Sagan Clean?

[sniper]

Re: Re:

Lol. Marangoni, guy suspected of being part of the plot, says all bike changes were above board.
Glad we got that settled.

And enough of the pedantry already peter. No need to turn this into a pissing contest.

Why I am not surprised that you are not happy with my post?

i'm happy with your post.
you put a lot of work in it, which is appreciated.
but i don't like to see you so upset and directing your anger at others who are here to have fun and exchange thoughts.
it's not a pissing contest peter.
it's as if your not happy with this thread and discussion.
try have some fun and try to play ball.
that will aid the discussion.

 

[Irondan]

Let's keep this discussion about the topic and please comment in an impersonal manner.

Cheers.

 

[red_flanders]

Interesting post Peter, glad to see your input. From your image, I can't tell which one is Sagan or you think is Sagan. Is it the rider(s) circled? That circular spot which appears to be on the back of the leading C-dale rider is the following rider's head.

Maybe you're referring to another rider.

At 22:26 we have this group of (I think) Cannondales near the front. I did not see anyone who looked like Sagan in the crash preceding. Looked like one Cannondale rider down under the bridge, but it was hard to tell. I don't see Sagan in the group near the front, but I can't tell who he is.

Is Sagan in this group near the front?

I can't tell but it looks like a group of C-dale riders. There was definitely a group of C-dale riders further back and chasing, I assume that was the group Sagan was in but I can't be sure at all.

At 26:02 we see Sagan at the back swapping bikes, and "Race radio is saying he's had a flat".

Note that we see 3 bikes involved. The one circled has the back wheel off at 26:03. That's Sagan in between the two support personnel climbing on a bike.

 

[Tom the Engine]

And while I'm ranting let me add a couple of more comments and criticism on the evidence from this Stade 2 documentary.

1) No context given, no baseline comparison
In my last post I suggested that an investigative documentary about motors should only aim at either physically revealing a motor in a race bike or catching somebody off guard who is trying to hide something that couldn't really be anything else than a motor. But let's assume for a moment that both is not possible and we have to settle for pieces of evidence only. Even then this Stade 2 film is awful.
They showed a couple of seconds of footage (out of many many recorded minutes I suppose) where something looks kinda suspicious - sometimes more, sometimes less so. How does this compare to context? They compared it to a bike with a motor in it. But this thermal image was a completely different ball game then the ones from the peloton. You could argue that pros would probably use a much more sophisticated system that wasn't so obvious and that they couldn't get hold of for the documentary. Fair enough.
But then, how does their suspicious footage compare to a bunch of known "clean" bikes that are filmed while racing? Does anybody know how these different bikes would normally look in thermal images like these? I have no idea! And I don't mean in a sterile laboratory setting with a static camera but in such messy, fast moving race conditions. They show other bikes in the race that are not glowing, but (technical flaws discussed below aside) that's not what I'm talking about.
To convincingly label it "suspicious" they should at least have made some effort to demonstrate that this is not something you would ever observe with clean bikes under identical circumstances. Simple comparison to baseline.

2) Color scale of thermal images
These color scales that are used in heatmaps (I mean heatmaps as general graphics type and not just the ones that are literally about heat) are usually designed in a way to have maximal contrast, i.e. so that even small differences are clearly visible. As a consequence they are not at all suited for visual judgements about absolute or relative magnitudes. They're fine for a first exploration. But at some point you necessarily have to stick numbers to it and stop interpreting colors and color differences, or be prepared to fool yourself mightily.
In this case the colors are particularly misleading as the interesting regions we're discussing appear in this bright orange, melted metal color, that suggests "glowing" to everybody who looks at it. Nothing is glowing here, these regions are not even warm, the measured temperature is just slightly higher than in the vicinity. Because of a motor inside? Maybe, maybe not.

