The doped bike exists (video of pro version)!

[robertmooreheadlane]

No in F1 you can't pay to get the scrutineers to look the other way.
Most of them are volunteers and wouldn't take the money.
And when you do get caught even remotely going close to doing anything wrong. (like taking a file of specs from your previous job to your new job) The fines and penalties are severe enough to make sure you don't do anything wrong ever again.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

Re:

so UCI taking motorised bikes seriously, which means teams have used it

And has had such a regulation since at least October 2013 (or possibly Jan 2005). It is odd that the sanction was, however, only specified in January this year, and that the press has only been alert to it today.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

This guy in Italy showing us his wares is like the typical doper picking up some steroids from a gym junkie or supplier to same.

What we can't see now is the engineer in the background, like the chemist in the background who made The Clear. A completely undetectable form of steroid used with devastating effect for some years.

I realise this just hypes the conspiracy, but I'm happy to go along with the narrative given how much simpler a motor is / should be to design vs a new type of steroid.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Omota: noun; keeping schtum about the motor hidden in your bicycle. See also: omerta.

 

[blackcat]

Re:

Omota: noun; keeping schtum about the motor hidden in your bicycle. See also: omerta.

motoman might sue for trademark infringement, or take up this new market

 

[Merckx index]

The linked article is very interesting, but the key to hiding this system seems to be the battery. In the actual system used, the battery is clearly too large to hide in a sanctioned race. The invisible package disguises it as a water bottle, but that would be easy enough to check. The 60 minute battery weighs nearly 1 kg.

Suppose one had a motor capable of putting out 40 watts, which still would provide a significant advantage, and a battery that lasted for just 30 minutes. I'm guessing the battery would still weigh around 200 g. Could that be hidden in the seat post, along with the motor?

I do find it extremely disturbing that the manufacturer would actually go out of his way to make this setup as difficult to spot as possible. If one is not using it to cheat in races that count, there's no need for others not to know.

 

[ScienceIsCool]

Re:

The linked article is very interesting, but the key to hiding this system seems to be the battery. In the actual system used, the battery is clearly too large to hide in a sanctioned race. The invisible package disguises it as a water bottle, but that would be easy enough to check. The 60 minute battery weighs nearly 1 kg.

Suppose one had a motor capable of putting out 40 watts, which still would provide a significant advantage, and a battery that lasted for just 30 minutes. I'm guessing the battery would still weigh around 200 g. Could that be hidden in the seat post, along with the motor?

I do find it extremely disturbing that the manufacturer would actually go out of his way to make this setup as difficult to spot as possible. If one is not using it to cheat in races that count, there's no need for others not to know.

I've stated this before, but my career started with the first producer of Li-Ion cells and batteries. Visit the Moli-Enrgy website and you will find that there a range of cells developed for the high energy output market such as power tools. These cells can vary in size somewhat but the standard is 26650 which is 26 mm x 650 mm. 1.0 inch by 2.5 inches roughly. Two to three of these would be more than enough to supply 50 Watts for half an hour. http://www.molicel.com/hq/download/DM/DM_IBR26700A-V4-80053.pdf

This is very, very easy to hide in a frame, along with any motor controller - especially inside a downtube. And yes, the weight would be roughly half a pound. I've searched off the shelf components and the motor plus gear box would be 1.5 pounds. So the entire solution would come in at ~2 pounds and provide 50 Watts for half an hour. Or maybe 100 Watts for a few bursts to 15 minutes.

This is with off-the shelf technology with a very minimal amount of engineering and integration.

John Swanson

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Going to ball park this so please feel free to jump in and correct any errors.

Let's say for argument's sake, they do not use the motor till the final hill. Go with 2.2 lbs = 1kg as that makes calculations easy. Ideal situations yadda yadda. Just ball parking things here, not submitting a paper to the E Coyle school of dodgy science.

50 W for half an hour = 50 x 30 x 60 joules. ie 90kj of work done by the motor at the end of the stage. We can go full-*** and say it's a 2000 VAM hill and they cover 1000m during that 30 minute climb.

