motorised doping?!

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Flying_Monkey

Recyclist
Location
Odawa
TheDoctor said:
Yes, I have.
I'd like to know how anyone can stuff a usable number of batteries into the seat tube that's already full of a 22cm long motor.

Um, the whole frame is a series of hollow tubes... and I don't think there's any question that this isn't possible, the question is just whether a team (or a particular rider's support structure within a team) would have been able to do this in practice yet... and without anyone outside noticing until now. Whatever is the case, it pays the UCI to take action whether it's happening or whether it's a potential problem.
 

TheDoctor

Noble and true, with a heart of steel
Moderator
Location
The TerrorVortex
Yes, FM, I am aware of that.The seat tube is the only one you can gain access to to get the batteries in and out, and to access them for charging.
 

Crankarm

Guru
Location
Nr Cambridge
bikepete said:
Er, yes. Your posting, which, referring to the manufacturer in question (Gruber Assist) said "Slandering, accusing Cancellara of cheating is really low." As it's in written form that's potentially libellous.

And what is your evidence for this accusation?



Yes, so they are. If you want to make an 'invisible' system it's a layout that makes sense.



And your evidence that Gruber are in any way whatsoever actively involved in this matter is?



The only person defaming them (AFAIK) is you in your posting and I very much doubt they even know you or this website exists.

The video etc. uses their footage as a handy illustration of the concept, no more. Everyone else seems to understand this. You are the only one accusing them of being behind this as a cynical publicity ploy.



Never suggested you were. I was suggesting that the people who choose to work in small bicycle parts companies don't generally indulge in this sort of thing. Business moguls work where there's more money (betting on cycle races, perhaps). Not selling bikes.



Had you even heard of Gruber Assist before this story broke, then?



In your last post you suggested that the reason for them to engage in the alleged skullduggery was because it wasn't selling well. You can't have it both ways.... as it happens the electric bike market in Germany is doing quite well, and they seem to be doing OK too - a few years ago they just did a single bike, now there's a whole range.

I can quite understand a bit of cynicism and enjoy a conspiracy theory as much as anyone but suggesting that Gruber launched this whole affair as a viral is just insulting and unfair to what I believe is a decent small company.

Do you have any evidence otherwise to back up your insinuations?

You need to get off your high horse, go back and read my posts as I have not mentioned the company's name or their exact model or that it is them actually doing the slandering.

If anyone has libelled anyone in this thread it is you ;). I think you are riding Mr T Roll ;).
 

mangaman

Guest
TheDoctor said:
Sorry, but that is flat-out impossible. Getting a kilowatt from a single AAA battery would mean pulling 667 amps, which it won't supply even to a dead short. I don't care what kind of tech you throw at it, you're not going to hide enough batteries in a bike frame to provide a useful, sustained power boost. And the bike will weigh a tonne. Hells teeth, the best e-bike I've seen won't get you more than 20 miles at 15 mph, and that's with a dirty great stack of Li-ion cells in a big box weighing a good few kilos.
I don't believe the technology is there. Not even close. If it was, they'd be using it in electric cars, not fart-arseing about cheating in bike races.

Sorry Doc, I was just quoting Boardman's evidence to the UCI.

He not only knows more than you or I about bike design, but has clearly been asked specifically to present the situation about motorised doping a year ago.

As raindog says, the bikes come in underweight easily already. I suppose ( no disrespect ;)) I believe Chris Boardman rather than you - as he clearly has the cutting edge info at his fingertips.

I love the image of the UCI bigwigs sitting around while Chris draws the basics on a whiteboard that leaves them speechless.

The UCI are consistently behind other organisations on doping - ditto with this as far as I can see (unless you think Boardman is not telling the truth - but why wouldn't he?)
 

Crankarm

Guru
Location
Nr Cambridge
mangaman said:
Sorry Doc, I was just quoting Boardman's evidence to the UCI.

He not only knows more than you or I about bike design, but has clearly been asked specifically to present the situation about motorised doping a year ago.

As raindog says, the bikes come in underweight easily already. I suppose ( no disrespect :laugh:) I believe Chris Boardman rather than you - as he clearly has the cutting edge info at his fingertips.

