make sense.

but when he lifts it slightly, so the tire hits the road, it stops dead. Wouldn't it have taken off and spun the bike around with any type of power going through it?

 

[Cloxxki]

If she got to change a bit (was if after lap 1), howcome there was even a bike to change to? Odd for the UCI to leave a spare bike to race. Merely letting her finish the race is strange in itself. Would the same be true if EPO labeled vials were falling out of dad's pockets in front of the UCI bike checkers? Would she be allowed to finish the race, risking getting in the way of a deserving winner? It's one sketchy course...

I agree, we need a no-BS communiqué from UCI about how many bikes were seized. For all we know the one seized was the old detectable spare mid-race bike, while she takes an more stealthy e-bike into the starting area and to doping control. Heck, that's what I would do.
I've done some cross racing myself up to a few Mens Superprestiges. I would have been fine starting the race on a clean bike myself. The start is hectic, and pulling away from others or getting tangled up in the first corner, just not worth the risk of detecting. And the first lap was my only good lap anyway. I took some great scalps on first laps. If only cross races were shorter, much shorter...
I never raced with a spare bike actually and around that time (2001 or so) there were no bike checks anyway at SP races. No AD I got to notice either. I went back to the clubhouse a few times to make sure I was not randomly picked. They also did not check my tire width, 35mm was allowed at the time. Now with >33mm I have even less of a chance in cross, I'm big.
Yes there is mud in cross, but I wouldn't worrry too much about having an out of control spinner. Surely the system is cleverer than that? I would make up SOOOO much time with 150W extra on moments I need it. Asphalt to recover while making up lots of time. Deep sucky section, climbs. Give me a couple dozen seconds of 150W per lap and I would make them count like track seconds won on my vanished twin. If it makes the difference of making a climb and not making it, for an otherwise technically weak cross rider like myself it would make a huge difference. In MTB I was known for riding up what everyone else walked, so it would have been less suspect for me. Reality in cross though, I walked every little bumb. Crossers are maniacs. And in my time, I was probably one of the very few who was not juiced. The difference a little bit of EPO or e power would have made... Much more than the Joules on tap per lap. I'm sure it changes everything. Less time spent on hill and sucky sections, more recovery from a flat straight while also saving time.... Oh and if there is 50W of regenerative braking, that would make a bike much more manageable for me on technical descends. I suppose that only goes for powered rear wheels, not cranks.

 

[Benotti69]

Re: Re:

La Gazzetta implies Izaguirre is bike doping - video of spinning wheel included

http://www.gazzetta.it/Ciclismo/03-02-2016/volta-valenciana-bici-terra-ruota-continua-girare-video-izaguirre-140533589109.shtml

Couldn't it just be spinning if he didn't have time to hit the back brake? It rested on its side the entire time, so nothing would have stopped it spinning. At least to my eyes.

His rear wheel definitely hits the armco strut and that should've stopped the wheel spinning.

Also that he wanted to keep the original bike rather than take the spare don't make sense.

but when he lifts it slightly, so the tire hits the road, it stops dead. Wouldn't it have taken off and spun the bike around with any type of power going through it?

Depends on the motor and wattage output.

 

[Tienus]

Re: Re:

The way the UCI is handling this it looks like they had to bust her (or they wouldn't have done anything of course) but at the same time they are trying to give her a way out. Bust her before she was caught in some other way to be able to have a little more control of the narrative.

The INSTANT a team is found to be using a motor bike, ALL bicycles of that team should have been impounded and tested. Only two reasons exist for not doing this: (1) insane ineptitude; or (2) corruption.

You have GOT to love the UCI. They are sooooooo bad!!!

Yep. Clear as day. That they aren't doing this is more indicative of corruption than even the motor in the bike.

Hear, hear.

She was riding for the Belgium team. Can you imagine the scandal during the WC in Belgium. Rudy de Bie was dragged in quickly.
I dont think we will see van der Haar riding in the rainbow yersey this weekend.

 

[Tienus]

If she was riding a motorized bike in the WC race, I think it is likely she'd have done better. It is very unlikely she or her mechanic would have forgotten to charge the batteries. If they did, or if the motor malfunctioned, then she'd have noticed that and come in for a bike change to the motorized bike that was sitting in the pits.

Even if the UCI actually did take that bike during the first lap, there's no rider radios in CX (even at Worlds, is that right?), so she wouldn't have known her spare bike had been seized.

I dont think she is a very talented rider and not every track or condition suits her e-bike.

After she abandoned she found her spare bike in the pits.

 

[Son of Amsterhammer]

Re: Re:

Depends on the motor and wattage output

Well sure to an extent, but wouldn't the amount of power be tiny if all it took to stop the wheel dead was doing that? It stops dead, no movement at all.