Let's make it a really simple stage design where along the flat the rider is sucked along by the peloton and coasts with a tailwind and an efficient team of domestiques around him. No additional energy needed to transport the motor as the predominant energy sink is aerodynamic and he's tucked in behind Adam Hansen or similar.

There is 1000m of elevation during the stage, to match the final MTF.

The energy required to raise the 1kg battery + motor system 1000m is

w = f x d = 1 x 9.8 x 1000 = 9.8kj

This work is required for the in-stage elevation gain, as well as the MTF at the end of the stage, so we ball park the final stage energy requirements to transport motor + battery to 2 x 9.8kj = 20kj.

At the end of the day, there is a nett gain of (90-20) = 70kj of work available to the rider.

As for when the break even point occurs, we have
90kj work - 10kj transport cost = 80kj =~ 8000m elevation gain.

A crazy TdF stage is around 5000m elevation gain, so the hypothetical motor installation is always going to give you a nett positive energy source.

Clearly this is worth doing.

The killer is when you look at power::weight. A top level cyclist is going to do around 6W/kg at the end of the stage, but with this motor, he is adding 50W/kg for 1kg of weight to his overal W/kg for that half an hour. If we take a 60kg climber, doing 6W/kg (360W) and give them 80kj of work for that half an hour, their overall W/kg goes up to 6.7W/kg.

Work done = 360W x 30 x 60 = 648 kj
Add the 80kj of the motor: 728kj
728kj work done in 30 minutes = 728000 / (30 x 60) = 404 W avg
404W / 60 = 6.7 W/kg

Let assume that instead of smashing the peloton, he sits in the wheels and conserves energy for the next day.
To match his non-motor enabled, 60kg compatriot doing 6W/kg, he only has to do
648kj - 80kj of work = 568kj
568kj of work done in 30 minutes = 315W avg
315W / 60 = 5.25W/kg = pretty darn cruisy.

I think.

 

[veganrob]

Even though those are just ball park figures you did great job of summarizing how it could be done.

 

[Master50]

Re:

Going to ball park this so please feel free to jump in and correct any errors.

Let's say for argument's sake, they do not use the motor till the final hill. Go with 2.2 lbs = 1kg as that makes calculations easy. Ideal situations yadda yadda. Just ball parking things here, not submitting a paper to the E Coyle school of dodgy science.

50 W for half an hour = 50 x 30 x 60 joules. ie 90kj of work done by the motor at the end of the stage. We can go full-*** and say it's a 2000 VAM hill and they cover 1000m during that 30 minute climb.

Let's make it a really simple stage design where along the flat the rider is sucked along by the peloton and coasts with a tailwind and an efficient team of domestiques around him. No additional energy needed to transport the motor as the predominant energy sink is aerodynamic and he's tucked in behind Adam Hansen or similar.

There is 1000m of elevation during the stage, to match the final MTF.

The energy required to raise the 1kg battery + motor system 1000m is

w = f x d = 1 x 9.8 x 1000 = 9.8kj

This work is required for the in-stage elevation gain, as well as the MTF at the end of the stage, so we ball park the final stage energy requirements to transport motor + battery to 2 x 9.8kj = 20kj.

At the end of the day, there is a nett gain of (90-20) = 70kj of work available to the rider.

As for when the break even point occurs, we have
90kj work - 10kj transport cost = 80kj =~ 8000m elevation gain.

A crazy TdF stage is around 5000m elevation gain, so the hypothetical motor installation is always going to give you a nett positive energy source.

Clearly this is worth doing.

The killer is when you look at power::weight. A top level cyclist is going to do around 6W/kg at the end of the stage, but with this motor, he is adding 50W/kg for 1kg of weight to his overal W/kg for that half an hour. If we take a 60kg climber, doing 6W/kg (360W) and give them 80kj of work for that half an hour, their overall W/kg goes up to 6.7W/kg.

