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Thermal camera footage allegedly shows pro cyclists using motors
- awinter-py 11y agoThis makes italian cold fusion research doubly suspicious
- kazinator 11y agoDuuuudes, chill out! I just rebuilt my bottom bracket the other day and forgot to grease it.
- okonomiyaki3000 11y agoSuddenly, steroids don't seem so bad.
- jethro_tell 11y agoI don't know about that. One is ruining your body to win and the other is just cheating.
- rubyfan 11y agoIn related news Hebrew University researchers unveil a sarcasm detector [2010] http://m.jpost.com/Health-and-Sci-Tech/Internet-And-Technology/Hebrew-University-researchers-unveil-a-sarcasm-detector#article=0MDVGMzY2RkMyMTVEMTkzQkVGM0M5NzI5NjQ4REYwQzU= http://m.jpost.com/Health-and-Sci-Tech/Internet-And-Technolo...
- hondo77 11y agoNo, it doesn't.
- GhotiFish 11y agoI have to agree with you here. The thermal camera footage they did show was just shockingly weak. They had one instance where there was higher than average temperatures coming off of the cogset. Which coincidentally enough is a rotating joint with the weight of a grown man pressing down on it for an entire race. Seeing heat here is not surprising.
- yborg 11y agoApparently you missed the part where they have this footage for just 2 racers out of an entire peloton.
- Zacru 11y agoSeems like that could just be because they need greased and/or aligned.
- freehunter 11y agoIt could be that. It could be something else. That's why the questions are being asked instead of people being disqualified at this point. Although I would really doubt any professional cyclist would have an ungreased, misaligned hub and not know it or not trade it out for a bike in better repair.
- pj_mukh 11y agoThis is the most mind-boggling cheating scandal ever. It jiggles my engineering nerves in place I didn't know was possible.
- Johnny555 11y agoRacers are willing to put their health at risk with various performance enhancing drugs and procedures, putting a motor on their bike seems to pale in comparison.
- mahranch 11y agoSpeaking of engineering, why not either place the motor in the seat/seat-post itself which would obscure those infrared cameras (as the heat would look natural) or insulate the area around the motor and let the heat exhaust through the seat which would accomplish the same thing? Maybe they didn't think someone would bring an infrared camera....
- Swizec 11y agoWhat makes cycling so particularly attractive to cheating? Or is cheating in cycling just getting more publicity than in other sports?
- bache 11y agoIt's not just cycling. Boxing, baseball, tennis they are all cheating, theres million dollar incentives for these athletes too
- randlet 11y agoExactly. My impression is that a large percentage of top performing athletes are "enhanced" in some form or another.
- 33degrees 11y agoI think it's the nature of the cheating her that is getting a lot of attention. From TFA "Despite more suspicious evidence occasionally floating to the surface, moto-doping seemed like a fairly improbable boogeyman, something that was too outrageous and silly for anyone to actually try. "
- chickenbane 11y agoMost professional athletes are doing everything they can to get ahead, and cycling is no exception. That said, there are pretty amazing stories about cyclists cheating - perhaps because the sport is so grueling that small advantages can really translate to substantial gains. One of my favorites for the Tour de France was cyclists being pulled by cars attached by fishing line to a piece of cork held in the mouth!
- qb45 11y agoWTF? Who did that and when?
- freehunter 11y agoI'm not really finding any primary sources, but there is a lot of unsourced blogs talking about it. Allegedly it was Hippolyte Aucouturier in the 1904 Tour de France, which apparently was so rife with cheating that it almost got canceled. http://www.bikeroar.com/articles/the-4-greatest-bicycle-cheats-in-history http://www.bikeroar.com/articles/the-4-greatest-bicycle-chea...
- WrathOfHypsis 11y agoI'm not sure why the focus is on the motors. They can be tiny and well hidden, but what about the batteries ? They are bound to be hidden in the hollow tubing. Why don't they just require a small hole where they can poke in a stick to verify the tubes are hollow ? A simple weight check would also suffice. The bike has a known legal weight, oh, suddenly its 3 kilos heavier...
- 33degrees 11y ago> The bike has a known legal weight, oh, suddenly its 3 kilos heavier... Part of the issue is that bikes have a minimum weight, but with modern materials it's quite easy to go below that minimum. So they can cover the added weight of the motor and batteries by cutting elsewhere.
