Ryders crash -motor?

[GoodTimes]

Here is a link to a cheap battery with the specs described in my calculations.

http://www.batteryspace.com/high-po...50a-rate-----ul-listed-un38-3-passed-3-0.aspx

The capacity is about 20% lower than what I anticipate being required. However, the weight is on target, at 210 grams.

Also, the volume is considerably larger, however I suspect this is at least in part a result of the packaging and the shape. This looks to be designed for a tablet computer, or something similar. A cylindrical shape may be much more space-efficient.

This battery is a rechargeable lithium battery. From my reading, I believe that non-rechargeable Lithium-Ion batteries have a much higher specific energy, and should be able to exceed the spec's of the battery linked. I note that the max discharge rate for this battery is given as 50 A, which is more than sufficient for the proposed 25W motor.

D-Queued, if you don't mind, would you pass on the contact information for the people who you think I could sell this battery to? I wouldn't mind being a millionaire.

 

[D-Queued]

Hello, thanks for your input.

I provided my source, which was wikipedia. Admittidly not the most academic of places for information, but indeed, not something I dreamed up. Instead of pejoratives, do you care to tell us what you think the specific energy of a lithium ion battery is? Do you have a source for that? Do you care to refute any of the calculations that I offered?

...

I did not use pejoratives. Nor was I trolling or criticizing the messenger.

Wikipedia is smarter than me.

Did you allow for connections, packaging, design criteria (recharge, lifetime, cycles, etc.), controls, etc.? Batteries are actually very complicated things to design for real world applications. Complications often cause added weight beyond theoretical storage density.

Moreover, not packing highly reactive things like Lithium safely can make life interesting, or even terminal. Seriously terminal. More than one battery company has fared poorly after an end-user suffered catastrophic failure.

We have one source, provided in this thread above, for a real motor and battery - optimized for a road bike - that could 'potentially' have been applied in this case.

http://www.vivax-assist.com/en/produkte/vivax-assist-4-0/vivax-assist_4-0.html

The combined motor + small battery = 1.8 kg.

The batteries themselves are quoted as weighing 900 and 1800 grams. Notably, the 2x heavier battery only provides 50% more Amp-hours.

I cannot offer, or am too lazy to offer, anything more than such a real world example. Though, if you are really super interested I can probably inbox you a few references.

Dave.

 

[Granville57]

In this specific instance it seems laughable that Garmin would jeopardize the overall sponsorship attempting something like this. That an individual rider could accomplish it without his team's knowledge is also laughable because it's all visible to the mechanics and eventually the world.

I realize that this thread is long, and that my post count is, by far, the highest of anyone, but please read back on what I've been saying.
We're merely echoing each other here.

Examples:

I think the risk of hoping to get away with it would be completely insane, but I wouldn't be shocked if someone were caught out in the near future.

For Garmin to do it?
As has been mentioned, they'd be finished. Top to bottom. Never to return. The cycling media would create a firestorm far beyond anything that included the word "Lance."

It won't end a team, IMO.

However, I think it would end JV's team.

Given his public posturing on this and so many other issues, I can't imagine how Garmin would survive such a maelstrom.

I've said this before, but I feel very strongly that if anyone were ever found to be mechanically doping their bike in the pro peloton, there would have to be lifetime bans for rider, mechanic and DS. No way such a thing could take place without the knowledge of at least those three people. No way.

It would be such an egregious distortion of the sport, so thoroughly premeditated and with such a high degree of complicity among such a trio (if not more people), that it would have to result in lifetime bans.

 

[GoodTimes]

I did not use pejoratives. Nor was I trolling or criticizing the messenger.

Wikipedia is smarter than me.

Did you allow for connections, packaging, design criteria (recharge, lifetime, cycles, etc.), controls, etc.? Batteries are actually very complicated things to design for real world applications. Complications often cause added weight beyond theoretical storage density.

Moreover, not packing highly reactive things like Lithium safely can make life interesting, or even terminal. Seriously terminal. More than one battery company has fared poorly after an end-user suffered catastrophic failure.

