McRussellPants

Push to pass on a bike would kill the sport. 100%.

If you're too lazy to work for it the 250cc club race Ninjas are for sure cheaper than the half of our pedal bikes, just do that.

gtrob

I would say masters are MORE likely to cheat from my experience. A kid doping has more to gain sure, but a LOT more to lose. The kind of guy who spends more money than time, and is extremely competitive/A-type male, would absolutely be the type to take any short cut presented. The sacrifices people put themselves through, financially, time, emotionally, its not a far jump to think they would take a 'boost'. Especially when testing, although not impossible, is pretty rare at that level outside of worlds.

Elite rider gets caught, their career is over. Master racer gets caught, he can continue to ride just as much as ever, and race again in 2 years usually.

Just my perspective, but 'cheating' in the strictest sense, happens way more than people think already.

carleton

If a Masters racers gets caught, (s)he is embarrassed and then moves on the the next hobby.

gycho77

I don't get when people cheat to win a race. I would rather lose and train more.
Every velodrome should post a list of cheater on their website or velodrome.
So they will be ashamed of themselves and never cheat on the race again.

bitingduck

Those motors are what people were accusing Cancellara of using a few years ago.

Yes, there's enough to gain with modern batteries and even a relatively low power motor- A few tens of watts can be the difference between staying in the race and being dropped, especially on an uphill. Lithium Ion batteries are small enough that you can trivially put 30 watt hours (30 extra watts for an hour!) in your seat tube (about 6 ounces of batter), and with a little effort 100 Wh. You might not be able to get enough torque out of the little motor to get 100 watts for an hour, but it might give you 30+ W for 3 hours, which is plenty of extra power. It's not even necessarily a weight penalty - it's not that hard to make a stupid-light bike and instead of loading the seat tube with chain to bring it up to 6.8 kg, you can stick a motor and battery instead.

bitingduck

They often set up the pits so you can change bikes twice per lap with a mechanic in the pit cleaning mud off the one you just swapped out.

queerpunk

yeah, but the Cancellara accusations were dumb as hell. One anonymous person posts a grainy video on the internet and says that because the fastest guy in the world is fast at riding bikes, that's proof that he has a motor: just look. He moves his hands and then he goes fast.

The line of thinking that all of our winners are illegitimate is foolish as hell. I get that everybody is burnt from the EPO era but I think that now, Occam's Razor invites us to think that the cheaters are the ones with the most to gain and the least to lose. People like Femke - struggling to step up towards a possibly bright career.

bitingduck

The accusations against Spartacus were stupid, but they got the motors some visibility and may have given some ideas. Just the follow-on to the accusations showed that it was technically feasible and there were even implementations.

As far as doping in the peloton, that's a different story. Drugs go back to *way* before the whole EPO thing, it's just that they were mostly less dramatically effective and more easily detectable, although at various times they've also been treated as an open secret, too. And through doping history it's the also-rans who did it more. Less chance of getting tested, less to lose (they weren't winning anyway), sometimes working as a domestique and dropping out of a race early to avoid being eligible for testing.

Banchad

Been thinking about the detection method. You don't even need an Infrared camera to do this. The magnetometer in the iPhone/iPad is sensitive enough to pick up the earth's magnetic field (Its used to detect the orientation of the device). The magnetic components/fields used in the construction of motors would be child's play to detect using it. Plus you don't have to worry about the motor being the same ambient temperature.

carleton

Interesting. How might it differentiate between a suspected motor and a cadence magnet or SRM sensor magnet? SRMs require a magnet near or on the BB shell to activate the reed switch inside of the cranks.

Dalai

Easy fix. The UCI will just ban SRM's*

*UCI - creating stupid rules since forever...

Banchad

I would imagine that the magnetic fields are much, much weaker than those produced by those in the motor, particularly if these motors are to produce the torque and power required to actually add to a riders performance. I did wonder about the fields produced in DI2 motors but the same principle should apply as the motors used there are comparatively minuscule.

CliffordK

The advantage of IR is that it would tell you 100% if the motor has actually been used recently. But, it would not give any valuable information pre-race. Even a heavily used battery pack may warm up. For a long race, a savvy rider might use a cool-down period at the end of the race.

A magnet sensor would be good if it could be localized so you could ignore legal computer magnets.

However, there are at least three basic types of motors. Permanent Magnet motors, induction motors, and field+stator coil motors. I think the permanent magnet motors are the most efficient. However, the advantage of using both field+stator coils is that the motors are much more powerful and compact. They also may have lower resistance when turned off.

Your magnet sensors may only effectively detect the permanent magnet motors, and not the 100% coil based motors.

One should be able to use induction to pick up the coils, but it might require an external sensor.