- buryat 11y agomoreover, it's not rare when the bikes carry additional weight to be UCI-legal in terms of minimum weight.
- rhizome 11y agoA combination of FLIR and homologation could go a long way to solve this problem. FLIR seems like an excellent start.
- Viper007Bond 11y agoLater in the video it shows electromagnets that don't really generate heat the same way the motors do.
- rhizome 11y agoYeah, that's the FLIR part, but homologation could help with the "batteries in the seat stays" thing and other structural modifications. To be sure, homologation doesn't necessarily prohibit modification, and these frames typically have custom dimensions to suit the rider, so maybe x-rays could also be thrown into the mix.
- liquidise 11y agoIf these bikers lost these races, and i am left to assume they did since the scandal hasn't boiled over yet, i think they can safely pack it in. Losing a race you cheated in is about as low as i can imagine this getting.
- baddox 11y agoObviously there is still a significant desire to finish higher even you don't finish first.
- braythwayt 11y agoNearly all of the riders in the pro tour lose for the exact same reason that nearly all of the players in a football match don’t score a goal.
- tetraodonpuffer 11y agothe thing with mechanical doping is that if you aren't caught red-handed, you are free, with doping some races/competitions will freeze your samples and they can be tested years later to find out if you were using something that wasn't testable yet, but with mechanical doping, once you're done the race you're safe. And over a course of a grand tour stage, even if the boost is only 25W, it can easily make the difference between winning and being maybe in the top 10, ask any cyclist how much a 25W higher FTP would be worth in a mountain stage...
- maxerickson 11y agoHow long do they typically use a bike? For big races, it might not be entirely absurd to cut up the frame after the race, just to be sure.
- fsaneq2 11y agoFrom the video linked, it sounds like they can (legally) switch bikes during the race, so they could just switch back to a legit bike close to the finish.
- thom_nic 11y agoEven with a big lead you would be hard-pressed to have a mechanical requiring a bike change and still win. Yes you can switch bikes but you will be trailing the peloton by then (where the support cars are.) Early or mid-race you could catch up to the peloton and possibly make it back up front with a lot of effort but probably not within the last 20km or more.
- maxerickson 11y agoCut up all the bikes. Or use the more reasonable suggestion in the sibling to my comment and just dismantle them enough to do a good inspection.
- rosser 11y agoOr, you know, just X-Ray them. Aren't most competition-level bikes using carbon fibre frames these days? For metal frames, ultrasound would work just as well.
- agjacobson 11y agoWhat's with all the spiel, personalities, politics, scenery, etc. Just show us the IR images!
- thom_nic 11y agoWhat I don't understand is, how is neodymium undetectable? Wouldn't they notice the unusually strong magnetic force?
- alphydan 11y agoI don't know the answer. But my first guess is that (to a first approximation) a magnet inside a metal box does not create a magnetic field outside of that box [1]. Of course this depends on the material of the tube. [1] http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/38759/does-faraday-cage-block-magnetic-field http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/38759/does-farada...
- ridgeguy 11y agoA magnet inside a ferromagnetic box. The box material has to have a high permeability to shield an enclosed magnet from external detection. You can think of permeability in this instance as the ability to contain a magnetic field. As long as the shielding material doesn't saturate (too much magnetic flux), the field from an enclosed magnet can be confined within the enclosing material. No external detectable field.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- esaym 11y agoSeems carrying the weight of the batteries and motor would be totally counter productive. Perhaps they should pressurize the bike frame with air and then run that through a muffled impeller connected to the gear somehow :shrug:
- mehwoot 11y agoIn pro races bikes have a minimum weight and it's quite easy to make a bike under that weight using modern materials. So you just make a really light bike and have the batteries and motor make up the difference.
- Overtonwindow 11y agoFor the big races, why don't they embargo the bikes prior to the race? Then xray them at random. Beginning of the day the rider pics up the bike, turn it in at night. The mechanic can work on it, whatever, in a special shop. Especially for the one day races. I can see how this would be difficult with multi-day races, but something like this should be feasible elsewhere.
- blitzo 11y agoI imagined a mandatory thorough backscatter scanning through a special path just before starting point on the race day.
- Overtonwindow 11y agoThat could work. As the bike is going up to the start house, they have to put it through the backscatter machine. Just having it there, and saying they're going to randomly choose and at least 60% of the teams will have to go through it, could be a powerful deterrent. Also, I think they should up the penalty for bike doping. Lifetime ban for having a motor in your bike.
