At that level of competition, just keep xraying bikes so it can't become an issue? Drug testing is privacy invasive, having your bike xrayed isn't if you're not cheating.
You can swap bikes in the middle of the race if you have a mechanical issue. There was one famous time where someone climbed impossibly fast, had a mechanical at the top of the mountain, then finished the race on a different bike, leading us to forever wonder.
XRay is also somewhat privacy invasive to bike athletes, but not to "normal" people. The reason is that there is a huge competition on making bikes lighter while still being able to withstand the exact stress put on in in that one leg of the race. So they file off a little metal here, a little there, shorten some screws, etc. The secret is in how much you can take away in which places.
This can lead to bikes that are usable only for that one leg on that one day, after which you have to change the slightly deformed parts, because e.g. the braking downhill would kill your lighter, thinner, filed-down uphill tires.
Yeah, it's so common that literally nobody in high-level road cycling has ever been found doing it. "Motor doping" is the chupacabra: universally feared, never seen.
The math doesn't even begin to pass the smell test, with regards to how much energy you'd get out of some tiny battery vs. the amount you'd spend dragging the dead battery around France all day.
It's too obvious to put the motor in the bike. What they should do is embed electromagnets under the road surface to help accelerate certain bikes and decelerate others.
I am definitely a layperson when it comes to organized sports, but from my POV it seems like competitive cycling attracts WAY more fraud/cheating/doping/etc. than many other kinds of sports. At least I have heard about it a lot more. I wonder why that is.
I think there are different factors. One is that doping in cycling had big media coverage, especially in the 90ies to 2010s. Media uncovered that basically everyone in the race org knew that doping was involved. See for example Cofidis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cofidis_(cycling_team) This adds to the perception that cycling is very prone to doping.
Whether it is so more than other sports... I don't know. As was mentioned before, in cycling as in other endurance sports, doping can push you very far.
Then there is the way the whole sport is organized. In the tour de france, privately sponsored teams compete against each other. I think this is very different to, say, a world championship. A country or trainer may have the interest of pushing their athletes beyond what is legal. But in a privately sponsored team, the pressure could be much higher.
Because it's such a tough sport. The Tour de France was originally intended to be so tough that only one person might finish it. In other words it was set up to be extremely hard for most normal athletes to compete without some kind of artificial assistance.
So there was a history of drug taking from the start. But after the scandals of 20 years ago it became one of the most tested sports in the world. So now, in my opinion, drugs are not used much compared to other relatively untested sports (maybe some microdosing). Instead sports science has taken over. Pogacar, the current TdF champion works with a someone who is a contributor in mitochondria research. Something that has made a big difference in the last few years is the amount of carbohydrates the riders take in during a stage etc. etc.
This is a naive view of doping, sport, and physiology.
Of course, they use doping nowadays, just as they did yesterday. I would go so far as to say that all top professional athletes in individual sports use banned substances. They use methods and substances that allow them to avoid testing positive.
At the highest levels, all athletes are genetically gifted. However, the performance differences created by substance-induced physiological alterations are too great to be compensated for by slight differences in genetics, training, and nutrition.
Almost all records in individual sports have been broken since competitions were basically not subject to doping controls. Athletes from the DDR and the Soviet Union, and more recently from China, have used enormous amounts of hormones. Yet almost all records set in the 1980s have been broken. Is there better talent selection today? Certainly, along with better training, science, and nutrition, as well as better surfaces and shoes/equipment. But physiology reigns supreme.
it's a safe bet that your big money sports (not cycling) have a lot more doping than cycling. the issue is that you can't report what you don't know.
* cycling is a mix of moderate money and lots of drug testing. there are significant incentives to dope, but it's fairly hard to do these days since there is a lot of testing.
* big money sports (in the us especially - nfl, mlb, nba) are the jokes of the testing world. they rarely test and often inform their athletes when a test is coming. the big money basically assures that the incentive to dope is also big. but you'll never get caught if the testing process is a joke, so there is nothing to report.