We have one source, provided in this thread above, for a real motor and battery - optimized for a road bike - that could 'potentially' have been applied in this case.

http://www.vivax-assist.com/en/produkte/vivax-assist-4-0/vivax-assist_4-0.html

The combined motor + small battery = 1.8 kg.

The batteries themselves are quoted as weighing 900 and 1800 grams. Notably, the 2x heavier battery only provides 50% more Amp-hours.

I cannot offer, or am too lazy to offer, anything more than such a real world example. Though, if you are really super interested I can probably inbox you a few references.

Dave.

The referenced motor provides up to 200 watts of power, and weighs an estimated 900 g (inferred by me, website is not clear). The motor that I have proposed needs to produce 25 W. This is about 1/8 the power of the referenced motor. I think my estimated 300 g (including wires) is reasonable.


Regarding the battery... From what I can see on the website, the referenced battery (ie the 9Ah version) has a capacity of 300Wh, at a mass of 1300 g. This converts to a specific energy of 300 Wh / 1.3 kg = 230 Wh / kg, which is closer to my original calculation, than the conservative one based on MIT. Especially when you consider that this is a rechargeable battery, which would not be a requirement for a serious cheating pro, I think my original numbers are not far off the mark.

So, purely from a technologically feasible point of view, yes, I think that the numbers that I have provided are reasonable, and at this time would stand behind them as being plausible.

I'd like to ask that everybody in this thread stop making such forceful assumptions. Both sides of this debate are just as bad. The motorists are not all on crack, the skeptics have good reason to be skeptical. Can't we all just get along?

 

[cantpedal]

now look at the shadows. the angle of the camera has changed dramatically. the UFO's anti gravity device must have severely hampered the cold fusion reactor to distort space and time so your theories would apply.

 

[GoodTimes]

About 20 pages ago, I posed the question as to whether there is currently a gap between technology and UCI inspection that would provide the opportunity to motor-cheat.

I think the answer is yes. Technologically, it seems possible to put a small motor, and sufficient capacity battery, in a location that is not routinely inspected by the UCI, nor immediately obvious to a keen observer.

This echos what several notable persons, including Chris Boardman, have said.

 

[proffate]

Given $400k/yr to a doctor seems normal if you gave $100k to a talented Engineer there is no doubt in my mind he would make it fit. The problem for the doubters is you guys keep thinking of chunky e-bike motors but they aren't required because you don't need the torque. Therefore very small, high rpm motors will suffice.

I think it would be worth a lot more than $100k to take it to market. There's no way a pro could pay more than the market value of such technology.

 

[GoodTimes]

I think it would be worth a lot more than $100k to take it to market. There's no way a pro could pay more than the market value of such technology.

It would cost significantly less to make a functional prototype than a marketable finished unit. That said, I agree that it is not a mundane technological challenge.

 

[Catwhoorg]

They would only laugh because of their ignorance.

Transistor packing density in semiconductors was, and is, incredibly inefficient (e.g. subject to the constraints of photolithography). This is why Moore's Law remains valid.

Electrochemical reactions, motor windings, etc., suffer from the limitations of basic physics (e.g. atomic electrochemical potential).

It is ignorant to compare the semiconductor industry and its progress with electrochemical appliances like batteries (and motors and photovoltaics and fuel cells, etc.).



Cheers.



In your dreams, but not in reality.

If you can pack that kind of energy density your invention will provide you with a multi-million dollar opportunity, and probably much more. And, it won't be the three-week grand tour, bicycle cheating market that comes calling.

Dave.

Couple of real world Examples to frame this discussion by:
Nissan Leaf battery weighs 300 kg
Capacity is 24 kWh

(80 Wh/Kg)

Samsung Galaxy S4 battery
Weight 7.2 oz (204 g)
capacity 2600 mA/h (at 3.8 V) which converts to 9.88 Wh

Doing the math (9.88 *1000/204) that's 48.4 Wh/Kg


Weight was incorrect. I physically weighed one at ~40g for 247 Wh/Kg

I''d expect a bike system to be closer to the phone than the car.