- jdietrich 11y agoIt's logistically very difficult. All ProTour riders will have at least one spare bike. The teams will also have at least 20 spare wheelsets available. For a typical one-day like the Paris-Roubaix, that means at least 400 bikes and a thousand spare wheels. These bikes and wheels all need to be checked and maintained before every day of racing. Cycle races often start and finish in small towns, so the teams may have to stay in hotels some distance from the course. It would be impractical to find a suitable building for parc ferme at most races and it would be costly to erect temporary facilities. The professional racing calendar is extremely busy, so a team mechanic may be travelling continuously from late January to early December. There simply isn't the time available for a parc ferme. I think the current strategy is perfectly satisfactory. Riders are immediately intercepted after the finish line. The race leaders and some randomly selected riders will have their equipment inspected, in the same way that they are tested for doping.
- donretag 11y agoWow, people are really serious about those Strava KOMs.
- westward 11y agoIf I were a competitor, who wanted an honest race, is there anything my team could do to neutralize either of these techniques?
- ehnto 11y agoYou're making me imagine a Mario Kart style escalation of cheating and anti-cheating techniques. Maybe an EMP equipped tortoise shell would do the trick!
- niels_olson 11y agoAm I the only cyclist here? I can't imagine voluntarily putting batteries in my bike on a long, mountainous stage. There's no way the batteries will last, and then I'm stuck with dead weight. And, looking through the actual documentary, I didn't see any incontrovertable thermal proof of a battery in any racer. In the guy posing for a shot, yes, but not in the cyclists laboring up the hill.
- samatman 11y agoModern race bikes are already deadweighted to make it to the minimum weight, so it's not a question of making the bike heavier.
- hughw 11y agoNot deadweighted in the amounts a battery with enough energy has to weigh.
- bwilliams18 11y agoBut it's conceivable they've found ways to shave the bikes weight down even lower to accommodate the battery and motor.
- hooloovoo_zoo 11y agoIt will obviously pay for itself in terms of energy... in the limiting case, you could just hop in a Tesla and win the race.
- erikpukinskis 11y agoHm. I love the idea of a logic proof, but is this correct? In the limit the Tesla runs out of battery and you can't push it up the hills.
- bigiain 11y agoInterestingly, they race electric motorcycles at the Isle of Mann TT, and the riders all talk about how it's a different game to racing fuel-powered bikes - the bikes are capable of using up all their energy much more quickly that a fuel powered bike, so it becomes as much an efficiency trial as a race, they need to manage their energy consumption to ensure they make it to the finish line (all while still averaging over 100mph around the 40-odd mile mountain racecourse...)
- dgudkov 11y agoIt would be more interesting if it was legal with some reasonable limitations. It could be one more reason for boosting the battery technology.
- deelowe 11y agoI think they should allow it, but only with capacitors that are shorted prior to start. This way, it can only be used to improve efficiency.
- eru 11y agoIf the people making the regulations were interested in efficiency, everyone would be racing in a fully covered recumbent bike. (They don't, because the regulations don't allow it.)
- eru 11y agoNah, the market is such so much smaller than for phones (and even cars).
- Too 11y agoThis is interesting yeah, put an upper weight limit on the bike and see how fast and long a human can go with only 10kg of technology.
- c3534l 11y agoI'm starting to think that all major sports are fake.
- eru 11y agoEnjoy Wrestling, at least they admit it now. Though, not quite sure whether doping (mechanical or otherwise) counts as fake. It's just that the de facto regulations they abide by are different than the de jure regulations.
- paulmd 11y agoJust take the bike out of the race entirely. Declare a year in advance that the bike will be XYZ model Q so people can train on them, and the race maintains custody of all race bikes, spares, etc. It's already a money-competition to see who can buy the best super-bike. Yes, you have to have a minimum weight, but that just means that you can take a superbike and spend the extra weight applying aerodynamic fairings whereas someone else has to spend that weight on their frame or whatever. Just take the bike out of the picture entirely. You ride this bike. Or one of these three models. Or whatever.
- wl 11y agoThe last time I bought a new bicycle, I had to try a lot of them before I found one I really enjoyed. I'd imagine world-class cyclists are even pickier than I am.
- stbtrax 11y agoI think they're picky about who pays them the most.