3) Dynamic color scale of thermal images
It gets worse. The color scale that the camera provides is not static, it is self-adjusting based on the currently measured temperature range. You can see in the video on the right side how the upper and lower limits fluctuate constantly and considerably. And whenever an very warm object like a motorbike or the front of a car comes into sight, the upper temperature limit shoots up, the colors in the image go crazy and they have to cut quickly. These cases are no problem because the effect is so obviously disruptive that it renders the image completely useless. But the very same effect comes into play all the time in a subtle way that is (especially in combination with the characteristics of the color scale discussed above) extremely damaging!
As a result you can't reliably compare two different thermal images that are shot with a (even slightly) different color scale range. You could see a glowing hub in one shot and hardly any difference in color in an other shot although the temperature differences were exactly the same for both bikes. Just a purely artificial visual effect because in the first shot the temperatures of the two areas happened to correspond to a region in the color scale with a large gradient while in the other shot they didn't.
These guys just took a thermal camera off the shelf and went with its default settings that are not really suitable to answer the kind of questions they were interested in under the given circumstances. With just a little bit of thought they could have customized the settings to produce actually useful material. But they didn't.

4) Thermal cameras and their precision
Never forget: What we're seeing in a thermal image is not "the truth" but a measurement followed by software processing the signal to produce the final image. There are obviously different sources of uncertainty that come into play and might distort the result. How precise is it? I don't know, but I certainly would imagine it to be quite accurate when the thermal camera is static and the measured object and the temperatures involved are static as well. But how precise is it in a scenario like this where the camera itself, the measured objects and the termperature ranges are moving fast? I've seen other forum members interpreting details in screenshots like homogeneity of color (heat) in the rear hub to discuss things like a point source of heat or effects of air-cooling. Are you guys really confident that the error bars on these images given the circumstances are small enough such that an in-depth break down is warranted? I'm not. And I don't trust the guys who filmed it that they even thought about potential issues like these. Because, see point 3) above. They did show their footage to an expert in thermal imaging but this leads me straight to the next point:

5) Post hoc expert endorsement
This engineer in the film (not Varjas) clearly does not look comfortable at all to make bold statements. He just vaguely formulates the obvious that literally every layman can see ("this regions seems a bit warmer than this"). And the journalist pushes for confirmation. (If that's the most enthusiastic quote they could squeeze out of him then he probably wasn't terribly impressed with the material anyway. But that's really just guessing.)
I don't know the background of this interview but I guess everybody working at an university (or an otherwise exposed position) immediately recognizes this. It's probably one of these common situations where a journalist asks for your input on a matter that apparently touches your field of expertise. He then quickly shows you something, sticks a camera or microphone in your face and expects you to comment without further thought or checks because, well, you're an "expert", right? And they don't have much time anyway. And most often he isn't really interested in what you have to say at all, he just wants you to kinda confirm what he already has concluded. You try to avoid stupid quotes and everybody is happy when they're gone again. That's how it works, I call it fishing for expert endorsement.
That's probably too speculative here. But having an expert appear in your documentary who really does not add anything (because he's either not familiar or not comfortable enough with your material) just to add authority to your story really is a characteristic of bad journalism.

6) The right way of utilizing experts
What they haven't done, judging from their deeply flawed material, is to include an expert in thermal imaging from the beginning of the project. Somebody who is able to set up proper measurements tailored to the questions that the journalists wanted to have answered. And guarantees reliable and high-quality results. Just putting a thermal camera into somebodies hand and start filming is not good enough.
I've been involved in statistical consultancy for all sorts of clients. Far too often clients worked on their own, collected some data, tried to analyze it, got stuck and turned to us to rescue them. And while the most honest advice would have been: "Your setup is broken beyond repair, trash everything, start over again but this time do it the right way", it was clearly not a workable solution for the client and it resulted in some sort of hack as a compromise.
And I feel it might be very similar with this evidence presented in the documentary. Yes, it would have been more work to do it the right way and they probably would have had to pay some consultancy fees. But this looks like they just went for the "quick buck" and the spicy headlines. And didn't really try to produce a good piece of investigative journalism that has an impact. That truly annoys me.

 

[red_flanders]

What a great post. I touched on some of these ideas upthread, but this is such a more in-depth and convincing outline of the problems with that video.

 

[sniper]

Maybe the mods can move Tom's post to the Roglic thread where it belongs?
And that's also the main problem in the analysis: as pointed out in that thread, there is other evidence that suggests Roglic was using a motor. This other evidence obviously lends weight to the distinct possibility, pointed out by John who is perhaps the only realspecialist in this area, that the heat bloom simply indicates a hub motor.