Work done = 360W x 30 x 60 = 648 kj
Add the 80kj of the motor: 728kj
728kj work done in 30 minutes = 728000 / (30 x 60) = 404 W avg
404W / 60 = 6.7 W/kg

Let assume that instead of smashing the peloton, he sits in the wheels and conserves energy for the next day.
To match his non-motor enabled, 60kg compatriot doing 6W/kg, he only has to do
648kj - 80kj of work = 568kj
568kj of work done in 30 minutes = 315W avg
315W / 60 = 5.25W/kg = pretty darn cruisy.

I think.

I did not check any math because it is all speculative. My question is this requires a battery that stores this much energy plus the losses and inefficiencies in the system. It will weight a kilo and be the size of a seatpost at least. Now hide it. Now buy a 40 watt motor and controller with all the associated mechanical conversion and add another pound or two. Now hide that too. You can hardly hide a nail clipper from airport security and they are using industrial x ray equipment like these recent inspections.

 

[Master50]

Re:

This guy in Italy showing us his wares is like the typical doper picking up some steroids from a gym junkie or supplier to same.

What we can't see now is the engineer in the background, like the chemist in the background who made The Clear. A completely undetectable form of steroid used with devastating effect for some years.

I realise this just hypes the conspiracy, but I'm happy to go along with the narrative given how much simpler a motor is / should be to design vs a new type of steroid.

Given the number of electrical engineers working for Ryobi, Milwaukee, hitachi, Mikita, etc. I am surprised this miracle motor has not been developed by these tool makers that generate huge profit everytime they make an advance in tool power or increase battery life.
Robotics and even model toy builders are currently the biggest inventors of small lightweight and powerful motors This would be the source for your assistance system. If you have a model airplane store or if you can buy a drone. Look for a 40 watt motor. Easy to put inside a bike frame but much too obvious to hide from an educated person or X-ray machine. A simple scale should guide us to the bikes we should look at more closely. They will be heavier. Most pro tour bikes are between 15 and 17 pounds. those that are under put on weights. Again look for the bike that is different. the one with only 2 steel washers in the crank axle.
The idea that some super devious genius engineer choses to work on secret bike assistance is probably planning a meagre income. How do you make a lot of money on a system that you can't sell openly as a commercial product? Lets see sell maybe 50 or 60 to pro tour teams and ignore the thousands of ego driven masters where sales of thousands might be plausible? I can think of the places I need 20 minutes of help on my 3 hour Saturday rides but I might need 100 watts to survive the fast guys. boost starts at 160 bpm on my hr monitor.

 

[ScienceIsCool]

Re: Re:

This guy in Italy showing us his wares is like the typical doper picking up some steroids from a gym junkie or supplier to same.

What we can't see now is the engineer in the background, like the chemist in the background who made The Clear. A completely undetectable form of steroid used with devastating effect for some years.

I realise this just hypes the conspiracy, but I'm happy to go along with the narrative given how much simpler a motor is / should be to design vs a new type of steroid.

Given the number of electrical engineers working for Ryobi, Milwaukee, hitachi, Mikita, etc. I am surprised this miracle motor has not been developed by these tool makers that generate huge profit everytime they make an advance in tool power or increase battery life.
Robotics and even model toy builders are currently the biggest inventors of small lightweight and powerful motors This would be the source for your assistance system. If you have a model airplane store or if you can buy a drone. Look for a 40 watt motor. Easy to put inside a bike frame but much too obvious to hide from an educated person or X-ray machine. A simple scale should guide us to the bikes we should look at more closely. They will be heavier. Most pro tour bikes are between 15 and 17 pounds. those that are under put on weights. Again look for the bike that is different. the one with only 2 steel washers in the crank axle.
The idea that some super devious genius engineer choses to work on secret bike assistance is probably planning a meagre income. How do you make a lot of money on a system that you can't sell openly as a commercial product? Lets see sell maybe 50 or 60 to pro tour teams and ignore the thousands of ego driven masters where sales of thousands might be plausible? I can think of the places I need 20 minutes of help on my 3 hour Saturday rides but I might need 100 watts to survive the fast guys. boost starts at 160 bpm on my hr monitor.

