Posted on 05/04/2016 1:30:42 AM PDT by Berlin_Freeper
Bikes will be tested at the Olympics and Tour de France to try to find hidden motors and stop 'mechanical doping.
Cycling's governing body, the UCI says up to 12,000 bikes will be tested this year using a new scanning system introduced in January.
(Excerpt) Read more at radionz.co.nz ...
At that level the bikes are usually custom made and certainly custom fitted.
Handing everyone a Schwinn Varsity won’t cut it.
I have a triple chain ring on the front sprockets of my road bike to help with hill climbing. There are cyclists I know who think that’s cheating.
The internal motor is brilliant but certainly is cheating.
Few of those racing frames are steel. These days they’re composites.
One of the things that this problem illustrates is how competitive Pro Cycling is. These motors can only be used for a few minutes in races lasting hours, yet that can be a deciding advantage nevertheless. Of course there is a psychological edge for the user of knowing that they have a secret weapon available.
The problem is a relative new one as it takes the same advanced battery tech that we have with cell phones and other light-weight technology to be so unobtrusive. As such, it will only get worse because this is a technology that is still improving. Next speculation is for motors that do not need to intermesh with the drivetrain but instead use magnetic fields to spin the wheels directly. Sounds fantastical to me but perhaps it can be done.
The bottom bracket is removable and should be done so for inspection. The biggest giveaway, however would be the drastic change in weight. No biker of worth would have a bike that weighed more than 15-16 lbs. The lighter the better, which is why carbon fibre is so popular.
Actually, that is not quite true, at least not for the Tour de France. Building a bike that is 10 lb or less is not a problem. However, bikes entered into the Tour de France are weighed and if they weigh less than 15 lb, ballast is added to bring them up to 15 lb since that is the minimum weight criterion that they have established. So... let's say a bike was built that was ridiculously light... say 5 lb. That would mean that since ballast is going to have to be added anyway, a cheater would stuff 10 lb of battery into the frame since weight will have to be added anyway. http://www.forbes.com/sites/allenstjohn/2015/07/25/how-tour-de-france-weight-regulations-will-make-your-next-bicycle-better/#41477d7626b4
I went with a single ring in front on my mtn bike (a 1x10 setup) There are cyclist I know who think that's just dumb.
And they tell me!
Thank you for laying out the weight criteria.
There’s simply no longer any weight penalty for using these devices.
Here is a bit more to this weight issue....
The criterion for minimum weight is actually 6.8 kilos which is closer to 15.1 lb. This was established in 2000 with the objective of making sure that no one racing would make their bikes so light that they would be structurally unsound, fragile and dangerous. What they did not foresee at that time was the significant advancements of carbon fibers which mean that the weight could in fact be reduced while still being quite sound. Thus back to my earlier comment.... if a structurally sound bike can be built that only weights 5 lb (and they are in fact at that point now), this simply means that the potential size of a battery (that when inserted still allows the bike to remain below the minimum weight criterion of 15 lb) could weigh as much as twice the weight of the bike itself.... 5 lb bike with a 10 lb battery in the frame. Crazy, huh?
I wonder if you could use compressed air?
If the motor only needs to run for a few minutes then that could be used to give a boost.
You could also use the entire frame as to contain the air.
Yes, crazy!
Nah, that was what we used to call a "touring rig". Need the gearing to haul touring gear up the hills.
It’s the cycling world. Cycling and track are basically nothing but cheaters. Almost every medal handed out in those areas in August will be rescinded in the next 10 years.
Same reason NASCAR doesn’t provide the cars. The sport is as much about the vehicle and the crew as it is about the athlete.
When I was bike shopping, I used to do an annual double century ride. There was one memorable mile long hill. The triple chain ring was mainly for that hill and about the only time I used it.
I bought the bike three days before the ride and tied my 100 mile speed average. 17.8 mph. I had previously set it ten years before. I was in my mid-40’s so I was pretty excited.
Good correlation.
It’s amazing how a second tier driver heats up when h gets a tier one ride.
You also see tier one teams with marginal drivers (Cough Danica cough) not do well.
Keselowski put it best. He said she’s a very good 20th place driver.
I wasn’t perhaps quite as accurate as I should have been... it’s not just the battery but the motor and some other stuff as well. Regardless, the point still is the same.
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