cheating roadies again…. ?

Jonathan Vaughters has just tweeted

“Wanted: bicycle mechanic w electrical engineering and/or jet propulsion PhD. Highly confidential work. Must speak fluent Canadian”

😆 brilliant!

Or perhaps that’s why Chris Froome always stares at his stem. Its got a little dial showing charge remaining

Going OT, I was amused to see Gary Imlach and Roger Hammond discussing Froome’s recent penchant for crashing the other day, and Hammond saying that it’s not coincidental, or unlucky, it’s because he’s never looking where he’s going! It is slightly worrying when you see footage of him riding in bunches!

Yes Njee I am the ONLY person in the Whole world that that thinks this too, you see I don’t get out much, I’m always on this forum cutting and pasting and giving it big licks about being a Cycling super hero.

I’m that good I’ve got virtually every cycling forum the world over talking about something I know nothing about !

Of course being retarded makes me say things I know nothing about, just like you.
I know nothing about you but think you are total Cock, that’s how retards think.

Of course those who thought Cancelarra were cheating were idiots. Just like I’m an idiot too as are the posters who also think that it’s odd that a wheel that’s static can Kick back and turn whilst gathering momentum.

And if it’s so easy to dope then why would they as you suggest even contemplate such an elaborate hoax.

At this point some one needs to post

“Oh the ironing”

Not quite sure what point your actually making DD…

And if it’s so easy to dope then why would they as you suggest even contemplate such an elaborate hoax.

Huh? It’s easy to dope, it’s harder to do it and not get caught. Sticking motors in bikes is akin to turning up with track marks on your arms and some blood bags in your jersey pocket!

Can you stop capitalising random words though, that’s annoying.

Proof, as if proof were needed

I take it all back, Discoduck you were right all along.

Yes, lets be terribly adult and try to damage the reputation of a professional sportsman based on three seconds of footage we don’t understand.

Hesjedal admitted to doping; his reputation is mediocre anyway.

Of course those who thought Cancelarra were cheating were idiots. Just like I’m an idiot too as are the posters who also think that it’s odd that a wheel that’s static can Kick back and turn whilst gathering momentum.

Well people who thought Cancellara was cheating WERE idiots. This makes me wonder what you’re trying to say in the latter half of that paragraph.

roadies getting very defensive!!
the problem is that after watching the BBC4 doc (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b048wq0z) about the extent and barefaced arseholery of lance and the gang, its not surprising that people are suspiscous

fwiw I dont think any sport is clean and that more money= more dodginess

See I told you ! But the one I’m talking about had an energizer battery fitted,

Joking apart, there’s usually no smoke without fire and the fact that people are talking about it doesn’t mean it’s happening it doesn’t mean it’s not either, it isn’t outside the realms of engineering to trial such a gadget and the cons may far outweigh the pros, it does sound pie in the sky but the way that the wheel kicks back and picks up momentum is odd, freaky in fact. You could try and replicate that a thousand times over and it would never happen again.

The one time it does it was right in front of the camera bike.

There are bound to be rumblings surrounding what looks like a torque driven spin,

I’ve got to be honest “Retarded” or not I’d love to see if there were a worm drive cog assisting the bottom bracket turning the crank arms, ONLY because I’m sceptical and have never seen something as odd on a human powered bike.

That’s all,

I’m sceptical

You really, really aren’t.

The crank arms don’t move…

I’d love to see if there were a worm drive cog assisting the bottom bracket turning the crank arms

And you’ve still definitely not seen that, as Hesjedal’s pedals aren’t turning in the video…

Joking apart, there’s usually no smoke without fire and the fact that people are talking about it doesn’t mean it’s happening it doesn’t mean it’s not either,

This is one of those rare times.

Lemonysam, please explain why I’m not ?

Njee, I take it by your robust stance that you are the bloke who maintains his bike ?

In that case as you are 100% sure it’s not happening then I bow down and accept that you are 100% sure that once he unclips the continuity is broken and the drive cut.

Why don’t the cranks turn?

In that case as you are 100% sure it’s not happening then I bow down and accept that you are 100% sure that once he unclips the continuity is broken and the drive cut.