How about a 60 Watt motor that is 30 mm in diameter, 68 mm long, and weighs 260 grams? That's just one of a tonne of off-the-shelf components available for a couple hundred dollars. Check out Maxon (http://www.maxonmotor.com/maxon/view/catalog/) and their selection of RE motors. The one I described is part number 310007. They'll also sell you a matching gearbox. Add another half pound of Moli-Cell 26650 batteries (an inch in diameter and 2.5 inches long) and a motor controller (~100 grams). There's the complete set of components coming in at 2.5 pounds and less than a thousand bucks. Available now. Today. Get your credit card.

All that you would have to do is build a small micro-controller and some small, hidden buttons to tell the motor what to do and when. The design would take an EE less than a weekend. You could get boards made and parts delivered by the following weekend. Another month of weekends to program and test. You'd also need someone with a decent shop to build you a good mechanical interface to the crank. This is also not rocket science.

I would be shocked if two competent enthusiasts couldn't build a functional, hidden prototype for three grand in less than two months.

John Swanson

 

[ray j willings]

Re:

No in F1 you can't pay to get the scrutineers to look the other way.
Most of them are volunteers and wouldn't take the money.
And when you do get caught even remotely going close to doing anything wrong. (like taking a file of specs from your previous job to your new job) The fines and penalties are severe enough to make sure you don't do anything wrong ever again.

But we are talking about the UCI. They have nowhere to go with this IMO. A cover up would be a must otherwise it would/could be the end of Cycling as we know. Olympic Ban, major loss of TV coverage and sponsors etc

 

[Catwhoorg]

Re: Re:

No in F1 you can't pay to get the scrutineers to look the other way.
Most of them are volunteers and wouldn't take the money.
And when you do get caught even remotely going close to doing anything wrong. (like taking a file of specs from your previous job to your new job) The fines and penalties are severe enough to make sure you don't do anything wrong ever again.

But we are talking about the UCI. They have nowhere to go with this IMO. A cover up would be a must otherwise it would/could be the end of Cycling as we know. Olympic Ban, major loss of TV coverage and sponsors etc

I disagree, catching someone doing it and following through with a severe punishment may actually work in their favour.

But who knows ? *shrug*

 

[Cookster15]

Re: Re:

The linked article is very interesting, but the key to hiding this system seems to be the battery. In the actual system used, the battery is clearly too large to hide in a sanctioned race. The invisible package disguises it as a water bottle, but that would be easy enough to check. The 60 minute battery weighs nearly 1 kg.

Suppose one had a motor capable of putting out 40 watts, which still would provide a significant advantage, and a battery that lasted for just 30 minutes. I'm guessing the battery would still weigh around 200 g. Could that be hidden in the seat post, along with the motor?

I do find it extremely disturbing that the manufacturer would actually go out of his way to make this setup as difficult to spot as possible. If one is not using it to cheat in races that count, there's no need for others not to know.

I've stated this before, but my career started with the first producer of Li-Ion cells and batteries. Visit the Moli-Enrgy website and you will find that there a range of cells developed for the high energy output market such as power tools. These cells can vary in size somewhat but the standard is 26650 which is 26 mm x 650 mm. 1.0 inch by 2.5 inches roughly. Two to three of these would be more than enough to supply 50 Watts for half an hour. http://www.molicel.com/hq/download/DM/DM_IBR26700A-V4-80053.pdf

This is very, very easy to hide in a frame, along with any motor controller - especially inside a downtube. And yes, the weight would be roughly half a pound. I've searched off the shelf components and the motor plus gear box would be 1.5 pounds. So the entire solution would come in at ~2 pounds and provide 50 Watts for half an hour. Or maybe 100 Watts for a few bursts to 15 minutes.