 

[GoodTimes]

Couple of real world Examples to frame this discussion by:
Nissan Leaf battery weighs 300 kg
Capacity is 24 kWh

(80 Wh/Kg)

Samsung Galaxy S4 battery
Weight 7.2 oz (204 g)
capacity 2600 mA/h (at 3.8 V) which converts to 9.88 Wh

Doing the math (9.88 *1000/204) that's 48.4 Wh/Kg


I''d expect a bike system to be in the maybe 50-60WhKg range.
Closer to the phone than the car.

Please provide a source for those #s.

 

[GoodTimes]

Couple of real world Examples to frame this discussion by:
Nissan Leaf battery weighs 300 kg
Capacity is 24 kWh

(80 Wh/Kg)

Samsung Galaxy S4 battery
Weight 7.2 oz (204 g)
capacity 2600 mA/h (at 3.8 V) which converts to 9.88 Wh

Doing the math (9.88 *1000/204) that's 48.4 Wh/Kg


I''d expect a bike system to be in the maybe 50-60WhKg range.
Closer to the phone than the car.

Would you like to provide us with a source for your information? It contradicts what I have read.

Are you interested in interacting with my analyis of these batteries, which corroborate my information?
http://www.batteryspace.com/high-pow...assed-3-0.aspx
http://www.vivax-assist.com/en/produ...ssist_4-0.html

Are you going to interact with the references to MIT presentations, or wikipedia?

 

[fishtacos]

Unless you have an external battery source, there's (probably) no way you're going to get a hub motor that's small enough to do any good without someone noticing that your hubs are strangely oversized on only some of your teams' wheels. And, if you have an external battery source, you're gonna have wires coming out of the hub. I think someone might notice that at some point... And the idea of having a completely internal motor, battery, controller and wireless receiver in a hub that's the more or less the same size as a production hub? Well, I'd be real impressed, that's for sure.

There's clearly a possibility of running a motor inside the downtube, since there's a product on the market that does just that, but that's where the UCI is looking (when and if they look). There's also the problem that many of the modern frames with press-fit BBs have a molded shell that closes off the BB area from the down tube, so you'd have to go in and grind out a pretty big hole in the BB shell to get the motor in place. So much for your warranty!

I don't really see anywhere else it can go besides hub or above the BB to add drive - even with massive chainstays, it's going to be really hard to get to the BB spindle. And, again, that's where the UCI would allegedly look.

just thinking aloud... re-positioning my tinfoil hat...

 

[ScienceIsCool]

Physicist here, who started his career with a Li-Ion battery manufacturer (actually, the first that commercialized cells!). The gravimetric energy density for an 18650 cell these days is 100 Wh/kg. http://www.molicel.com/ca/products.html

Smaller batteries have more hardware (casing, short-circuit protection etc) to battery ratio than larger ones due to pure geometry, so larger cells have more Wh/kg than smaller ones. For most small packs, the charge, charge protection circuitry and inverter (to create a constant voltage source) are quite small and add little to the weight and complexity. For large applications like cars, not so much.

Anyways, from my previous analysis (based on actual measured moment of inertia for a rear wheel), from an energy balance perspective it's physically possible that Ryder's bike spun the way it did. Super not probable, though. Yes, a motor is more likely and yes, a system could be made that would explain what we saw in the video.

Don't forget that battery and motor size are dependent on the application. Is it to add 20 Watts over an entire stage? Or is it meant to be a short ~100W burst to help close a gap? I'd think it'd be a system designed to run for less than 15 minutes and allow a rider to bridge a gap, keep up on the tricky parts of a long climb, etc. Easily done and easily concealed in the hub.

John Swanson

 

[fishtacos]

a motor is more likely

I think you might want to think about that statement. Occam's Razor and all that.

 

[GoodTimes]

Physicist here, who started his career with a Li-Ion battery manufacturer (actually, the first that commercialized cells!). The gravimetric energy density for an 18650 cell these days is 100 Wh/kg. http://www.molicel.com/ca/products.html

Smaller batteries have more hardware (casing, short-circuit protection etc) to battery ratio than larger ones due to pure geometry, so larger cells have more Wh/kg than smaller ones. For most small packs, the charge, charge protection circuitry and inverter (to create a constant voltage source) are quite small and add little to the weight and complexity. For large applications like cars, not so much.