It's the most tested sport by far. Mostly because a couple of huge scandals - Festina and Armstrong. It's an endurance sport which is a natural target for doping because of the huge gains that can be made and it's also probably the most popular endurance sport too. That said, it's a problem in other sports but they just don't test as much or publicise it as much. It's become a real problem in Rugby, https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/50785122 and in Football where they hardly test anyone
https://warrenmenezes.substack.com/p/doping-and-english-foot...
Its not like that. If anything cycling has less doping than most sports. Cycling has been very serious about doping for much longer, than most other sports. Infractions are punished very hard; a guy like Hessmann had his career paused for a year plus, while also losing his contract, even though he hadn't doped. While a tennis star get three months for a clear doping infraction. Cycling also bans more substances than the international doping authorities does. As an example did cycling banned tramadol and other strong painkillers, while other sports don't care.
You have heard much more because from cycling over other sports, because the other sports don't want their dirty secrets aired out, and you heard about the huge scandals in cycling in the 00s.
i think that cycling is cleaner than other sports today. the past doping epidemics led to so much bad press cycling faced a huge sponsorship crisis. if another one of the stars would get caught today they'd take the whole sport down with them.
so, if they don't cheat as much, what's left? todays cyclists are actually a lot better than the stars of yesterday, mostly due to better nutrition. training efficiency also improved as the young stars of today are of the first generation that grew up with power meters.
i'm not very knowledgeable in the sport and my last point is a bit of an assumption, but here we go: pro cycling is mostly based in europe. the UAE team is swiss, astana qazaqstan team (a team representing the state kazakhstan) trains in spain and austria. girona (spain, near the pyrinees) is _the_ classic cycling hotspot. this means testing by officials is comparatively easy.
in other sports the training facilities are, for example, in the chinese mountains, russian provinces or in the iranian back country. getting regular testing there is hard. so imo no: cycling today is probably less dirty than most others sports.
tbh i think pogacar is just one of those rare genetic talents that show up from time to time to dominate a sport, but is doubted more than others due to cyclings tainted history. it may be possible he uses newly developed drugs that are undetectable, but i'd say innocent until proven guilty is still applicable here.
Cyclists can be tested all year. This includes mandatory tests immediately post-race for top placings. This is true for gymnastics and track&field/athletics as well.
NFL players can be tested once during the season. It's a joke.
NBA players can be tested four times in-season and two more off-season. Less of a joke than the NFL, but still pretty relaxed compared to cycling.
Relative to other sports it doesn't require much skill that can't be easily quantified. The person who can produce the most Watts over the required window is a strong favorite. I assume that doping simply makes a difference in a way it doesn't for skiing or soccer, and probably not as much as even swimming or running.
there's probably just as much doping in distance running but it's easier to evade (top athletes spend most of the year in countries that have limited interest in testing)
There was a lot of suspicion about Cancellara that was never really investigated. A couple of people have been caught... They brought out x-ray machines, and x-rayed bikes, but that's sort of fell by the wayside over the pandemic. I think the truth is, professional cycling, doesn't want to confront another scandal. So they just sort of turn a blind eye into it.
Bikers and their teams are known for removing as much weight as possible from their bikes. Would love to see the math for weight/power/time ratio for a motor like this. Would it be worth it considering you'd have to expend additional watts lugging it around all stage? My guess is probably not. Especially on a mountain stage which is where the tour is really won or lost.
Just drill a small ~1mm hole in the seat/down tube of all bikes before each race. That shouldn't meaningfully affect the frame's structural integrity, but would easily disable any small motor attached to the crank.
There is no realistic way to do anything like that "close to the finish line" on a Tour race, especially during a mountain stage, there are people and cameras everywhere.
"What if the reason cyclists were able to glide up the Pyrenees mountains was because they weren’t pedaling unassisted?"
Ugh ... journalism. We know that's not why. At most some cyclists are "gliding" faster than others due to assistance.
"As electronic bikes — with motors that provide up to 1,000 watts of power — have become available for recreational cyclists, hobbyists began building lighter road bikes with more discrete motors."
