And so it begins…? "mechanical doping" first?

I was actually pondering last night if viewing figures for today would be higher.

Details still a bit scant on the ground about what’s been found or indeed investigated. Not saying it’s not a motor but I think I’ll reserve any judgement until there’s more substantial info available.

On the upside, this obviously explains my placings at Hit the North.

Batteries in the wrong way round?

Bugger MacB beat me to it, the pedal is been used as a pivot,
“For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” so if pedal/cranks can’t move the frame will.

Anyway 5min to U23 men start!

Disappointed no one has mentioned wiggos self parking pinarello

😉

As per mikesmith’s post up there, did none of you think to check whether Hesjedal’s bike had been looked at by the UCI? bloody hell it was a passing media driven “incident”! I think it got less thread space on here at the time!

thought the guy on the commentary talking about the belgiums leading the start of the under 23 race “the problem with going out hard too early is your battery goes flat!” 🙂

Stevious: Brian Cookson press Conference this morning “there was a hidden motor, no secret about that”.

Seems pretty cut and dried to me.

When I first heard about this I had a think about how to do it and not get caught:

A battery built into the frame, I’d use the chain stays or seat stays. No metal shells to the battery just the paste and cores which would be part of the drop outs so you have a frame which is a battery with positive and negative rear dropouts. You could do it with nothing that would look out of place on a x-ray.

The motor would be integrated into the hub, there’s more than enough space for a 10-20W motor. The positive and negative terminals would be the axle ends, a composite axle with an insulator in the middle and the bearings mounted on insulating material. The windings would be around the axle and alnico magnets in the hub shell.

The wheel would only be used for part of the stage, wheel changes are easy enough and with a motor a rider shouldn’t have trouble making the gap required to let his team car through.

So you’re ignoring all the explanations about why there isn’t a motor in the hub (not enough space, and the only reason for having it there despite all the advantages would be to spin up the rear wheel when the bike fell over to fuel the conspiracy theories)? TBH the unicorn fart theory is just about as plausible.

Jeez – have you actually watched the video or are you just confused? The crank doesn’t move relative to the bike frame even after he unclips. So the motor is not only rotating the bike frame around the pedal on the tarmac, it’s also rotating the crank around the pedal on the tarmac. The motor (if there was one) would rotate the crank relative to the frame, if that isn’t happening then there’s no force being applied anywhere to rotate anything. Or is this a new theory of a motor in the pedal?

You lot need to listen to yourself – it’s all classic conspiracy theory stuff, you don’t believe the normal explanation because you’re seeing slight flaws in that explanation and the demo in the video (flaws which are easily explained). Therefore you reckon it must be a motor and you’re coming up with ridiculous theories about how it can be the result of a motor, theories which have far, far more flaws in, yet you’re ignoring those flaws because it fits with your fundamental theory that there is a motor. Occam’s Razor.

And if he were using my battery frame/motor hub idea, Aracer?

Hesjedal is on a Cervelo – seat stays seems likely 🙄

The motor would be integrated into the hub, there’s more than enough space for a 10-20W motor.

No, there really isn’t, not with a normal hub shell, and given the need for an axle in the middle. Check out the size of a Schmidt dynohub which nominally generates 3W – sure there are ways to do things a bit more efficiently given the budget, but that already uses high spec close to the state of the art parts, and any efficiency savings will be eaten up in providing the higher power output required before you can even think about making it 1/4 the size which is what you’re effectively suggesting.

Which still fails because there’s no reason to put the motor there rather than the BB – they’re not interested in spinning the rear wheel without the cranks turning – and if you had one there you wouldn’t even need a scanner you could just spot the larger than normal hub. The only reason they don’t scan the hub (if they don’t) is because it’s so obvious there isn’t a motor there, whilst there is space to hide one in the seat tube.

You’re forgetting that those 3W are made at jogging pace and cycle races won at averages three times higher. The big problems with hub dynamos are the low rotation speed and low voltage. Use a Schmidt as a motor at 50km/h at a higher voltage and you’d get tens of watts. The limiting factor being melting the windings.

Sorry I’m late to this. Has anybody actually been busted for mechanical doping or are we just debating that old Hesjedal clip yet again?

*Pedant.. Isnt doping the consumption of a performance enhancing substance.
Using a motor is cheating not doping. /Pedant.

Any photos of the doped bike yet.??

Has anybody actually been busted for mechanical doping

Yes

Looks like her defense is that someone else put the bike into the pits for her, it wasn’t one of her bikes and there was no intention that she ride it. Makes the idea of a lifetime ban quite difficult when you aren’t the one responsible for checking your bikes. A little different from the situation where you are responsible for what you put into your body

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/35452791

Ok, thanks. So we’re still at alleged and it wasn’t a bike she actually rode. Still, an interesting development.

It’s alleged she rode it I believe, the one defending her is her dad. There is also talk of a brother on epo.

I think you need to read the whole thread and all the links, Roverpig.

Right-oh. See you next week 🙂

What I find most shocking about this whole thread is the revelation that unicorns fart! 🙄

Smells of pudding & woodburners.
True fact.

Applying the evidential standards seen at some points in the thread, I’m going to look at this and conclude that cheating is rife in CX.

We don’t see much of the pedal once he’s unclipped but assuming he’s in top gear the cranks would only have to rotate 30° for the rear wheel to move 1m roughly the distance we see it move before the pedal disappears from view. The more I watch the more I’m convinced the crank does rotate the required amount.

The more I watch the more I’m convinced the crank does rotate the required amount.