Anyways, from my previous analysis (based on actual measured moment of inertia for a rear wheel), from an energy balance perspective it's physically possible that Ryder's bike spun the way it did. Super not probable, though. Yes, a motor is more likely and yes, a system could be made that would explain what we saw in the video.

Don't forget that battery and motor size are dependent on the application. Is it to add 20 Watts over an entire stage? Or is it meant to be a short ~100W burst to help close a gap? I'd think it'd be a system designed to run for less than 15 minutes and allow a rider to bridge a gap, keep up on the tricky parts of a long climb, etc. Easily done and easily concealed in the hub.

John Swanson

Hello John.

Please have a look at the analysis that I did on the video much earlier in this thread, ~ pg 25. In it, I showed that as long as the backwheel maintained 25% of it's initial kinetic energy, that would be sufficient to cause the observed behavior of the bicycle.

Also, have a look @ Michael Rasmussen's experiment. Should come up quickly if you google or it.



On the topic of battery energy densty, I think you are much too low in your value, as it does not corroborate any of the other sources that I have seen. Would you be able to spell it out for me where the value you quote comes from? it's not immediately obvious from looking @ the link you've provided. That said, the value you give would still make for a completely workable solution.

I agree /w fish taco that there is a serious leap to go from the realm of "a motor is technically feasible" to "a motor is the best explanation for te Ryder video". We have all moved on from analyzing Ryder's crash further, and are looking at motorized (pro, road) bikes in general.

 

[GoodTimes]

Unless you have an external battery source, there's (probably) no way you're going to get a hub motor that's small enough to do any good without someone noticing that your hubs are strangely oversized on only some of your teams' wheels. And, if you have an external battery source, you're gonna have wires coming out of the hub. I think someone might notice that at some point... And the idea of having a completely internal motor, battery, controller and wireless receiver in a hub that's the more or less the same size as a production hub? Well, I'd be real impressed, that's for sure.

Mostly agree. A controller would be very small / light. I would keep it, and the battery pack, outside of the hub. There are a few ideas I could see for running electricity into the hub that does not rely on external wiring. The battery pack would have to go elsewhere.

I don't really see anywhere else it can go besides hub or above the BB to add drive - even with massive chainstays, it's going to be really hard to get to the BB spindle. And, again, that's where the UCI would allegedly look.

just thinking aloud... re-positioning my tinfoil hat...

Agree re possible locatiions. I posed the question earlier in this thread if anybody could verify whether the UCI actually inspect the seat tube. I have seen asertions that they tend to x-ray this area. This could be true, hence my propensity for a hub motor. But it would be good if it were confirmed.

 

[Granville57]

There's clearly a possibility of running a motor inside the downtube, since there's a product on the market that does just that, but that's where the UCI is looking (when and if they look).

Along those lines, was there ever any follow-up from this tweet back in July?

Frankie ANDREU
@FakieFrankie · Jul 22
x ray of the bike behind podium for first finishers. I hope the uci know what they are looking for, it can be tiny.
https://twitter.com/FakieFrankie/status/491609188833824768

Although that account isn't "Verified" it was my understanding that it does, in fact, belong to Frankie Andreu (no doubt that could confirmed either way by certain members of this forum).

If so, was he being funny, cryptic, or something else?

Curious.

 

[ScienceIsCool]

Hello John.

Please have a look at the analysis that I did on the video much earlier in this thread, ~ pg 25. In it, I showed that as long as the backwheel maintained 25% of it's initial kinetic energy, that would be sufficient to cause the observed behavior of the bicycle.

Also, have a look @ Michael Rasmussen's experiment. Should come up quickly if you google or it.



On the topic of battery energy densty, I think you are much too low in your value, as it does not corroborate any of the other sources that I have seen. Would you be able to spell it out for me where the value you quote comes from? it's not immediately obvious from looking @ the link you've provided. That said, the value you give would still make for a completely workable solution.

