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First Hidden Electric Motor In Cycling World Championship (cxmagazine.com)
An anonymous reader writes with the story that the world championship cyclocross competition this weekend in Zolder (Belgium) was scandalized by the first case of "mechanical doping." European champion Femke Van Den Driessche was caught with a bicycle with a hidden electric motor. From the article: The Union Cycliste Internationale said in a statement âoethat pursuant to the UCIâ(TM)s Regulations on technological fraud a bike has been detained for further investigation following checks at the Womenâ(TM)s Under 23 race of the 2016 UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships. This does not concern any of the riders on the podium. Further details will be shared in due course.â
The Belgian media outlet Sporza reported that the Belgian Cycling Federation had confirmed that the detained bike belonged to Van den Driessche. Ironically, Van den Driessche had abandoned the race due to a mechanical issue shortly before the bike was scrutinised. Van den Driesscheâ(TM)s name did not feature in the official results on the UCI website on Saturday evening. Cyclocross Magazine adds some details.
The Belgian media outlet Sporza reported that the Belgian Cycling Federation had confirmed that the detained bike belonged to Van den Driessche. Ironically, Van den Driessche had abandoned the race due to a mechanical issue shortly before the bike was scrutinised. Van den Driesscheâ(TM)s name did not feature in the official results on the UCI website on Saturday evening. Cyclocross Magazine adds some details.
Why does cycling attract so much cheating?
Is it just more publicized than that in other sports? I mean, you don't hear about cheating nearly as much in other "sports" where they depend upon mechanical equipment... Nascar, F1, MotoGP, etc...
You'd think that Bill Belichick were the coach...
doping in cycling ... this is an outrage!
reports of this have been going on for years, Cancellera having been the target of many
Who cares about cycling and all their cheating problems honestly. I'd rather get the popcorn out for another libtard SJW rant by Weinstein than sit through this boring bullshit.
Or, is this story not true since Van den Driessche is like the Hillary Clinton of woman's bike racing. People keep attacking her and accusing her of things with no proof. With no proof.
You gotta keep your eye on those Flemish. They're sneaky bastards. But the Walloons are OK. You can trust a Walloon.
You are welcome on my lawn.
There's some pics here showing how such a motor can be concealed surprisingly well:
http://cyclingtips.com/2015/04...
Is it really the first, or just the first caught?
I'm also curious on how it works and how it was hidden. I can think of a lot of possibilities, but I'm interested in what was actually done.
Let me sum it up for you - here's the sum total of facts, all details included, from the article.
"A motor was found"
That's pretty much it.
#DeleteChrome
I'm guessing that the motor and battery installed in the bike are similar to a hybrid system in a car - the battery is charged when there is surplus energy available (ie when normally braking) and then energy is released to the motor when it is required for high energy applications (going up hill, passing, starting up).
Ideally, motor and battery operation would be invisible to the rider; when brakes are applied, a computer determines whether or not to charge the battery and a strain gauge on the pedals determines whether or not power is released to the motor. This technology could be very helpful for traditional bikes and people doing recreational riding on the streets or in the country, evening out the workload and making stopping and starting less of a chore.
If somebody decides to take this note and use it as a basis of crowd-sourcing campaign, please remember where the idea came from; my royalty rates are very reasonable.
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nascar has a saying If you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'.
Same things happens in lot's of other sports if you give some one 5 inches they will try to push it to 10 when the ref is not looking.
wmd on credit cabal psychopaths excluded?
If you are going to quote the original article by cut'n'paste a blurb, FFS make sure you fix the encoded entities. It looks so frigging amateurish when you don't.
--- Reality doesn't care about your opinions, it happens anyway and if you are in the way you'll get squished.
This piece of news will increase the sales of electric bicycles. Now, where are the manufactures with their offerings of hidden electric motors and conversion kits to be installed in a bicycle shops?
How many watts can this thing deliver to the chain/rear wheel and for how long? These bikes are really light. About 15 lbs. The whole battery+motor can't weigh more than 4-5 lbs. If someone had a 20 lbs bike at a race, it would feel like it was made of lead to anyone who piked it up. (trust me on this one) I don't see how you could get meaningful power out of something so light. Plus, bikes are generally made of carbon fiber. You can't weld in mounting brackets or make a lot of changes to the inside of the tubes. There isn't much room to work with inside the downtube. If the bottom bracket was the motor, this eliminates the need for a gear box to transfer the power from the motor spindle to the crankset, but this a lot of work. Look at how a modern crank set/bottom bracket is designed: ( http://g03.a.alicdn.com/kf/HTB... ) ( http://mywheelsandmore.com/Ima... ).
