First Case of "Motorised Doping" Confirmed in Pro Cycling

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Ricardodaforce

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There have been suspicions for a while, but at last the UCI have found a rider in a race using a bike with a hidden motor. Story here. Let's hope that now someone has been caught it will deter others. Time will tell.
 
Strictly speaking they've found a bike, it's not yet confirmed that the rider was using it, or even that it belonged to Femke.

Interesting story though.
 
dejongj said:
Strictly speaking they've found a bike, it's not yet confirmed that the rider was using it, or even that it belonged to Femke.

Interesting story though.
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Yes it is confirmed that it is the bike she was riding. She hasn't even denied it was bike she used.

Belgian Cycling Federation confirmed to Sporza that the detained bike belonged to European and Belgium's U23 champion Femke Van den Driessche (Team Kleur op Maat).
 
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dejongj said:
Strictly speaking they've found a bike, it's not yet confirmed that the rider was using it, or even that it belonged to Femke.

Interesting story though.
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Interesting story, but it is very clear the bike was Femke's
 
Ricardodaforce said:
Yes it is confirmed that it is the bike she was riding. She hasn't even denied it was bike she used.

Belgian Cycling Federation confirmed to Sporza that the detained bike belonged to European and Belgium's U23 champion Femke Van den Driessche (Team Kleur op Maat).
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Not what she says according to your own link!
 
I find it hard to believe the motor made any difference at all.

I used to repair electric bikes in my father's cycle shop, to make any difference to the bike's performance the motor would have to be big, it would need a speed controller capable of handling the current load that would be placed on it, finally the batteries would also need to be fairly large so it has ample capacity to supply the ESC and motor without sagging.
TBH I think kit like that would be instantly spotted, not to mention the weight of it.
 
Rob 80386 said:
I find it hard to believe the motor made any difference at all.

I used to repair electric bikes in my father's cycle shop, to make any difference to the bike's performance the motor would have to be big, it would need a speed controller capable of handling the current load that would be placed on it, finally the batteries would also need to be fairly large so it has ample capacity to supply the ESC and motor without sagging.
TBH I think kit like that would be instantly spotted, not to mention the weight of it.
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Heres a video of a hidden motor. Guy reckons it would provide a 250 w boost for 30 mins and uses a battery disguised as a water bottle. I guess if you need a helping hand
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKgJ_Uhwfno
 
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Is there some obvious reason they can't check the bikes before/after a race? You know, with an x-ray machine or something.

These rumours have been going around for a while and if I were a non cheating champion cyclist I'd be pretty vexed by them.
 
The problem with bike checks before the race. in a 150 rider pro road race there may be 300+ bikes. Also 500 wheels. these can be used at any time during the race. as it is possible the motors could be mounted in frame or wheel. They would all have to be checked.
 
The explanation sounds odd to say the least. She has a friend who happens to have a bike that is identical to her's. Perhaps if there is no sponsorship on her bike the mechanics might have mistaken the friend's bike for her's. However, this bike is just happens to have an engine in it, which just happens to be hidden, hmmm.

Dave
 
Cheats will always find a way to seek advantage, seems mad anyone would go this far though. And shows a definite need for some kind of checks if they don't already
Clever but sad that athletes and teams treat their fellow competitors with contempt. Cheats should just be banned from competitions for life when it's this blatant
 
JonathanRyan said:
Is there some obvious reason they can't check the bikes before/after a race? You know, with an x-ray machine or something.

These rumours have been going around for a while and if I were a non cheating champion cyclist I'd be pretty vexed by them.
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Also in some races a rider may change bike during the race.
 
vetonbike said:
The problem with bike checks before the race. in a 150 rider pro road race there may be 300+ bikes. Also 500 wheels. these can be used at any time during the race. as it is possible the motors could be mounted in frame or wheel. They would all have to be checked.
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But if that's the only problem then it's easy to solve. I'd imagine they already do some sort of checks on the bikes to make sure they comply with regs.

As a first stab from somebody who knows nothing about the sport, how about insisting on RFID tags being embedded in wheels? Every wheel with an RFID is checked before the race and it's an instant DQ to use any non tagged wheel. Same for the frames. It's a much smaller logistical problem than drug testing and we don't give up on that because it's too hard.
 
Also, why are electric bikes so ugly, massive, heavy and useless if we can fit hidden motors that run off disguised water bottles? I'm pretty sure there's a (legitimate) market for this tech.
 
JonathanRyan said:
Also, why are electric bikes so ugly, massive, heavy and useless if we can fit hidden motors that run off disguised water bottles? I'm pretty sure there's a (legitimate) market for this tech.
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It only gave 250watts for 30 mins. Not much use to commuters but shows how the technology is advancing
How far does cheating go? Do we need to check high jumpers underwear for helium packs now ? :D
 
Consumer type motors, batteries etc. need to be reliable over far longer timescales than competition ones. Look at race cars, especially F1, where motors only need to survive for a few thousand miles before they're completely knackered.
 
BruceMo said:
It only gave 250watts for 30 mins. Not much use to commuters but shows how the technology is advancing
How far does cheating go? Do we need to check high jumpers underwear for helium packs now ? :D
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I don't know what 250w means in this context but it's downhill from here to the train station. A battery would get me home after a hard day in less than 30 mins ;)
 
I'm no physicist but it sounds like enough power to light a 100w bulb for just over an hour. Not sure that equates to pulling your arse up a hill for half an hour ;)
 
JonathanRyan said:
I don't know what 250w means in this context but it's downhill from here to the train station. A battery would get me home after a hard day in less than 30 mins ;)
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This here too, My daily commute would be made much easier with 30 mins of help, especialy if the weight was minimal, the thing that puts me off current electric bikes is the massive weight gain, even if I only had to pedal one 'sometimes' they look like torture.
 