Can i summarize it thus: So it still looks like a motor, and a motor is still the only explanation on the table that explains both the heat bloom and all the other things we saw with roglic, just that the visual evidence alone is not reliable?
Sounds fair enough.

 

[PeterB]

From your image, I can't tell which one is Sagan or you think is Sagan. Is it the rider(s) circled? That circular spot which appears to be on the back of the leading C-dale rider is the following rider's head.

Yes he's the front one you circled, look above the head of rider behind him - the dark line on Sagan's back is shorter.

There was definitely a group of C-dale riders further back and chasing, I assume that was the group Sagan was in but I can't be sure at all.

It's not clear from pictures but consistent with Marangoni's story - him and King helping Sagan get back after the crash. Also it is consistent with two groups of Cannondale riders in the bunch - one riding at the front before and visible also after the crash, the other one with Sagan riding at the back of the bunch, affected by the crash and therefore chasing back.

The reason why I posted this was to correct inaccurate information from Tienus' post. It is agreed that Sagan changed bike, Tienus just maintains it was for no apparent reason and rejects his and Marangoni's story as lies. I say the video corroborates most of the story. In addition, it would make absolutely no sense to perform forged bike change at that particular moment - so shortly before cobbled sector and especially Arenberg, as they have then difficulty to get to good position for the sector. All this leads me to conclusion that this bike change was genuinely caused by a mechanical.

 

[GJB123]

Re:

Maybe the mods can move Tom's post to the Roglic thread where it belongs?
And that's also the main problem in the analysis: as pointed out in that thread, there is other evidence that suggests Roglic was using a motor. This other evidence obviously lends weight to the distinct possibility, pointed out by John who is perhaps the only realspecialist in this area, that the heat bloom simply indicates a hub motor.


Can i summarize it thus: So it still looks like a motor, and a motor is still the only explanation on the table that explains both the heat bloom and all the other things we saw with roglic, just that the visual evidence alone is not reliable?
Sounds fair enough.

I think your summary is terminally flawed. Tom is best positioned to explain why your summary os wrong, but from what in can gather from his wel argued post is that that you cannot in any way conclude from the pictures or the video that "it looks like a motor" and that it is not al certain that there is actually a heat bloom a such because we cannot compare how hot it is relative to other parts or other bikes. I think the correct summary would be that the visual evidence is nonexistent and completely useless.

And lets's keep his post in this thread and let's not move it to the Roglic-thread. If you feel its is warranted to discuss it in that thread as well there is no one stopping you quoting it in that thread.

 

[sniper]

Cannot compare it to other bikes?
Gjb, did you perhaps not look at the vid and did you not follow the discussion? Of course we can compare it to other bikes. That's the whole point.
As John said, that heat bloom is what you'd expect a rear hub motor to look like on a thermal cam. It's not visible in other bikes.
And stop ignoring the other evidence of Roglic using a motor. Context is everything.
I'm not saying there aren't any problems. Certainly if someone were to make a legal case out of it then Rogglic lawyers would have a field day.
But that doesn't mean a motor isnt still the most plausible answer. It is.

 

[GJB123]

Have you actually read and understood anything of Tom's post? Because it seems you haven't.

 

[sniper]

I have. See summary above.

Maybe you could now start saying what your point actually is? If not a motor. What other explanation is there? And please include the other evidence of Roglic using a motor in your analysis.

 

[GJB123]

My point is that based on the Stade2 documentary ut is not possible to give any realistic assessment of whether motors were during the Strade Bianchi by either Roglic and/or Sagan or any others for that matter. For an explanation I refer to Tom's very extensive post above.

 

[sniper]

This is now starting to sound a lot like the Paula radcliffe defence when all experts were saying her values were consistent with blood doping, but she managed to shed enoigh clouds on the analysis to keep the fans believing.
In fact her defence was a lot better than yours because at least she did offered an alternative explanation (albeit bogus).

So again:
Roglic rear hub: Christmas
All other rear hubs: nothing.

And then there is still the other evidence in the Roglic thread which you still haven't addressed, and which continues to lend weight to the motorhypotbesis. Occam says hi.