Eh? That’s not what makes me think it’s absurdly far fetched. The UCI weigh every bike, and all parts used in road races have to be approved, do you honestly think that any rider, or more significantly any team, is going to risk their reputation by shoving a motor in the bike, which could be very easily detected.

It really is akin to Usain Bolt turning up to the Olympics with these:

Or an F1 team sticking the old V8 in this years car and hoping no one notices!

Lifer, the crank arm does move, look closely

Grab a bike, spin the back wheel up and let it go.

If it moves by itself, then you are a cheat, obviously.

If Ryder has got a motor in his bike, then unless the entire peloton has, thus negating the effect, then it is clearly a waste of time as he’s been awful for the most part since his Giro win a few years back!

…and since when was cycling a multi billion dollar sport?! Aside from a handful of teams, the pro peloton is pretty skint thanks to 20 years of doping scandals.

Lifer, the crank arm does move, look closely

No it doesn’t. He unclips at about 4 seconds in, the DS crank is at roughly 12 o clock, the bike pivots around the STI lever into the path of the moto, the pedal is still at 12 o clock.

If Ryder has got a motor in his bike, then unless the entire peloton has, thus negating the effect, then it is clearly a waste of time as he’s been awful for the most part since his Giro win a few years back!

😆

Really?!

I fell off on some ice on the road once (on my mtb) and pretty sure my bike did something very similar.
Probably woulnd’t look so weird if the gradient they were riding on was easier to make out in the video.

Even if they could have a motor in the frame somewhere, they’d also need some form of battery (have you seen how large the batteries are on e-bikes?). And road bikes are so light that trying to ‘hide’ something becomes all the more difficult as the proportion of total weight would be higher.

Mtbmatt, just tried it. Laid it down on its side with the rear wheel static and I let go of it and it just stayed there?

You can see the wheel static ? If the pedals don’t turn and the contact with the shiny Tarmac has scrubbed the speed out of the wheel where does the torque come from ?

Is it the pivot on the lever that lightens up the back end, is that what your saying ?

For those convinced there’s a motor in the bike:

Haven’t you ever had to fettle your gears or put a dropped chain back on, spun your cranks with the back wheel off the air and put the bike back on the level? Sure you have, what happens? The wheel carries on spinning and skids on the surface you’ve put it on to.

Now take that ‘phenomenon’ add a large gear, super light bike balanced on a couple of mm square of plastic and a front tyre and see what happens. Of course the bike doesn’t dig in, you’re looking for something that isn’t there.

The one time it does it was right in front of the camera bike

This is absolute rubbish, you are discounting the thousands of riders who have been filmed falling off where no ‘odd-looking’ bike movement has been seen.

Matt

Damn, even the MTB’rs are at it now. Hope the scrutineers at SSUK are on the ball.

it’s odd that a wheel that’s static can Kick back and turn whilst gathering momentum.

Have you never had kickback when either the chain falls off the front then gets picked up again or the rear mech gets caught in the spoke, the wheel jams, the chain releases then the wheel spins at speed again.

Why am I adding fuel to this bullshit.

Does the wheel even stop? You can’t see from the video, and I don’t remember noticing when watching on TV.

I guess you guys all missed this on the gifs thread?

Missed what ?

There’s an HD version – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBvgUBpJSkk

Is the motorcyclist running over his back wheel..? or switching something OFF?

Just like I’m an idiot too as are the posters who also think that it’s odd that a wheel that’s static can Kick back and turn whilst gathering momentum.

Yes it would num’nuts.

Kick a football hard upto the air without making it spin, or heck, make it spin backwards for added effect, when it hits the ground it’ll start to roll forewards. Does it;
a) have a motor in it
b) transfer linear momentum into angular momentum.

Any cricketer bowling a spinner, or snooker player adding top/bottom/side to a shot, or golfer, or footballer knows that you can transfer angular momentum to linear mometum very easily. The bike bikes losing momentum and slowing down, the least friction is from the back wheel which can turn, of course the bikes going to start to spin!

Yeah, and this cheating fracker has not just got a powered bike, but one that is completely remote controlled from his team helicopter!

😉

More seriously, lets look at the science:

A world class roadie is going to be putting out something like 400w over the duration of the event (lets say 2hrs). To make a significant difference in performance you’d want at least a 50w (at the wheels) electric motor.