 

[Tienus]

I did have a quick look through videos and fotos from the Koppenberg race onwards. She is riding the bike from the koppenberg every race until and including the 5th of December. A week later (Franchorchamps) she starts using another bike, the one with the white sadle. From then on she uses this one every race including the world championship. She got some really good results on it and you can see her pushing a button on the right brake several times.

Her sponsors FB page is a good source for pictures. Even when her sponsor gave her a new bike as a present for winning the European title she kept using the white sadle bike.
https://www.facebook.com/1418997204987882/photos/pb.1418997204987882.-2207520000.1454529990./1743563055864627/?type=3&theater

This could mean she only had one engine and swapped it mid season.

 

[sniper]

Re: Re:

La Gazzetta implies Izaguirre is bike doping - video of spinning wheel included

http://www.gazzetta.it/Ciclismo/03-02-2016/volta-valenciana-bici-terra-ruota-continua-girare-video-izaguirre-140533589109.shtml

Couldn't it just be spinning if he didn't have time to hit the back brake? It rested on its side the entire time, so nothing would have stopped it spinning. At least to my eyes.

His rear wheel definitely hits the armco strut and that should've stopped the wheel spinning.

Also that he wanted to keep the original bike rather than take the spare don't make sense.

remember that mobile phone video clip posted last year where a movistar rider stands along the road with a broken bike and the mechanic yells something like 'quickly hide it!'
I could think of only one plausible explanation back then.

Movistar and motodoping. Say it aint so.

 

[jyl]

Re:

I did have a quick look through videos and fotos from the Koppenberg race onwards. She is riding the bike from the koppenberg every race until and including the 5th of December. A week later (Franchorchamps) she starts using another bike, the one with the white sadle. From then on she uses this one every race including the world championship. She got some really good results on it and you can see her pushing a button on the right brake several times.

Her sponsors FB page is a good source for pictures. Even when her sponsor gave her a new bike as a present for winning the European title she kept using the white sadle bike.
https://www.facebook.com/1418997204987882/photos/pb.1418997204987882.-2207520000.1454529990./1743563055864627/?type=3&theater

This could mean she only had one engine and swapped it mid season.

Thank you! That is great information. I'm looking at those photos now.

Have you found a photo that is definitely of the bike that was checked and found to have a motor? Maybe someone photographed it as the commissaires were checking it with the tablet or taking it away?

I wonder which team the UCI will go after. Trade team or national team.

 

[MacRoadie]

Re: Re:

Granted, It seems to me that, if she was knowingly using a motorized bike, then she would have probably have started on it at the WC race. Why would she have left her secret weapon in the pits? If she had any worries at all about bike checks, it would seem safer to start on a motorized bike than to finish on one.

It would be safer to roll up to the line where you're surrounded by commissaires, announcers, press, spectators and other riders, while sitting stationary during call ups and staging, on a clean, totally compliant ride, then switch to a motor during the controlled chaos of the race, where there might be one or two commissaires in the pits trying to watch 60 riders enter and exit simultaneously and where you have bikes stacked on bikes, surrounded by wheels and mechanics and mud.

Switching back to the clean bike towards the end of the race, after enjoying the benefit of the motor, would make more sense. Yes, the risk of losing position late in a race is there, but in a well-choreographed pit change the risk can be minimized.

 

[carton]

Re: Re:

remember that mobile phone video clip posted last year where a movistar rider stands along the road with a broken bike and the mechanic yells something like 'quickly hide it!'
I could think of only one plausible explanation back then.

Movistar and motodoping. Say it aint so.

Really. Only one? This was debated ad nauseum. That you find it more likely that they hid it in this instance because of a hidden motor is all fine and dandy. Entirely your prerogative. But do you seriously find it entirely beyond the realm of possibilities that a team would want to hide a sponsors' broken frame (resulting, if I remember correctly, from a fairly light incident)?

 

[WillemS]

So, there are questions that need to be asked of the UCI. One of the first questions asked should be: Why did it take this long for the UCI to come up with screening methods? I mean, they seem to be using tablets and other readily available devices and the symptoms they're trying to measure aren't exactly revolutionary as well.

The thing is, screen methods don't to be extensively validated before being applied in the field. With pharmaceutical doping tests, the laboratory test is usually the sole piece of evidence in a doping case. Therefore the testing method has to be extensively validated and found reliable before it can be applied.

Screening methods for mechanical doping don't need that, as, after the bike apart apart, the motor is either there or it's not. So you don't have to be overly concerned with false positives as you just won't find a motor on closer examination (it just costs you some resources to do a full check). As soon as you find a method that has a decent level of reliability and validity, you can apply and test it in the field. There's no need for the development process to take as long as blood or urine tests.