- danielvf 11y agoThey are picky about winning. Money will make all the difference if they have no preference, but if they don't like something or are slower, there's no way someone who finishes in the top three would be willing to trade more money from one sponsor for moving down in the rankings.
- bobbles 11y agoYeah, it'd be like telling marathoners they have to wear a specific model of shoe. There's so many factors that go into comfort etc.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- elinchrome 11y ago
- 8ig8 11y agoNY Times just published an article on the subject: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/19/sports/cycling/with-a-discreet-motor-doping-the-bike-instead-of-the-cyclist.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/19/sports/cycling/with-a-disc...
- marze 11y agoWith a fan and some aerogel insulation, it should be possible to avoid a thermal sig.
- exabrial 11y agoWhy not encourage this? F1 racing fueled innovation in this manner before they went crazy with engineering restrictions
- sliverstorm 11y agoHave you heard of Group B? That's the story of why racing today has heavy regulations.
- hatsunearu 11y agoI wanna learn more and wikipedia isn't very helpful; any places I should read?
- rasz_pl 11y agoYou mean the very best thing that ever happened in rally sport? My first memory of watching TV was following WRC season 85 while holding in my 6 year old hands model of Ari Vananens Peugeot 205.
- doe88 11y agoThe investigation's video is also available (in French): http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4543y2_video-un-moteur-dans-le-velo_sport http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4543y2_video-un-moteur-dan...
- relik 11y agocycling seems to always be mired in scandal. why is this the case?
- thaumasiotes 11y agoBecause prestige is given to winners. There's nothing special about cycling.
- davidw 11y agoIt's had its troubles, but there does also seem to be a tendency for the media to focus on it. Look at FIFA in soccer - it's completely rotten - and yet we're back to 'those cyclists...'. Also: if you consider the money in cycling, which is pretty modest, compared with soccer or US sports... you're delusional if you think that cycling is dirtier.
- ghostDancer 11y agoIf other sports , like football/soccer were under the same surveillance as cycling, the results probably would be similar, but it's easier to go on the same people.
- ChuckMcM 11y agoAmazingly creative. At some point they will be wearing bike jerseys that are a coil of conductors and their team will follow behind in the chase car with a giant magnet to repulse them forward :-).
- B1FF_PSUVM 11y agoShhh ...
- bby 11y agoeveryone should get a motor
- davidw 11y agoI've been following this one on the cycling blogs, and I have a fairly cynical take on it: * They didn't actually name anyone. * They didn't catch anyone with a motor, red handed. * They did, however, manage to produce another 'cycling is dirty' narrative. Pretty useless, IMO.
- anjc 11y agoWell except there's a video of someone's bike skidding around on its own on the site. So the motors do exist in the sport...
- davidw 11y agoVideo is old and has been debunked.
- freehunter 11y agoThe only debunking I've seen is putting a spinning tire down in optimal conditions, which of course has it spinning like it did in the video. The video has the bike bouncing off the ground several times and coming to a complete stop on the ground in the rider's hands, and then him letting go and it spinning away. At that point, the tire should have stopped all of it's rotational inertia.
- davidw 11y agoIt's not like they're going slow in those races - the wheel probably had a lot of momentum. In any event, reposting an old video, with a couple of grainy shots of unidentified riders whose bikes were not subsequently checked counts more as "casting aspersions" rather than "proof" in my book. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if someone somewhere was cheating, but I've come to dislike these kinds of hit pieces.
- freehunter 11y agoWell obviously no one is being disqualified on this video alone. The idea is to draw attention to what could be a real issue. But calling it debunked because of another video that is just as dubious seems a little like hand-waving. What's happening is that people are trying to get the officials to look into the idea that there may be tiny hidden motors in some bikes. And what you're doing seems like you're trying to avoid that from happening.
- PeterStuer 11y agoLet's be clear. This is 100% cheating in races and can not be condoned. Otoh, I don't get the outrage by someone like Eddy Merckx, calling for a lifelong ban on Femke Van Den Driessche , the young female cyclist that was found to have a bike with an seatpost motor in her materials stand. You have to realize Merckx himself was caught several times on doping, receiving only mild punishments, and also one of those ex-racers sticking 100% to the sport's traditional muerta on the subject. At least these motors are not actively preying on the health of the riders.