Another detection method might be using sonar and ultrasound. Would an IPAD be sensitive enough to use ultrasound with its native speaker/microphones? Obviously one has different frame materials from steel to carbon fiber. It might be tough to determine what is inside the bottom bracket, but the contents of the major frame tubes should be very predictable. It may require direct contact to the frame, but one should be able to design a portable device that would be easy to use.

The "gold standard" might be fluoroscopy, but it would probably require more of a fixed installation or trailer. But, one could process a lot of bikes quickly, and have permanent records of many details of the bikes, including potentially discovering cracks and defects.

Endoscopy apparently has also been used, but it would require at least partial disassembly (seatpost removal or bottom bracket removal).

I do wonder if there are a few flaws with the current detection methods (still prototype?), which is one of the reasons why the details are still sketchy. For example, if it only detects hot motors and not cold motors, or only one type of motor, then confirmation of testing procedures would open up more fraud.

CliffordK

It will be interesting to see the fallout from this.

I can imagine basic races getting tamperproof stickers put on all the race bikes. No more questions of legal bikes in the pits.

A country like France could make a fluoroscopy trailer to daily weigh and check every bike on the big racing circuits. Hmmm, how many bikes? 500? At 30 seconds a bike, that could take some time to go through them all. 15 seconds a bike? Make appointments for each team to come and get all their bikes checked. One device could, of course, follow the Pros around Europe on the pro circuit to all the grand tours, so the cost is distributed across at least several European nations. Maybe even fly it to the USA.

And post the images up on the internet for the bike forums to bicker about illegal mods to the bikes.

Lesser races could use one of a number of simpler devices.

It might help to limit the number of "race bikes". One + Spare?

Banchad

Not disagreeing with you but merely explaining why I believe the motor to be DC and therefore have been using Magnets.

Firstly I've been seeing several reports that the UCI officials that first found this were not using any external apparatus and were only using an App on a phone. This implies the use of the magnetometer to detect the magnetic fields instead of an IR system.

Secondly, the context. AC motors can indeed be made without permanently magnetised materials but require an AC power source. And also yes converting DC to AC is possible but given the space constraints of hiding it within a bike frame I don't believe that this would be a feasible solution because you also need to have a motor controller with AC motors.

A DC motor would not require the same level of complexity to run and can be powered directly off the power source simply by using a push switch controlled by the rider.

I imagine you might be able to detect an induction motor through the use of an off the shelf metal detector in a low power setting.

In short this is so trivial to detect either type of motor that I can't see any rider being daft enough to assume they could continue to get away with it for much longer now the UCI have a confirmed case of it occurring

2manybikes

The video I watched shows a battery inside a seat bag. Wouldn't this be incredibly easy to find? It also shows wires into the seat tube. I guess you could hide the wires by having them go up through the bag and down through the seat post. Can one get away with putting the battery in the bag after a pre race bike check?

carleton

Well, the toolbag kit is the consumer version. Given enough time and motivation, I'm sure that a custom battery pack could be made and placed in other places.

Banchad

Ala 1st gen DI2 going from an external battery to an internal 2nd gen.

Edit: Ooo if you wanted to be really sneaky you could hide the battery in plain sight as a 1st gen DI2 battery pack...

Flatballer

That part is already done, although for road bikes, so they hide it in the seat tube water bottle. I guess that wouldn't work on the track. Wouldn't be hard to put the battery in the seattube as well though, or even downtube, more room there usually.

As for the motor definitely having magnets because it's DC, it's not necessarily true. There are DC motors without permanent magnets, but they're tricky and require smart controllers.

2manybikes

My thought is that even a water bottle battery needs to have wires going to the seat tube. No need ever for any sophisticated equipment, you can see the wires. If there is a on off button you can see that too. Can't someone just look at each bike? If the idea is to inspect each bike anyway, you don't need any tools, even if the water bottle battery is not on the bike there will be a hole or a connector of same kind. High tech not needed.

Dalai

You still need an on / off switch, but that could be wireless and can be quite subtle. Plus forget about batteries in saddlebags or water bottles, the batteries go internally. CX racers don't use saddlebags and rarely carry water bottles as it gets in the way shouldering the bike.

2manybikes

So maybe the CX bike being investigated has a battery in the seat tube? I guess taking off the seat post and sticking a bar down the seat tube is appropriate.
That would clearly find a motor in the tube too.
I can see how a wireless switch could be secretly put onto the bike just before the race. Or maybe even attached to a glove.

carleton

I wouldn't want anyone disassembling then reassembling my bike right before any race big enough to warrant such checks.

I'd want a "shake down" ride afterwards, before the big event. But as we all know, getting track time is very difficult at big events due to tight event schedules.

Flatballer

If you put a stick down a pro bike you're likely to hit something before the bottom. That's where they put the weights to make the bike legal.

2manybikes

That's Ok. It's a motor or a weight. Look down the tube. If there is a way to get the motor in, there is a way to get it out. It's just a motor. This is not complicated.