This is with off-the shelf technology with a very minimal amount of engineering and integration.
John Swanson

You might be able to hide the motor and battery. But how would the motor actually transfer energy to the wheels? Through the chain? If so, how without being very obvious? I think the only way the energy transfer system wouldn't be obvious is if they could hide the drive mechanism in the bottom bracket. Is that possible? Who knows but the chunkier BB's of modern Carbon frames certainly appear to give more room to hide a drive mechanism. I'd still be very surprised that a motor small enough to hide could give enough boost to make a difference. The video shows the chain moving but gives no indication how much power is being generated.

 

[MacRoadie]

Re: Re:

You might be able to hide the motor and battery. But how would the motor actually transfer energy to the wheels? Through the chain? If so, how without being very obvious? I think the only way the energy transfer system wouldn't be obvious is if they could hide the drive mechanism in the bottom bracket. Is that possible? Who knows but the chunkier BB's of modern Carbon frames certainly appear to give more room to hide a drive mechanism. I'd still be very surprised that a motor small enough to hide could give enough boost to make a difference. The video shows the chain moving but gives no indication how much power is being generated.

Since this hasn't been posted often enough:

http://cyclingtips.com.au/2015/04/hidden-motors-for-road-bikes-exist-heres-how-they-work/

 

[D-Queued]

Re: Re:

You might be able to hide the motor and battery. But how would the motor actually transfer energy to the wheels? Through the chain? If so, how without being very obvious? I think the only way the energy transfer system wouldn't be obvious is if they could hide the drive mechanism in the bottom bracket. Is that possible? Who knows but the chunkier BB's of modern Carbon frames certainly appear to give more room to hide a drive mechanism. I'd still be very surprised that a motor small enough to hide could give enough boost to make a difference. The video shows the chain moving but gives no indication how much power is being generated.

Since this hasn't been posted often enough:

http://cyclingtips.com.au/2015/04/hidden-motors-for-road-bikes-exist-heres-how-they-work/

There, I have posted it too.

Love this thread.

Invisible!?!

Except for all the obvious stuff.

Nothing like a little marketing embellishment.

And, the target market - women wanting to try and ride with their man. Pretty savvy technical cycling crowd that. Gotta say, that clinched it for me.

What's next?

Alien software to go with the cloaked motor.

Dave.

 

[Irondan]

Re: Re:

But we are talking about the UCI. They have nowhere to go with this IMO. A cover up would be a must otherwise it would/could be the end of Cycling as we know. Olympic Ban, major loss of TV coverage and sponsors etc

Maybe that's not such a bad thing??? Pro Cycling would be back in some way, shape or form. Hopefully with a sustainable model the next time around.

 

[sniper]

Re: Re:

The linked article is very interesting, but the key to hiding this system seems to be the battery. In the actual system used, the battery is clearly too large to hide in a sanctioned race. The invisible package disguises it as a water bottle, but that would be easy enough to check. The 60 minute battery weighs nearly 1 kg.

Suppose one had a motor capable of putting out 40 watts, which still would provide a significant advantage, and a battery that lasted for just 30 minutes. I'm guessing the battery would still weigh around 200 g. Could that be hidden in the seat post, along with the motor?

I do find it extremely disturbing that the manufacturer would actually go out of his way to make this setup as difficult to spot as possible. If one is not using it to cheat in races that count, there's no need for others not to know.

I've stated this before, but my career started with the first producer of Li-Ion cells and batteries. Visit the Moli-Enrgy website and you will find that there a range of cells developed for the high energy output market such as power tools. These cells can vary in size somewhat but the standard is 26650 which is 26 mm x 650 mm. 1.0 inch by 2.5 inches roughly. Two to three of these would be more than enough to supply 50 Watts for half an hour. http://www.molicel.com/hq/download/DM/DM_IBR26700A-V4-80053.pdf

This is very, very easy to hide in a frame, along with any motor controller - especially inside a downtube. And yes, the weight would be roughly half a pound. I've searched off the shelf components and the motor plus gear box would be 1.5 pounds. So the entire solution would come in at ~2 pounds and provide 50 Watts for half an hour. Or maybe 100 Watts for a few bursts to 15 minutes.