I agree /w fish taco that there is a serious leap to go from the realm of "a motor is technically feasible" to "a motor is the best explanation for te Ryder video". We have all moved on from analyzing Ryder's crash further, and are looking at motorized (pro, road) bikes in general.

Yup. I'm aware of your analysis (flawed assumptions of moment of inertia) and Rasmussen's useless demo (doesn't represent what happened - i.e., spin up the rear wheel and then drop/slide the bike onto the ground; it certainly won't spin the way Rasmussen's bike did...). My values for energy density come very directly from the link I sent. State of the art for a LiMnO2 (Manganese based Li-Ion) cell is roughly 100 Wh/kg. Lithium Cobaltite cells (same link) have roughly 200 Wh/kg energy density, but are useless for this type of application because they suffer from low ion mobility (i.e., high internal resistance) at high currents.

John Swanson

 

[D-Queued]

Yup. I'm aware of your analysis (flawed assumptions of moment of inertia) and Rasmussen's useless demo (doesn't represent what happened - i.e., spin up the rear wheel and then drop/slide the bike onto the ground; it certainly won't spin the way Rasmussen's bike did...). My values for energy density come very directly from the link I sent. State of the art for a LiMnO2 (Manganese based Li-Ion) cell is roughly 100 Wh/kg. Lithium Cobaltite cells (same link) have roughly 200 Wh/kg energy density, but are useless for this type of application because they suffer from low ion mobility (i.e., high internal resistance) at high currents.

John Swanson

These numbers seem reasonable to me. Though, I am basing that on knowledge of other electrochemical devices and a working knowledge of how they might compare with Li-Ion.

Dave.

 

[Kicker661]

great post. Inspired me to play with a few numbers.

To put it in perspective, an extra 25W would be the difference between about 6 W/kg, and 6.4 W/kg in the average sized racer.

Suppose you only needed it in the business end of the race. I think a 1 hr duration would be enough to make a difference.

Suppose this motor weighed .3 kg. If anything, this sounds generous, and I suspect it could be done with less mass.

How heavy, and how big, would the battery be to power the above motor?

The weight of our proposed system is only 90 + 300 ~ 400 g. We can round up to half a kg....

The smaller motor is under 50gms.

Lipo battery for bursts is around 30gms. You then need gearing which will add some weight.

To me it is plausible to have a system for bursts only with a total run time of 2-5mins.

Running anything for an hour or more i don't think is possible because of heat. You can cool things down with gearing/motor/battery but that changes sizes of things.

The cars i had setup to run back to back packs for an hour (these were around 3kg and top speed 100km/h) had the motor sitting around boiling temp the entire time and that was a competely open, air cooled system!

A motor inside a sealed hub is going to fry inside of a minute on full power.

I have seen rc cars at the track stop and then burst into flames. I have had one of my own cars melt It happens more often than you think when you run things hard.

I think it would be worth a lot more than $100k to take it to market. There's no way a pro could pay more than the market value of such technology.

You have it all wrong as you go to someone with brains and pay them $100k to fabricate a one off system for you.

Have you seen what the hobby guys create nowadays? The hardcore guys create insane custom cars/trucks/planes from their garages fitted out like machinists.

You don't need a Billion dollar company to come up with this stuff. The parts already exist. The diffs in rc cars hitting 150km/h+ are a little bigger than 1cm3. The diff in my 15kg rc truck is about 1.5cm3 and that survived a massive amount of abuse time after time WAY more than what would be required for a burst system i am referring to. You don't need metals from Mars or anything exotic, the current stuff will handle it.

Physicist here, who started his career with a Li-Ion battery manufacturer (actually, the first that commercialized cells!). The gravimetric energy density for an 18650 cell these days is 100 Wh/kg. http://www.molicel.com/ca/products.html

From an energy balance perspective it's physically possible that Ryder's bike spun the way it did. Super not probable, though. Yes, a motor is more likely and yes, a system could be made that would explain what we saw in the video.