If anyone is a fan of podcasts and this subject, there is a really good podcast series called 'Ghost in the Machine' which does a deep dive into motor doping, how it could be occurring, the current state of technology to enable it and also looking into Femke van den Driessche's case which is mentioned in the article.
there are multiple documented cases of motor doping - here you can see wout van aert using motors multiple times in belgian cyclocross races in 2016:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUGNKwcbbDw
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[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 101 ms ] threadThis can lead to bikes that are usable only for that one leg on that one day, after which you have to change the slightly deformed parts, because e.g. the braking downhill would kill your lighter, thinner, filed-down uphill tires.
The math doesn't even begin to pass the smell test, with regards to how much energy you'd get out of some tiny battery vs. the amount you'd spend dragging the dead battery around France all day.
The least they can do is give all contestants the same equipment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_doping
Article created in 2016.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2015/07/23...
It's just clickbait to co-incide with the end of the TdF.
https://telegrafi.com/en/keshtu-funksionon-motori-vogel-per-...
The video of him reaching behind his seat is interesting I guess.
Get accused of mechanical doping, have them waste all this time going after it, you look clean and your accusers lose credibility.
Whether it is so more than other sports... I don't know. As was mentioned before, in cycling as in other endurance sports, doping can push you very far. Then there is the way the whole sport is organized. In the tour de france, privately sponsored teams compete against each other. I think this is very different to, say, a world championship. A country or trainer may have the interest of pushing their athletes beyond what is legal. But in a privately sponsored team, the pressure could be much higher.
So there was a history of drug taking from the start. But after the scandals of 20 years ago it became one of the most tested sports in the world. So now, in my opinion, drugs are not used much compared to other relatively untested sports (maybe some microdosing). Instead sports science has taken over. Pogacar, the current TdF champion works with a someone who is a contributor in mitochondria research. Something that has made a big difference in the last few years is the amount of carbohydrates the riders take in during a stage etc. etc.
Almost all records in individual sports have been broken since competitions were basically not subject to doping controls. Athletes from the DDR and the Soviet Union, and more recently from China, have used enormous amounts of hormones. Yet almost all records set in the 1980s have been broken. Is there better talent selection today? Certainly, along with better training, science, and nutrition, as well as better surfaces and shoes/equipment. But physiology reigns supreme.
But I'm not surprised they want "extra help" with that
* cycling is a mix of moderate money and lots of drug testing. there are significant incentives to dope, but it's fairly hard to do these days since there is a lot of testing.
* big money sports (in the us especially - nfl, mlb, nba) are the jokes of the testing world. they rarely test and often inform their athletes when a test is coming. the big money basically assures that the incentive to dope is also big. but you'll never get caught if the testing process is a joke, so there is nothing to report.
You have heard much more because from cycling over other sports, because the other sports don't want their dirty secrets aired out, and you heard about the huge scandals in cycling in the 00s.
so, if they don't cheat as much, what's left? todays cyclists are actually a lot better than the stars of yesterday, mostly due to better nutrition. training efficiency also improved as the young stars of today are of the first generation that grew up with power meters.
i'm not very knowledgeable in the sport and my last point is a bit of an assumption, but here we go: pro cycling is mostly based in europe. the UAE team is swiss, astana qazaqstan team (a team representing the state kazakhstan) trains in spain and austria. girona (spain, near the pyrinees) is _the_ classic cycling hotspot. this means testing by officials is comparatively easy.
in other sports the training facilities are, for example, in the chinese mountains, russian provinces or in the iranian back country. getting regular testing there is hard. so imo no: cycling today is probably less dirty than most others sports.
tbh i think pogacar is just one of those rare genetic talents that show up from time to time to dominate a sport, but is doubted more than others due to cyclings tainted history. it may be possible he uses newly developed drugs that are undetectable, but i'd say innocent until proven guilty is still applicable here.
NFL players can be tested once during the season. It's a joke.
NBA players can be tested four times in-season and two more off-season. Less of a joke than the NFL, but still pretty relaxed compared to cycling.
"Tiny motors
In my wheels
Giving Gauls
Goofy feels"
Ugh ... journalism. We know that's not why. At most some cyclists are "gliding" faster than others due to assistance.
"As electronic bikes — with motors that provide up to 1,000 watts of power — have become available for recreational cyclists, hobbyists began building lighter road bikes with more discrete motors."
Surely they mean "discreet".
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tour_de_Pharmacy