So how much does thing really help? Let's say you got something working that put out 100 watts for 8-10 minutes using some 18650 batteries. ( On the flats when cruising, racers are putting down 2-300 watts, they hit 1,000 watts in the sprints ) That isn't enough to win the race, but an extra 100 watts would help. What about the 4-5 hours during the race when this motor isn't on? These races aren't 20 minutes. How much drag does the motor producing? On average, I'm guessing the drag from the motor when it is off would hurt you more than the boost from the motor running would help you. Perhaps there is some form of clutch to disengage the motor? Then you have to lug all that extra weight around for 4-5 hours. It wouldn't matter much on a flat race, but it would add up in the mountains.
#1 killers are starvation & deception, continuation of our bogus history & 'heritage' forces us to neglect/damage each other, let alone the innocent victims (mostly kids) of our perfectly balanced prosperitarian last 'man' standing plunder of much of the planet/population? moms all the (real) moms crying almost all the time now... phewww
On the one hand, the possibility of hiding an e-bike in a regular bike makes me think it could spur the development of advanced technology. On the other hand, the cheaters will always be looking for hidden motors that offer just enough edge to win the race. Thus, any advances in motor tech are unlikely to have applications outside cheating. I guess we can continue to look towards solar car challenges and other events for real legit e-bike breakthroughs, so yeah... worthless cheater scum.
They mean "the first one they've found". It's unlikely that it's the first time this has ever happened.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
A simple solution that would be 100% effective at catching cheaters with hidden motors: x-ray the bikes just before the start of the race, and immediately after they pass the finish line.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Was this the Volkswagen team?
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
UCIâ(TM)s Womenâ(TM)s Driesscheâ(TM)s
This is 2016. Why is this happening? We still cannot have a means of presenting text electronically via the Internet without fuckups like this?
I don't Knowâ(TM)s
I cant see this working unless you take thin cell bendable batteries and then put them in between the layers of carbon fiber when you are building the frame. Then you have the problem of getting the power to a motor in the wheel hub and concealing the motor in the wheel hub. This would all have to be installed during the manufacture of those parts to make them pass inspection. If they x-ray the bike you wouldn't be able to get away with it no how well you hide the components.
I understand the drive to win, I don't understand trying to use a mechanical advantage in something like cycling. I understand the doping and think it should be legal and regulated. The medications are a lot safer than they were 40 years ago and new ones come along all the time that are harder and harder to test for. Using growth hormones and other drugs that help you recover from injury should be legal in all sports. They can make recovery faster and can get the athlete back to 100% instead of them coming back at 80% or 90% and trying to finish recovery while competing. It's naive to think that testing and punishments will keep athletes from doping. It never has and likely never will. Unless they can create a test that will find everything including drugs/therapies that aren't known about yet it will keep happening. What about lifetime bans? Even with that being possible they still take the chance in order to get even a little edge above the competition. In the end it will remain a game of cat and mouse and we will always wonder if someone was cheating when they are dominant in their sport. No matter how many tests they pass people will always have a niggling doubt that maybe they used something that tests didn't pick up. That's why doping should be a regulated part of sports. That is really the only way to make a fairly level playing field. There will always be a small group that will get a new drug or therapy before it is available to everyone else but if it's all legal and out in the open that will be less likely because the manufacturer will make more money when it's available to all the athletes. Just my idiotic opinion but there it is.
And the cheating is so institutionalized that it has to be egregious before it becomes a problem.
Most team sports have this thing called a "penalty" or a "foul" where the offending team gets some small penalty or the offended team some small advantage -- fouls in basketball, the yellow flag in football, penalty box in hockey, balk in baseball.
There's just so much attempted cheating they've just made it part of the game -- intentional fouls are part of the late-minute strategy in basketball to stop the clock. In hockey, it's actually against the rules to beat the shit out of an opposing player yet it too is (although less so now) part of the game, down to "the enforcer" each team hires to intimidate members of the other team, up to and including beating the shit out of them once in a while.
In those sports only the most outrageous cheating becomes a scandal, like illegal hits in hockey that put someone in the hospital, hard fouls in basketball that result in an ejection or deflating the football (which, IMHO, couldn't have provided the advantage relative to the BFD it caused).
A 100 Watt motor plus batteries of any useful size will make such a bike noticeably heavier.
I want one! It's brilliant design. Let's get the price down.
As for the woman, it's inconceivable she thought she could get away with it - it's easy to spot, with magnets if nothing else. Possible it was a trainer that got mixed in, or someone else's bike, I think they're claiming. Possible. It certainly jammed up the crank and gave itself away (toys don't always work, self-driving-car fans). As a cheat, it doesn't give you much, with a certainty of detection added in.
I'll let them decide, but it would quite stupid if so if they brought it to race day.
Yes, that's said in other sports such as finance.
Just some nit picking (and not for downplaying the incident): Femke was European champion with the juniors ('beloften' in dutch).
Next they will have to x-ray the riders to make sure they don't have mechanical implants.
Four inches is fine!!