from the cycling-was-almost-scandal-free dept.
According to Velonews one of the bikes at the Cyclo-cross World Championships in Heusden-Zolder, Belgium, has been seized due to a "technical fraud", specifically the alleged discovery of a concealed electrical motor.
In what appears to be a first in cycling, the International Cycling Union confirmed that it had impounded the bike of Belgian rider Femke van den Driessche following the women's under-23 championship race Saturday.
The article quotes further details from a report on the Belgian TV network Sporza:
"After one lap of the world championships, UCI took Femke's bike in the pit area and tested it with some sort of tablet," said Sporza journalist Maarten Vangramberen. "The bike was immediately sealed and taken. The UCI then called in the Belgian federation. When the saddle was removed, there were electrical cables in the seat tube. When they wanted to remove the bottom bracket, which is normally not difficult, they could not because the crank was stuck. Inside there was a motor."
Also covered at Cycling Weekly and The Telegraph .
An earlier article in The Telegraph details the growing concerns and rumours about the possibility of hidden electrical motors in competitive cycling.
"UCI" is the "Union Cycliste Internationale" the world governing body for competitive cycling, and as usual Wikipedia has everything you ever wanted to know about Cyclo-cross.
How Bike Motors Work
An Anonymous Coward writes:
Hidden motors on bikes have been around for a few years. This link gives a decent understanding of how they work.
One giveaway is to weigh the bike. Most carbon fiber road bikes are right down on the minimum weight limit, and even this lightweight motor/battery adds about 1.8kg or ~4 pounds. No serious roadie would be caught on a 20 pound bike these days...
Related Stories
Velonews has an update on a topic we covered previously.
It seems that the present method for checking for hidden motors involves an iPad with an external inductive sensor. This gives frequent false positives and as such the race officials tend to ignore it...
"Doctor Bernd Valeske inspected a bike slowly," read the article. "Halfway down the seat tube, he stops, the display reads 10 out of 10 intensity. Is the cylindrical battery truly here?
"Valeske continues, and surprise, the tablet shows another alarm, 10 out of 10, at another point in the same tube. Then a third one in the cassette and a fourth in the down tube."
Valeske put the frame under an X-ray that revealed the prohibited motor was only in the third location. The other alarms were just natural magnetic fields produced by the materials.
The article explained that the UCI's inspectors will let the bike pass in the case of such false positives because they are in a rush to test so many bicycles at the start of races. At the Tour de France, 22 teams of nine riders each raced. Riders each have one or two spare bikes.
Valeske passed the tablet over an induction magnet wheel that cost 20,000 euros. The display remained at zero as he passed the wheel and indicated it was "clean." An X-ray machine, however, showed the plates and wires of the high-tech motor.
Such wheels can produce 60 watts. Hidden frame motors may generate 250. The UCI has only caught one cheating cyclist in its reported 42,500 tests over two years. Belgian Femke Van den Driessche, then 19, was caught using a bike with a motor in its tube at the 2016 cyclocross worlds.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 02 2016, @05:54AM
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 02 2016, @06:08AM
One of the members of my bike racing team used to insist that brakes should be removed from bikes in races. That should give you an idea of how little brakes are used in most races. They are critical for mountain stages with nasty switchbacks, but flatter stages and criteriums don't usually need them - they aren't used on the track, for example. If I found myself behind someone who routinely hit the brakes, I'd move somewhere else in the pack.
They would be needed in cyclo-cross, which is the case in this instance. However, in general, regenerative braking wouldn't give back much power.
OTOH, I think you could hide the weight - carbon bikes could be made lighter; they are built to the current limit and some have weights added to get to that limit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 02 2016, @08:32AM
You would still require a motor and a battery, not to mention a dynamo and a system to connect the various parts. Less subtle I'm afraid.
No reason it wouldn't have a legitimate use on a non-competitive bike though.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 02 2016, @03:12PM
You would still require a motor and a battery, not to mention a dynamo and a system to connect the various parts. Less subtle I'm afraid.
Or compressed air storage and analogous mechanical parts to what you mention above. What I want to point out here is that most of the existing structure of the bike can be used. For example, you could make the structure of the bike a capacitor (your battery above). Nor is it hard to embed conductive wire in the frame (the "system" for connecting the parts). The motor/dynamo could be incorporated into the gear assembly or perhaps the wheel structure.
Another replier has noted a more serious problem. Namely, that they don't actually brake very much.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 02 2016, @10:10AM
You should also weigh the bike before and after. Otherwise they could use stuff like compressed air or fuels. The other alternatives of storing energy that don't involve significant weight change though.
Also the fuels and stuff could be from the rider if they are "magician level sneaky"- so the bike weighs the same but the rider still gets a boost.
But what I'm wondering about is if it's possible to have special gloves/shoes/suits to cool the cyclist's blood/muscles for better performance: https://news.stanford.edu/news/2012/august/cooling-glove-research-082912.html [stanford.edu]
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Tuesday February 02 2016, @01:20PM
> You should also weigh the bike before and after.
I think they may already do that. Bikes can now easily be made lighter than the minimum weight, and sometimes added weight is needed, with an obvious temptation for e.g. ice to be put inside the frame, which will melt and drip out on the course.
(Score: 1, Troll) by aristarchus on Tuesday February 02 2016, @06:15AM
possibility of hidden electrical motors
Why does this strike me as something that Ethanol_Funneled would be guilty of?