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250 watts for 30 mins is a lot at pro level, defo the winning edge.
also I suppose its more risk but short term, once the race is done and the bike spirites away its all good.
 
BruceMo said:
I'm no physicist but it sounds like enough power to light a 100w bulb for just over an hour. Not sure that equates to pulling your arse up a hill for half an hour ;)
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If I'v got my sums right, it's enough to lift an 80 kilo weight (me + bike) about 570m. The hill ain't that big ;)
 
If you have ever rode in a time trial. You will know just how much help 250 watts delivered at the right time can be. Dont forget the difference between winning and losing is only the width if a tyre.
 
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BruceMo said:
I'm no physicist but it sounds like enough power to light a 100w bulb for just over an hour. Not sure that equates to pulling your arse up a hill for half an hour ;)
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just pulled this from my strava, estimated based on speed and cadence (crank RPM)

0.6 miles 2% gradient:
Speed AVG 4.7mi/h
Cadence AVG 49
Est Power 89W (over 8 mins)

(yes that was slow, it was a potter about with the OH :D )
 
BruceMo said:
It only gave 250watts for 30 mins. Not much use to commuters but shows how the technology is advancing
How far does cheating go? Do we need to check high jumpers underwear for helium packs now ? :D
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I guess that most cyclists like me back in the early eighties (without disc wheels and tri bars and the like) use to produce around 400 watts power to do a 21 minute 10 mile time trial, so an extra 250 watts would have been enough to get close to competition record, and beat people like Sean Yates, Dave Lloyd and Tony Doyle.
 
The Important thing to remember, with these bikes, is that we're not looking at something to do all the work, just to add to the already strong riding of an elite level athlete.

A sensible way of comparing riders performance is by assessing their power/weight ratio - it's usually expressed in watts/kilo, and generally quoted as being the sustainable power that a rider could maintain for a hour. So, a "big engine", somebody like say Tony Martin might weigh 80kg, and be able to put out a continuous 400 watts for a hour. That'd give him a power/weight ratio of 5.0w/kg. For a skinnier athlete, say Chris Froome, at 67.5kg, the same wattage would mean a power/weight ratio of 5.93% - which is enough for Froome to ride away into the distance on longer hills... (Froome actually had results published from tests a while ago, where his 20-40 minute power was actually 419w, so applying the usual maxim of 5% reduction in power for every doubling in duration of effort (Coggan, Allen iirc) I reckon 400W is pretty near the mark) It's certainly not contentious to say that Froome is a better Climber than Martin... and thats down to power/weight ratio.

Now, consider that we're actually talking about a very slim young lady, who may only weigh 50kg, and assuming that we're looking at the Vivax Assist which puts out up to 200W and weighs well under 1.8kg (as that's the weight with a water-bottle battery... and all cross fans know, you don't have water bottles and cages on cross bikes, so the battery HAD to be concealed in the seat-tube or seatpin, and would therefore be smaller/lighter than a water-bottle battery... Typically, female National Elite riders would have a power/weight ratio in the region of 4.8-5 w/kg for a hour. On a 50kg rider that'd be a 1hourMax power of between 240-250watts. So, we can see than something that can apply an additional 200W for a weight penalty of less than a couple of Kilo's is going to make a MASSIVE difference, even if it's only used in very short bursts, at critical times...

oh... and just out of interest - I found a company that just happen to be producing Wilier Cross bikes pre-fitted with this particular motor here - https://www.salden.nl/en/wilier-triestina-e-cycl-ocrosser-met-trapondersteuning.html
 
Surely the only way to deal with this problem is as per Rallying.
All machinery is stored in a Parc Ferme overnight and the same at the end of the event, and at least the winners bikes being subject to scrutineering.
 
the bikes are already pretty rigorously checked for various things - weight, saddle being horizontal (yep! can't have a tilt on the saddle guys), and a rake of other things, its just that checking for a motor has always up until now required the entire chainset/cranks to be pulled - this one was caught using a "scanning device" attached to a tablet computer that picks up the hidden motor (presumably detecting the magnets in the motor??)

Cyclocross is very "gear intensive" - on a muddy course, riders could well have 3 bikes (1 riding, one being jet-washed, and one waiting for the next change) - not to mention anything up to half a dozen sets of extra wheels with different tyres fitted to cope with different ground conditions that may happen depending on how the weather pans out over the day...
 
andy700 said:
Not so, there was always a few degrees of tilt, but they have now allowed a far greater amount.

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news...ci-relaxes-saddle-regulations-for-2016-203189
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about time... as someone who pretty much needs to run with a fairly pronounced lowering of the front of the saddle on a road bike, and with one of the "nose-less" Adamo jobs for a TT position, I really felt for the guys that had to keep within 2.5% (I did know it wasn't an absolute horizontal, but 2.5% is barely visible)
 
Are there any more details on the technicalities of her motorised assistance? It's impressive technology to conceal it so well.
 
effectively, it's a stealth install of one of these...

http://www.vivax-assist.com/en/unternehmen/

there WAS a link in a post I made above to a company selling Wilier Cyclocross bikes (the brand that sponsors the young lady who was banned) ready fitted with the assist motors - but they've pulled the link from their website now.
 
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