The bit where it was checked out by the officials convinced me

I wasn’t forgetting that at all – I thought about adding a factor for that, but then remembered that the important bits of bike races, the bits where they might want to have the benefit of a motor are where they’re going at speeds similar to what a Schmidt is specced at (which is rather higher than jogging speed). BTW the power generated by a hub dynamo is proportional to speed, so at 50km/h you’d still not get 10W out of one. So you’re close to what you think is a useful power output, but still no closer to reducing the size to 1/4 in the way you’re suggesting.

Though the limiting factor you mention there is interesting – how do you think you’d solve that issue, and what would it do for your packaging requirements?

It’s alleged she rode it I believe, the one defending her is her dad. There is also talk of a brother on epo.

I haven’t see that, the stuff I read just suggested that it was one of her bikes ready to ride. She says that is wasn’t hers and that it was only included in error:

“The young Belgian Femke Van den Driessche said Sunday that the bike with a hidden motor that used during World cyclocross Espoirs Saturday in Heusden-Zolder, not his and that she was unaware of the presence of this motor.

” It was not my bike but that of a friend, the same as mine, but that ended up in my hands following a misunderstanding of an engineer ,” she explained in tears during an interview with the Sunday Sporza chain.

” This is exactly the same as my current bike ,” said Van den Driessche. ” This friend went to inspect the course Saturday before filing his bike to the truck. A mechanic, thinking it was my bike, cleaned it and prepared me for the race. ” (Google translated from rtbf.be)

” This is exactly the same as my current bike ,” said Van den Driessche. ” This friend went to inspect the course Saturday before filing his bike to the truck. A mechanic, thinking it was my bike, cleaned it and prepared me for the race. ” (Google translated from rtbf.be)

And the reason for having a bike equipped with a hidden electric motor at the world cx?

Really? Have you watched the original, rather than the poor quality clip as part of the demo?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynLMfzLTc8M

You can quite clearly see that there is no movement of the crank at all, certainly nowhere near 30° (not to mention that the rear wheel moves far more than 1m, so you’d need close to 90° crank rotation even in top gear – BTW 36° required for 1m even in 53/11).

Though I presume now you’re just living up to your STW forum status?

And the reason for having a bike equipped with a hidden electric motor at the world cx?
[/quote]

Exactly my thoughts – the only reason for hiding it in that way is surely to cheat – given the issues over this, isn’t it a bit stupid to have a bike around exactly the same as hers where they might make this sort of “mistake”.

yep it’s isane. I image their bike sponsors will be with their lawyers right now. The whole team have to be in trouble.

I want to see the proof of this before I make any more comments..

Why haven’t the UCI issued photos or a statement outlining the “motor” ? I see Cookson’s issued a comment on Twitter “its plain to see it’s a motor” Well Cooky, show us photo’s then.. 🙄

When I heard about this first, last night, I thought it was something to do with her seat being too far forward or not the right kind of paint or some other idiotic rule the UCI have on the shape of a bike or its setup.

Wouldn’t there be some additional drag when the motor isn’t powered?

The only cyclists who would think that ‘magical spinning bike’ has a motor are ones who:

* Never rode freestyle bmx
* Don’t crash much
* Never cycle at all

Bikes can do some weird things when their pilot leaves them unexpectedly.

some other idiotic rule the UCI have on the shape of a bike or its setup.

I thought the winner wasn’t even using a CX bike?

Cheater got caught….good.

There is no good reason to have a bike built like this AND stored in a contender’s pits….hidden motor too, doesn’t look good, it fact it looks like she cheated or was trying to cheat at some point in the race.

A coach or training partner would use a moped or just buy an E-bike rather than go to the time, effort and expense of concealing a motor!

This is something that has been rumored in cycling for some years now, makes you wonder about all other bike changes we’ve seen in major races over the past few years!?….if a 19yr old Belgian Cyclo-Cross rider is involved then how many of the big riders and teams have trialled this tech!?

Cycling seems to want to shoot itself in the foot at every twist and turn, riding a motorised bike is the lowest form of cheating, for me it’s worse than doping.

Glad she got caught, hope the UCI start tearing bikes apart at the big races this year.

Wouldn’t there be some additional drag when the motor isn’t powered?

I would think so but maybe this plays into the hands of the cx folks where the bikes can be changed every lap. One commentator was saying that a motor doesn’t make much sense in CX except for the start and finish. However he also said that some riders might have up to 6 bikes with them which would make it quite possible to use something quite specific just for the start or end 🙁

” It was not my bike but that of a friend, the same as mine, but that ended up in my hands following a misunderstanding of an engineer ,” she explained in tears during an interview with the Sunday Sporza chain.

” This is exactly the same as my current bike ,” said Van den Driessche. ” This friend went to inspect the course Saturday before filing his bike to the truck. A mechanic, thinking it was my bike, cleaned it and prepared me for the race. ” (Google translated from rtbf.be)

And “I did seem to feel suprisingly good on the day though, like I had a tailwind, which was odd to have at every point on the course.. “

Is this all real? Ha. A shame when we have a British World Champ from the same event and all this could get more media focus.

for me it’s worse than doping.

How so? I don’t agree or disagree, just wondering. Think I’d rather see a racer not risking their health by cheating this way than messing about with hotel room transfusions and all that nastiness. At least then you know that on a normal bike the performance is genuine, rather than an EPO positive that makes you question every ride they’ve ever done. Anyway .. all a bit wacky races : ) If this is a real bust I’d find it hard to believe it’s the first time an e-bike has ever been raced at this level.