55w for 2 hrs (inc 10% powertransmission losses) is 110w/hrs, but you need your battery to be bigger than your energy requirement to keep the voltage high enough to allow the motor to keep making the power required. Typically, your battery is at least 60% bigger than your energy requirement, so we need, in this case around 200w/hrs.

Now, typical current Lipo batteries have an energy density of around 150whrs/kg, so we need a 1.25kg battery pack.

A 50W motor weighs around 500g, and we need a variable speed inverter to drive it (say 200g) and a gearbox to get the power to the rear wheel (or cranks or whatever) so that’s another 500g or so.
All up, we are looking at roughly 2.5kg extra mass, and of course, all parts/ wires etc have to be hidden in the frame invisibly.

So, why would the UCi need to Xray bikes to check for motors? They wouldn’t, a simple set of scales would immediately show the cheaters!!

discoduck – Member
Missed what ?

If you look at the reflection in the moto’s mirror you can see that it’s being driven by Elvis.

Does this motor have a reverse gear?

discoduck – Member

I’m guessing that motorbike rider has seen bikes go down plenty of times and is competent enough to ride round it, the motorbike rider clearly slows waits for things to settle and moves on then all of a sudden the bike is moving again and he rides over it !

You might want to ask Steve Morabito about that…

maxtorque – Member
lets look at the science:

A world class roadie is going to be putting out something like 400w over the duration of the event (lets say 2hrs). To make a significant difference in performance you’d want at least a 50w (at the wheels) electric motor.

55w for 2 hrs (inc 10% powertransmission losses) is 110w/hrs, but you need your battery to be bigger than your energy requirement to keep the voltage high enough to allow the motor to keep making the power required. Typically, your battery is at least 60% bigger than your energy requirement, so we need, in this case around 200w/hrs.

Now, typical current Lipo batteries have an energy density of around 150whrs/kg, so we need a 1.25kg battery pack.

A 50W motor weighs around 500g, and we need a variable speed inverter to drive it (say 200g) and a gearbox to get the power to the rear wheel (or cranks or whatever) so that’s another 500g or so.
All up, we are looking at roughly 2.5kg extra mass, and of course, all parts/ wires etc have to be hidden in the frame invisibly.

So, why would the UCi need to Xray bikes to check for motors? They wouldn’t, a simple set of scales would immediately show the cheaters!!

Plus how many extra watts would the rider be using up just to push that extra 2.5kg?

You might want to ask Steve Morabito about that…

**Googles** oof! Nasty.

Just to add on the ebike power thing, have got power outputs of over 500watts while on the hibike, could add another 100watts for a fitter rider and correct size frame, obviously larger motor and battery pack, sure if you were to throw a fair amount of money at it could be made alot smaller and lighter with lower power unit.

So, the rider comes off the bike at whatever speed he’s doing. The bike slides, on what looks like a very steep, cambered piece of relatively smooth tarmac. At first the bike slides in the same direction it was travelling, with three contact points: Pedal, shifter and probably rear wheel QR. If the tarmac were flawless the bike would simply continue to slide in the same direction, but it’s decelerating from the point he comes off, and the camber is starting to have an effect. At the point the bike starts to spin I reckon the shifter (it’s sliding pointy end forwards) only needs to hit a small bit of grippier tarmac, or an imperfection in the road surface for the momentum at the front of the bike to slow dramatically, at which point the bike pivots around the next contact point, the pedal. The heaviest part of the bike, the rear cluster, then continues to move, but as the shifter has slowed, the bike simply rotates around the cranks, and the effect is doubled by the downhill, cambered surface.

Peppered steak slice please.

have got power outputs of over 500watts while on the hibike, could add another 100watts for a fitter rider and correct size frame, obviously larger motor and battery pack, sure if you were to throw a fair amount of money at it could be made alot smaller and lighter with lower power unit.

How much smaller and lighter? Within 500g for the whole system? Otherwise it would stick out like a sore thumb when they weighed it. Unless the entire field was using motors and it was some sort of ruse from the UCI, in which case… why?

If it’s just Hesjedal then again, why’s he shit? Why not Talansky as well? As he’s team leader? Is this something Hesjedal has done on the sly without his team’s knowledge?

It really does beggar belief, there are so many absolutely glaring problems with it as a concept, and precisely no ‘evidence’ at all.