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 02 2016, @06:25AM
What? You are starting a rumor that ole E-F needs a motorized pump to get it up?
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 02 2016, @06:39AM
What makes you think that this is a rumor?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 03 2016, @02:33PM
Show me where on the doll he touched you.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 02 2016, @06:51AM
Nothing compared to the technological fraud of systemd. Fuck that lame piece of shit and all those limpwristed distros that kneel down to it.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 02 2016, @08:44AM
Oh, piss off.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 02 2016, @04:37PM
Nothing compared to the technological fraud of systemd. Fuck that lame piece of shit and all those limpwristed distros that kneel down to it.
HEAR HEAR!
Hey, at least using a hidden electrical motor in the seat tube is some interesting tech. Aside from the occasional person trying to cheat in a bike race, it's a neat and unobtrusive way to add some propulsion to your ride.
SystemD? Not neat, nor is it unobtrusive. What's more, is that the ragehate against it is actually INCREASING as people start to discover its shittiness for themselves, firsthand.
(Score: 3, Funny) by MostCynical on Tuesday February 02 2016, @07:08AM
Femke apparently has claimed this is "not her bike".
Apparently there should have been a switch, which, when pressed, turned on the motor.
Even the most hardened thighs of a competition cyclo-cross competitor would have felt *something* stirring, down there, if the switch were used?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Tuesday February 02 2016, @07:25AM
If so, why was it amongst her bikes?
What was the purpose of this bike? Someone built it with the intent to cheat.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 02 2016, @08:24AM
Well the story she told on TV over here (Holland) was that this bike is her friend's and they use it for keeping up with her during practice. But otoh she did win a previous race by an enormous margin, and worries are that in that race, she used the motorized bike.
The media (as usual) behave like a lynch-mob and take every chance to burn this 19yo completely to the ground. In truth, during the WK Zolder race she used another bike and actually had to give up the race because of mechanical failure. Again, it was not THAT bike where a motor was detected, just in one of the bikes in her storage.
In my personal opinion, both sides stories are weak, and nothing is really proven. I don't even see why she can't own a motorized bike, be it for training purposes or whatever. Bikes should be checked for this kind of 'mechanical doping', though, which should be easy by checking the bikes weight, for instance, or x-ray or so.
(Score: 2) by M. Baranczak on Tuesday February 02 2016, @02:57PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 02 2016, @03:53PM
No, the story (other AC here) is that her friend -- a former cyclist himself, with which she used to train -- had it built-in, without knowledge of her or her crew.
He took it out on the parcours on the morning of the world championship. This is forbidden; officials took him off before he could finish one lap. That incident was probably passed onto UCI officials, and might have raised questions, putting the team in the spotlight before the race even had started.
About the bike ending up in the pit area being bullshit: no, not really. These are not big budget teams -- my brother resells bike parts to a number of them -- and she wasn't on the pro-level even. During a race any kind of damage can happen to these lightweight bikes: you want to have as many bikes as possible in the neighborhood.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Tuesday February 02 2016, @04:34PM
It's not that difficult: you can buy kits, ready to install.
(Score: 2) by M. Baranczak on Tuesday February 02 2016, @04:57PM
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Tuesday February 02 2016, @06:09PM
Look at TFA under how they work, there they discuss a kit for sale that includes a "stealth option" where everything is built into the frame and the control for the motor is wireless. It would probably be kinda hard to just find a link for a unit for sale online, these are for top end racing bikes, not the kind of thing you can pick up on Amazon but the one in TFA gives you a good look at the motor unit and honestly? It really wouldn't be hard to hide.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by arulatas on Tuesday February 02 2016, @05:10PM
Rule #1: Don't let facts get in the way of a good story.
----- 10 turns around
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 02 2016, @08:28AM
A competitor trying to get her out of the race?
OTOH if a competitor can smuggle a bike in, the security must be terribly bad. Therefore I'd consider it more likely that she indeed cheated. But I wouldn't completely rule out the alternative.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 02 2016, @10:33AM
It used to be her bike, but sold it to a friend (according to her and her father). The friend misplaced it and her technical support team mistook it for hers (and put it with her equipment).
I watched a program on Belgian television last night, where they discussed this matter (with a cycling journalist). One interesting point was that both her brothers are currently also suspended for using doping. Even if she didn't do it, these things don't point in her favour.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 02 2016, @08:12AM
Probably should've ditched the sidecar.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 02 2016, @08:35AM
and I show you a loser. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen.
It's a competition, of course people will cheat. That's exactly how noble professional sports is. But I guess it's still a good substitute for war, especially since one does not have to participate...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 02 2016, @11:52AM
>> people will cheat
Sociopaths will cheat. I know lots of athletes who would rather lose well than win poorly.
(Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Tuesday February 02 2016, @04:08PM
It's a competition, of course people will cheat. That's exactly how the real world is.
FTFY!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 02 2016, @07:59PM
The prom queen doesn't look so good now...probably best to have avoided her in the first place.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by inertnet on Tuesday February 02 2016, @09:31AM
Back in 2010 there were rumors about mechanical doping, but they were debunked later http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/other_sports/cycling/8721649.stm [bbc.co.uk]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 03 2016, @12:49AM
It appears the cheating mindset has taken a deep root in the cycling world. Is there that much money in it?