Moreover, I think that if you hire a couple of (electrical) engineering and physics students for an internship, they can probably build you a couple of mobile detectors that are relatively cheap and easy to build. Magnetometers, metal detectors, ultrasound, and what have you. It shouldn't be too hard to check if a hollow carbon frame is actually hollow.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re: Re:

I dont think she is a very talented rider and not every track or condition suits her e-bike.

After she abandoned she found her spare bike in the pits.

She won a national championship in category back in 2011, but apart from that there's a seeming lack of standout results until fairly recently when she's suddenly winning pretty significant races in category and getting surprisingly good results in World Cup races. That said, she's 19 years old, and this is the first year there's been a U23 women's World Championships, so detailed results that enable us to compare her directly against her contemporaries without digging beneath the elites are few and far between, so her improvement this season to competing well with the elites no doubt looks even more suspicious as a result.

It would be safer to roll up to the line where you're surrounded by commissaires, announcers, press, spectators and other riders, while sitting stationary during call ups and staging, on a clean, totally compliant ride, then switch to a motor during the controlled chaos of the race, where there might be one or two commissaires in the pits trying to watch 60 riders enter and exit simultaneously and where you have bikes stacked on bikes, surrounded by wheels and mechanics and mud.

Switching back to the clean bike towards the end of the race, after enjoying the benefit of the motor, would make more sense. Yes, the risk of losing position late in a race is there, but in a well-choreographed pit change the risk can be minimized.

When we were seeing the videos of her finishing Koppenbergcross, Hoogerheide, Essen, that did make me wonder. In each of them there was no sprint to the line, she was on her own. While some of them were more subtle than others (Essen in particular wasn't clear I thought, since her hands were already in the "button-pressing" position before the cameras picked her up, but the Koppenberg one was fairly clear), you would have thought that "button-pressing" action (assuming that was what she was doing) would have been best done before the closing straight where the cameras are on her, and changing grips etc due to the course is understandable.

 

[BullsFan22]

Re: Mechanical doping: first rider caught

Armstrong at Ventoux 2000 AND 2002? The way he rode away from Beloki was ridiculous. Beloki in 2002 attacked, then sat down, but kept the pace up, then Armstrong attacks, Beloki seems to respond, but can't get to Armstrong, who simply rides away. It's not like Beloki didn't go with the counter attack, it's that Armstrong just went. He was out of the saddle but didn't seem to put that much effort in on the counter attack. To stay with the 2002 Tour, Plateau de Baille, when Armstrong, Beloki and Heras were going at it. Armstrong takes over the lead, and seemingly just rides away from both guys. He was in the saddle and riding what was for him, a low gear. Beloki tried to get back, riding out of the saddle, but again, no chance whatsoever.

Youtube those particular stages and you'll see what I am talking about. I don't know about the arm flinching and the finger movement, but now that I think about possible motor doping, this isn't so far fetched.

 

[blackcat]

Re: Re:

You know as well as I do that he would have never been popped for those three atoms of Clen in his blood had he not defied Armstrong - not to say that the Clen got there accidentally.

half life



1/2 life



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half lives

 

[MarkvW]

Re: Mechanical doping: first rider caught

Armstrong at Ventoux 2000 AND 2002? The way he rode away from Beloki was ridiculous. Beloki in 2002 attacked, then sat down, but kept the pace up, then Armstrong attacks, Beloki seems to respond, but can't get to Armstrong, who simply rides away. It's not like Beloki didn't go with the counter attack, it's that Armstrong just went. He was out of the saddle but didn't seem to put that much effort in on the counter attack. To stay with the 2002 Tour, Plateau de Baille, when Armstrong, Beloki and Heras were going at it. Armstrong takes over the lead, and seemingly just rides away from both guys. He was in the saddle and riding what was for him, a low gear. Beloki tried to get back, riding out of the saddle, but again, no chance whatsoever.

Youtube those particular stages and you'll see what I am talking about. I don't know about the arm flinching and the finger movement, but now that I think about possible motor doping, this isn't so far fetched.

Extremely unlikely that motorbiking would have gotten past Floyd and the other snitches.

 

[Freddythefrog]

Re: Mechanical doping: first rider caught

Armstrong at Ventoux 2000 AND 2002? The way he rode away from Beloki was ridiculous............... possible motor doping, this isn't so far fetched.

Extremely unlikely that motorbiking would have gotten past Floyd and the other snitches.

What you think Floyd and Tyler told you the truth about everything ?

(Are people still waiting for a refund on their contribution to the Floyd Fairness Fund ? )

The technology was floating around prior to this.

Highly likely. Very highly likely. Sestriere the first use ?