 

[GJB123]

I'll explain my point again. I am not claiming/arguing/stating (not have I ever done so) that Roglic did not use a motor in this particular race or any other race, nor am I claiming that for any other rider. So there is no point asking me to provide evidence or arguments for that point of view.

All I am trying to point out (and which was very eloquently argued by Tom above so I am not going to do that again because it would not add anything and could detract from his very good posts), is that the Stade2 report neither proves, provides evidence or provides any solid information even to hypothesize that Roglic, Sagan or anyone else is using a motor during that particular Strade Bianchi. Now what part of Tom's posts do you not understand? Perhaps that might help to explain it a bit further so that I or someone else can actually have a decent discusion with you. Or if you feel that he does not have valid points, please point them out and provide arguments why those points are not valid. You asked the question if you "could summarize it thus". My answer is "no you cannot" because you cannot on the one hand agree with Tom and praise his posts and then turn around and give a complete false summary of them. The point made in those posts (and Tom can correct when I am wrong) is that and I quote: "I really think the material from this Stade 2 documentary shouldn't be discussed any further. Unless they add something more to it. It's a piece of very poor journalism top to bottom. And the evidence lacks any sort of solid fundament."

So if you want to persists in claiming that the footage from Stade2 provides any evidence or indication of motor doping I think the onus is on you to provide arguments against those of Tom. I'll be waiting for them.

 

[sniper]

I didn't see anything in Tom's post that explains why Roglic rear hub lid up like a christmas tree whereas the other rear hubs didn't.
A motor can explain it. Quite straighforwardly.
That's all i'm saying. And I haven't seen you deny it, so we seem to agree.
A motor is also consistent with the other issues surrounding Roglic as pointed out in the Roglic thread.
Here too, as you haven't addressed it, I can only assume we agree.

As I said, should any sports official or journalist feel like accusing Roglic of motorization based on the Stade 2 evidence, his lawyers would have an absolute field day, and would no doubt provide similar arguments to the ones provided by Tom as to why our eyes can't be trusted and why the experts aren't really experts after all.
It's what I call the Paula Radcliffe defense, although of course it's been used with varying success by tons of other athletes accused of cheating.

 

[GJB123]

Thank you for establishing that you did need understand one bit of his posts. The point is that without baseline and without knowing the sensitivity for example we have no idea whether it is or is not lighting up like a Christmas tree and hence his conclusion that we should stop debating the Stade2 footage altogether since it isn't worth anything. Which part of that did you not understand?

I really think the material from this Stade 2 documentary shouldn't be discussed any further. Unless they add something more to it. It's a piece of very poor journalism top to bottom. And the evidence lacks any sort of solid fundament.

Now can you provide arguments why the footage can be used to provide some sort of proof or indication of motor use in that particular Strade Bianchi? I'll be waiting.

 

[sniper]

Lol.

I totally hear Paula's lawyers saying "We really think Paula's blood values shouldn't be discussed any further. It's a piece of very poor journalism top to bottom. And the evidence lacks any sort of solid fundament.", and then her lawyers telling Seppelt and co "Which part of that did you not understand?"

 

[GJB123]

So I take it you have no counter arguments to the ones posted by Tom, although you praised them as great posts? Are you familiar with the term straw man?

The difference is that with Radcliffe there were indeed anomalous blood values (that experts agreed upon), the problem here is (that because of shoddy journalism) we have basically next to nothing including no experts who are willing to go on record that they feel this is evidence of or indicative of motor use (this is also covered in the posts). So again which part of his arguments did you not understand?

The footage doesn't add anything substantial or perhaps nothing at all, unless you have arguments that it does. I'll be waiting.

 

[sniper]

Roglic rear hub: christmas tree.
All other rear hubs: nothing.

Don't mean to be rude, but maybe you are wearing sunglasses?
For additional arguments suggesting Roglic using motor see Roglic thread.


No experts thinking the thermal images are consistent with a motor?
John Swanson and Istvan Varjas will not be pleased to hear that.
Hell even the UCI hasn't denied that the images were suggestive of a motor.
Instead they 'exonerated' Roglic on completely different grounds, which is weird if the Stade 2 images wasn't even worthy of discussion, as you and Tom suggest.

 

[ScienceIsCool]

Re:

Roglic rear hub: christmas tree.
All other rear hubs: nothing.