I love the image of the UCI bigwigs sitting around while Chris draws the basics on a whiteboard that leaves them speechless.

The UCI are consistently behind other organisations on doping - ditto with this as far as I can see (unless you think Boardman is not telling the truth - but why wouldn't he?)

Now if only he can sell a few of his bikes with these motors .........
 
TheDoctor said:
Yes, FM, I am aware of that.The seat tube is the only one you can gain access to to get the batteries in and out, and to access them for charging.
Hey Doc, when are you going to play your "actually, I am a rocket scientist" card? :laugh::sad:

If Mr Boardman is referring to current F1 tech then I'd like to see a little more evidence from him. I'm assuming he isn't talking cobblers (sensible chap, knows his stuff) but even so. As for the tech being of more benefit to the pedelec community, well yes but dear old push bikes are never going to be at the cutting edge and there is a long history of F1 style tech taking a long time to filter down to the mass market. I still have a boring old gear stick in my car, for example, and those whizzy steering wheel mounted shifters (STI for cars?) that F1 has been using for what, a decade, still only appear on things like Ferrari road cars.

It looks do-able but I can't see how without the connivance of the entire team and some of the kit sponsors and I just don't see that being likely.
 
Bit slow here, but on watching the video it did occur to me that both races are on cobbles. Is it not possible that all he's doing is flexing his fingers a bit before making a move? Poker players are supposed to have a 'tell', a distinct physical giveaway that reveals their mental state. If I was on the front of the pack with Spartacus I'd be watching his ring finger at crucial points in the race.
 

Crankarm

Guru
Location
Nr Cambridge
fossyant said:
Did no-one mention, the motor is run on a Nano Nuclear Reactor ? Shimano's Di3 ?

:thumbsup: :wacko:.
 

TheDoctor

Noble and true, with a heart of steel
Moderator
Location
The TerrorVortex
Chuffy said:
Hey Doc, when are you going to play your "actually, I am a rocket scientist" card? :wacko::thumbsup:

If Mr Boardman is referring to current F1 tech then I'd like to see a little more evidence from him. I'm assuming he isn't talking cobblers (sensible chap, knows his stuff) but even so. As for the tech being of more benefit to the pedelec community, well yes but dear old push bikes are never going to be at the cutting edge and there is a long history of F1 style tech taking a long time to filter down to the mass market. I still have a boring old gear stick in my car, for example, and those whizzy steering wheel mounted shifters (STI for cars?) that F1 has been using for what, a decade, still only appear on things like Ferrari road cars.

It looks do-able but I can't see how without the connivance of the entire team and some of the kit sponsors and I just don't see that being likely.

Many VW group cars can be specced with the DSG twin-clutch gearbox and flappy paddle shifters. It's getting a bit more mass-market.
 

yello

Guest
Chuffy said:
Is it not possible that all he's doing is flexing his fingers a bit before making a move?

My thoughts exactly. Well, not exactly but near as dammit! With it being on cobbles, maybe he's just trying to relieve some ache/pain/numbness in his fingers. There's any number of reasons he could be making that movement with his hand. It may just be as simple as 'that is what he does sometimes'.
 

potsy

Rambler
Location
My Armchair
I had flappy paddle gear change on my Citroen C2 6 years ago,it was fine for a few months as a novelty but it annoyed me after a while so I got rid.
 

Foghat

Freight-train-groove-rider
Oh dear. Those videos, if not faked as claimed by Riis (and it will be very easy for someone to check the original footage), are compelling evidence indeed. Which is very disappointing as Cancellara always came across as an honourable sort, and he is a consummate rouleur, physically.

So assuming the video is not faked, the most compelling evidence is the acceleration viewed from the helicopter in Paris Roubaix. I remember seeing that at the time and thinking "Jesus, how can he do that", but it was on a grainy feed on the laptop and I couldn't re-watch it to examine closely, and it all happened very quickly of course (not that I suspected then that he was motorised).