- anjc 11y agoI assume that most people would feel that a motor in a manual bicycle is far more of an egregious rule-break than performance enhancing drugs, which are an aspect of every pro sport in the world. That video of her bike doing donuts on its own makes a complete mockery of the sport. I don't know if she should be banned for life, but certainly her career needs to be affected. 3 year ban or something.
- PeterStuer 11y agoI must be out of touch for sure. For me 'performance enhancing drugs' are not to be accepted as just 'an aspect of pro-sport'. Ruining (young) people's health, on top of making it near impossible for honest athletes to compete, makes drugs far more egregious than material cheats.
- aoeuasdf1 11y agoAbsolutely, I don't understand how GP can causally accept how drugs damage thousands of people's health while harshly criticizing a different form of cheating which happens to use a different substrate than human flesh.
- freehunter 11y agoIt's not about the health impact, it's about the idea that PEDs exist in every sport and are very well known and monitored for, so it's not as scandalous. Yes, it has a major health impact that trickles down to the youth participants and ruins lives, no one is debating that. The discussion is how big of a scandal it is. Barry Bonds used steroids to hit some home runs, and he got an asterisk on his record. The 1919 Black Sox Scandal participants threw some games to make money and received lifelong suspensions from baseball and changed the history and rules of baseball forever because it made a mockery of the sport. Same thing with Pete Rose, he made a mockery of the sport. Bonds is currently a hitting coach for the Marlins, while Rose is doing commercials since he was banned for life in 1989. Steroid and other PEDs are terrible and have awful impacts on the users health and are a bad example for kids, but their effects are still in line with the sports. What you get is a bit of a stronger cyclist, but still a cyclist. With a motor, you're making a mockery of the sport. It's not cycling anymore, it's now a motorsport. You're not participating in the sport anymore. There are plenty of discussions that revolve around how bad PEDs are. This isn't one of them. This discussion is about how cheating using PEDs is different from cheating by removing yourself from the nature of the sport altogether.
- dandare 11y agoThere is a clear evidence from Vuleta 2014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynLMfzLTc8M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynLMfzLTc8M The cyclosport officials intentionally hide/enable the problem for years.
- antientropic 11y agoThat is in no way "clear evidence", the opinions of all the Youtube commenters notwithstanding. It can just as well be explained by the rotation of the rear wheel, see for example https://youtu.be/aN7HjwZI-k0?t=32 https://youtu.be/aN7HjwZI-k0?t=32.
- WatchDog 11y agoIt looks like the bike comes to a rest with the tire in contact with the road, presumably stopping the rotation of the wheel. Then when the cyclist lets go of the bike it takes off.
- ajuc 11y agoIt's nice that after all these years racing sports still come up with innovations that can help "regular" people. Now let's split the bike racing into assisted and unassisted ones to let the technology develop, and the "pure" racing continue.
- davidw 11y agoNo one wants to watch motorized bike races.
- SeanDav 11y agoI used to be an enthusiastic bicycle racing spectator. I would watch hours of the Tour De France everyday if I had the chance and pay close attention to other races. No longer. I have long since stopped watching, or caring what happens in bicycle racing. As far as I am concerned, the winner is the best cheat who has not been caught yet. I would not be the slightest bit surprised if half these guys had induction motors in their seats and batteries inserted up their backsides. This is deeply unfair to those who do not cheat, but I am so tired of being disappointed by endless drug and cheating scandals in cycling that I would rather spend my time watching golf or something that does not involve a lot of cheating.
- madaxe_again 11y agoNever mind batteries up their backsides, blood doping is still rife, even at an amateur level. Many sportspeople have "that fridge", in which they keep spare blood for races - and it's very hard to detect - you have to look for puncture wounds.
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y agoCould you disable such motors with an EMP or so?
- todd8 11y agoIt's a sport. So the rules are the rules. Bringing a set of brass knuckles to a boxing match is just taking advantage of better equipment, but of course the people running the sport of boxing can define what's allowed and what's not. It might be interesting to have an unlimited class, whatever that would mean for cycling, but the sport of pro cycling gets to define what a legal bike for pro racing is, end of argument.
- Swannie 11y agoSeems a simple answer to me - require every rider to have 3 - 5 uniquely identifiable bikes. Require that all rider's bikes - irrespective of position, etc. be kept by the race organiser at the end of the day. Randomly select bikes for testing with x-ray/millimeter rays, electromagnetic sensors, and even destructive testing. An extended "post race parc fermé" if you will...