This is with off-the shelf technology with a very minimal amount of engineering and integration.
John Swanson

You might be able to hide the motor and battery. But how would the motor actually transfer energy to the wheels? Through the chain? If so, how without being very obvious? I think the only way the energy transfer system wouldn't be obvious is if they could hide the drive mechanism in the bottom bracket. Is that possible? Who knows but the chunkier BB's of modern Carbon frames certainly appear to give more room to hide a drive mechanism. I'd still be very surprised that a motor small enough to hide could give enough boost to make a difference. The video shows the chain moving but gives no indication how much power is being generated.

The 'small enough to hide' issue might be a red herring.
Cf. ray j willings' post: no way UCI are going to expose anybody, even if they catch someone.
The testing is laughable. No x-ray technology ('too expensive' my ass), giving riders and teams prior notice, etc.
UCI have sent out a clear message: if you're using a motor, don't worry, we're not gonna expose you.
All they've done hitherto has been of symbolic value. Case in point: 4 days(!) after Ryder's infamous spin, a UCI delegation went to check his bike (as if he has only one bike) and then reported to the world that they hadn't found a motor, so all good.
lol.

I don't know if motors are as widespread (or as invisible) as that Hungarian guy wants us to believe, but motors have been (and probably are being) used.
Cancellara's 2010 PR and RvV are probably still the single most clear pieces of evidence to that extent.
Froome's Ventoux spinning jump away from Contador on the Ventoux 2013 is also up there with the more suspect jumps. His legs could hardly keep up with his bike. And look how fast he distanced Contador. Unreal.

 

[sniper]

by the way, it's interesting that Cancelara hasn't sued that bicitruccata website, even though he's clearly being accused of being a megafraud.

 

[Netserk]

It's worth remembering that some of the system's weight will be used to get the bike up to the minimum weight. I don't know how much they add to the lightest bikes for them to make the cut, but I'd guess it's more than 200g.

 

[spetsa]

Re:

It's worth remembering that some of the system's weight will be used to get the bike up to the minimum weight. I don't know how much they add to the lightest bikes for them to make the cut, but I'd guess it's more than 200g.

Just yesterday, I came across a friend on a ride who is a technical editor for a cycling mag. He was test riding a 9.5 lb. bike that was provided by a team racing on US made bikes. The weight of a motor is irrelavant with the UCI minimum weight rules.

 

[veganrob]

Re:

It's worth remembering that some of the system's weight will be used to get the bike up to the minimum weight. I don't know how much they add to the lightest bikes for them to make the cut, but I'd guess it's more than 200g.

Yes, you can buy a 14lb complete bike from any manufacturer from their regular catalogue.

 

[ray j willings]

There are now plenty of superlight frames under 800gms quite a few under 700grms, strength in the right places to support whatever parts would be needed and I don't think weight is an issue.

 

[GoodTimes]

I'm late to this thread... but I have to say, it is very reminiscent of the Ryder's Bike thread from last year. I started off as being very skeptical as to the feasibility of a motorized pro bicycle. By the end of the thread, I became quite convinced that it was completely possible given the current state of technology. I recommend that thread as background reading, as we did a lot of the same sort of calculations that I'm seeing now in this thread.

But, in the true spirit of the clinic, I'm going to dump some more gasoline on this fire, and remind everybody that the limiting factor for a lot of these ultra small motors is torque, not power. Hence why when Froome attacks, he pedals at like 200 RPM-- It halves the torque requirement for the motor compared to a more reasonable crank speed. It's like a free gearbox for his downtube crank-motor!

Oh, and another of my favorite conclusions... We've often wondered why team sky wears black jerseys, which seems contrary to their stated position of marginal gains. Well, the reason is quite obvious. Modern advancements in wearable tech, and Photovoltaics have given us clothing that generates an electric charge. Therefore, while you think sky must be boiling to death in those black jerseys, they are really recharging their motor batteries, so they'll be ready for the next mountain!