Don't mean to be rude, but maybe you are wearing sunglasses?
For additional arguments suggesting Roglic using motor see Roglic thread.


No experts thinking the thermal images are consistent with a motor?
John Swanson and Istvan Varjas will not be pleased to hear that.
Hell even the UCI hasn't denied that the images were suggestive of a motor.
Instead they 'exonerated' Roglic on completely different grounds, which is weird if the Stade 2 images wasn't even worthy of discussion, as you and Tom suggest.

The thermal images are also consistent with misaligned bearings or bent axle. The thermal images alone do not suggest which is the most plausible explanation. It's a curiosity, not a conclusion.

John Swanson

 

[sniper]

Agree with that, cheers.

But the bent axle or misaligned bearings don't explain the other indications of motor use discussed in the Roglic thread, which, Occam would say, lend weight to the view that the heat bloom was actually caused by a motor.

Also, if it was in fact a misaligned bearing or a bent axle, wouldn't we have expected Roglic and Lotto to mention that in their statement?
(And unless they fixed the problem directly after the race, it should have been relatively easy to proof also)

 

[red_flanders]

Re:

Maybe the mods can move Tom's post to the Roglic thread where it belongs?

Good heavens why? It is a discussion of the Stade 2 documentary and the evidence they presented, which according to people here directly accuses Sagan of motor-doping. This is the Sagan thread. It is directly relevant and a welcome addition to the thread. It is by far one of the most lucid posts in this thread.

 

[red_flanders]

From your image, I can't tell which one is Sagan or you think is Sagan. Is it the rider(s) circled? That circular spot which appears to be on the back of the leading C-dale rider is the following rider's head.

Yes he's the front one you circled, look above the head of rider behind him - the dark line on Sagan's back is shorter.

There was definitely a group of C-dale riders further back and chasing, I assume that was the group Sagan was in but I can't be sure at all.

It's not clear from pictures but consistent with Marangoni's story - him and King helping Sagan get back after the crash. Also it is consistent with two groups of Cannondale riders in the bunch - one riding at the front before and visible also after the crash, the other one with Sagan riding at the back of the bunch, affected by the crash and therefore chasing back.

The reason why I posted this was to correct inaccurate information from Tienus' post. It is agreed that Sagan changed bike, Tienus just maintains it was for no apparent reason and rejects his and Marangoni's story as lies. I say the video corroborates most of the story. In addition, it would make absolutely no sense to perform forged bike change at that particular moment - so shortly before cobbled sector and especially Arenberg, as they have then difficulty to get to good position for the sector. All this leads me to conclusion that this bike change was genuinely caused by a mechanical.

Thanks Peter for the clarifications.

 

[red_flanders]

I think it's silly to ask people to stop debating the Stade 2 documentary. It is reasonable to ask posters to actually debate the very good, informative post from Tom, to understand the ramifications of what he's saying, and stop acting like the evidence from Stade 2 has any real merit.

As it stands, the video evidence makes one curious. Makes one curious enough to go out and do some real work, within defined parameters, with baselines, static visual scales, etc. that could stand on its own as evidence.

It is certainly possible that some of the images which appear to show hubs or bottom brackets slightly warmer than others indicate a motor. It is certainly possible that they show absolutely nothing. The latter has to be recognized by all posters discussing the videos.

It's not like this can't be repeated and done correctly. Sadly it was not done so the first time, and as such has little merit. It is not remotely conclusive.

 

[red_flanders]

Re:

Agree with that, cheers.

But the bent axle or misaligned bearings don't explain the other indications of motor use discussed in the Roglic thread, which, Occam would say, lend weight to the view that the heat bloom was actually caused by a motor.

Also, if it was in fact a misaligned bearing or a bent axle, wouldn't we have expected Roglic and Lotto to mention that in their statement?
(And unless they fixed the problem directly after the race, it should have been relatively easy to proof also)

You don't know if it was a "heat bloom", per Tom's post. We should all stop using that term, I'm certainly very guilty of it. The temperature scale is dynamic and could be as little as 3 degrees different, and both could be quite cold. All you know is that his hub is slightly warmer than the rest of the bike, about as warm as his tires and rims. And that others aren't as warm. That should make one curious but is terrible evidence and proof of nothing.