Anyway, that acceleration, and similarly the one in Flanders, is just unnatural. No rider is strong enough to make such incredible progress over other riders already going that fast without getting out of the saddle and sprinting - he is that fast. The other riders weren't exactly dawdling, as you can see they were already moving away from the rest of their group who did seem to have let up slightly. Not only does he rocket away without getting out of the saddle, there is literally NO perceivable increase in effort from him - not even a slight extra crouch or tightened grip on the bars or adjustment of pedalling action or extra tensing of leg muscles; it is utterly effortless compared to what he is already doing AND he turns it on instantaneously AND he's able to turn round to see the reaction in the middle of doing this incredible acceleration.

That's all before we even get to the handlebar-shift-lever hi-jinks. The suggestion that these movements are just finger-stretching and stress relief before making an effort seems very unlikely to me, having raced myself and watched a lot of professional racing closely too. On straight sections of cobbles, you really want to be keeping your hands on the centre of the bars as much as possible, and relieving stress in the hands or stretching your fingers would be more easly achieved by pressing them against your leg or pressing your finger tips against the bars - not by repeated very precise movements to an exact point on the brake/shift lever. This should be another easy one to solve - by looking at past footage of him when he wasn't pulling off such stunning manoeuvres and searching for similar stress relieving actions - but I doubt if there are any similar episodes.

As FM says, the noise of the motorbikes and crowd will obscure the sound of the motor - but of course there is also the helicopter roaring overhead too, so no difficulty hiding the sound. What the motor designers/installers and Cancellara haven't got right is building a more natural-looking progressive action into the motor's activation. Having now had the opportunity to re-watch and scrutinise it, that Paris-Roubaix footage is almost comical, just as raindog says. But as pointed out, it's been rumbled now so hopefully the UCI will be vigilant enough to stamp it out entirely. If we see similar outstandingly effortless super-accelerations from Cancellara from now on, against people like an in-form Boonen (!), then we'll have to take it all back, but somehow I doubt very much that we will.

Then there's the odd denial. If one's reputation as an honourable rider and one's strength/supremacy were being traduced this way, surely most honourable people would be making vehement claims about how performimg clean and unaided is a matter of honour for them and that they swear on their children's/mother's/etc life that they are clean, and "please come and inspect my bikes/fridge/tour bus/mechanics' HQ/hotel room etc etc as it's really important to me that you see I am innocent". But they never do.......
 

mangaman

Guest
Foghat said:
Oh dear. Those videos, if not faked as claimed by Riis (and it will be very easy for someone to check the original footage), are compelling evidence indeed. Which is very disappointing as Cancellara always came across as an honourable sort, and he is a consummate rouleur, physically.

So assuming the video is not faked, the most compelling evidence is the acceleration viewed from the helicopter in Paris Roubaix. I remember seeing that at the time and thinking "Jesus, how can he do that", but it was on a grainy feed on the laptop and I couldn't re-watch it to examine closely, and it all happened very quickly of course (not that I suspected then that he was motorised).

Anyway, that acceleration, and similarly the one in Flanders, is just unnatural. No rider is strong enough to make such incredible progress over other riders without getting out of the saddle and sprinting - it is that fast.

I agree, except I've never bought into Cancellara being an honourablr sort. I've always thought his performances were very suspicious.

What is that based on?

He is always far stronger than one would expect - before the motorised doping rumours came, I thought it was unusual the way he rode away from Boonen as if he were a schoolgirl on a kid's bike.

Cancellera rides for onr of the dodgiest teams - with a self confessed cheat as Directeur sportive - and seems a little bit too good to be true IMHO
 

Foghat

Freight-train-groove-rider
It's based on rather limited evidence really, and was just my general perception which could well have been, and appears to be, wrong. I.e the way he conducts himself, his general demeanour etc - but to be honest, I don't follow racing as much as I did in the 80s and 90s, so am not really in a position to know about this side of him.

Plus you can tell that physically he is almost the perfect rouleur, and ideally designed for these Classics and descending and time-trialling - he oozes natural power, smoothness and strength on a bike, and I think any observant person who has raced can see that he has extraordinary inherent class.

Which makes it all the more disappointing, as he should be satisfied with his natural ultra-high calibre and fight on fair terms.
 
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