Don't forget that battery and motor size are dependent on the application. Is it to add 20 Watts over an entire stage? Or is it meant to be a short ~100W burst to help close a gap? I'd think it'd be a system designed to run for less than 15 minutes and allow a rider to bridge a gap, keep up on the tricky parts of a long climb, etc. Easily done and easily concealed in the hub.

John Swanson

Look at Chris Froome's attack style. He sustains 30-60 seconds of all out power and obliterates everyone (except Contador).

I'm not saying he has a motor but i am saying if you put a motor system in your bike, that is the application you would use it for and IMO the only plausible application.

 

[Oldman]

I realize that this thread is long, and that my post count is, by far, the highest of anyone, but please read back on what I've been saying.
We're merely echoing each other here.

Examples:

I hadn't read this....it's like we're twins.

 

[Granville57]

...it's like we're twins.

Aw shucks.

 

[Race Radio]

Along those lines, was there ever any follow-up from this tweet back in July?

Although that account isn't "Verified" it was my understanding that it does, in fact, belong to Frankie Andreu (no doubt that could confirmed either way by certain members of this forum).

If so, was he being funny, cryptic, or something else?

Curious.

Yes, that is the real Frankie. No he is not being funny/cryptic. There are many people who think that the motor is so small that it could be missed. Personally I think that it would be hard to hide.

This is the motor that is perhaps the most advanced, smallest. The one that Cancellara and Lance are "Connected" to.

http://bicitruccata.com/

There is also this one

https://vimeo.com/104632715

Yes, there is a lot of talk about this. Some of the talk comes from people I respect and trust, but personally I don't buy it yet

 

[GoodTimes]

Yup. I'm aware of your analysis (flawed assumptions of moment of inertia) and Rasmussen's useless demo (doesn't represent what happened - i.e., spin up the rear wheel and then drop/slide the bike onto the ground; it certainly won't spin the way Rasmussen's bike did...). My values for energy density come very directly from the link I sent. State of the art for a LiMnO2 (Manganese based Li-Ion) cell is roughly 100 Wh/kg. Lithium Cobaltite cells (same link) have roughly 200 Wh/kg energy density, but are useless for this type of application because they suffer from low ion mobility (i.e., high internal resistance) at high currents.

John Swanson

In my analysis I showed my work, and provided a source for all parameters. For moment of inertia, I used the value that was alledgedly found experimentally from some guy on some other forum. I hold to it loosely, and would not defend it strongly. That said, currently all you have provided is an assertion that I am incorrect. Woud you care to provide your moment of inertia value, and any supporting analysis / experimentation to support this value? is it significantly lower than the value that my calculations used? If the difference is small, all that would show is that more energy would need to be retained between time of crash until time ryder unclips foot.... so perhaps it's a bit of a trivial disagreement. But without more information from you, all we are left with is assertions.

Rasmussen's experiment is relevent insofar as it shows that the basic behavior is reasonable.

Regarding energy density, thank you for the clarification. I invite you to comment on some of the links that i have provided. They claim or report much higher specific energies than your source. Regardless though, your lower specific energy is still practiable for a successful motor impimentation, so perhaps we shoud move on as this is somewhat of a trivial point of disagreement.

 

[GoodTimes]

Yes, that is the real Frankie. No he is not being funny/cryptic. There are many people who think that the motor is so small that it could be missed. Personally I think that it would be hard to hide.

This is the motor that is perhaps the most advanced, smallest. The one that Cancellara and Lance are "Connected" to.

http://bicitruccata.com/

There is also this one

https://vimeo.com/104632715

Yes, there is a lot of talk about this. Some of the talk comes from people I respect and trust, but personally I don't buy it yet

Thank you for this information. Very interesting. I came to this thread wildly skeptical about the possibility of motorized bikes. I maintain that the video of Ryder was not suspicious. However, there is quite a bit of interesting stuff out there.

The referenced bikes all have 200W + motors. I think this is much more than required to make the difference at the pointy end of a race. I suspect a "tiny" motor is indeed a possibility.