Categories: Breaking The RulesCyclocrossDefining MomentsRantings from the V-Bunker

Motorhead

Motors are acceptable for this.

Motherfucker.

I honestly don’t like swearing in an Article, much less using such a word to open an article, but seriously. Motherfucker. A motor discovered in an U23 rider’s bike at the Cyclocross World Championships has to be the lowest of the low that anyone can go. I’m so pissed off, I’m rhyming. Which itself makes me madder than a hatter.

I have a pretty lenient stance on doping, which I hold to fairly wide criticism. I believe that the path towards doping is full of shadows and gradual steps towards the darkness. It is easy for me to imagine a young, ambitious rider who has sacrificed education and other vocations for the chance to become a Pro Cyclist, who is taken under the wing of an older, more experienced rider and to whom is explained the ways of the sport. If I was 18 and following that path, I cannot say with certainty what choice I would make, given the limited perspective one would have under those circumstances. While I hate doping and wish for clean sport, I hold limited judgement over those who have strayed down that path.

But we ride bicycles for the pleasure of propelling ourselves along the road under our own power. We push the pedals and we go faster, it is as simple as that; the motor resides in our heads and in our hearts. Performance enhancing drugs will, to various degrees, fine-tune and modify that motor, but there remains alive a notion that even a doped rider is holding true to this basic notion.

Competition is about finding out who is the superior athlete, it is as simple as that. We train, we fine-tune our equipment, we learn the strategy and tactics required to rise to the top. Doping certainly obscures that concept, but that a rider would abandon this fundamental principle of our sport by utilizing a motor in their bike seems to me an order of magnitude removed. It is gratuitous to the extent that there is no possible justification apart from an unabashed desire to win over all else.

This is bike racing, not motorcycle racing. For fucks sake.

frank

The founder of Velominati and curator of The Rules, Frank was born in the Dutch colonies of Minnesota. His boundless physical talents are carefully canceled out by his equally boundless enthusiasm for drinking. Coffee, beer, wine, if it’s in a container, he will enjoy it, a lot of it. He currently lives in Seattle. He loves riding in the rain and scheduling visits with the Man with the Hammer just to be reminded of the privilege it is to feel completely depleted. He holds down a technology job the description of which no-one really understands and his interests outside of Cycling and drinking are Cycling and drinking. As devoted aesthete, the only thing more important to him than riding a bike well is looking good doing it. Frank is co-author along with the other Keepers of the Cog of the popular book, The Rules, The Way of the Cycling Disciple and also writes a monthly column for the magazine, Cyclist. He is also currently working on the first follow-up to The Rules, tentatively entitled The Hardmen. Email him directly at rouleur@velominati.com.

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frank says:

Feb 2 2016 at 4:06 pm

@ChrisO

@wilburrox

Something like 90% of pro peloton is mechanical doping ? And will probably be even more once the SRAM sponsored teams have all the eTap gear the need (and racers want?). There is no doubt that the motorized derailleurs work very well. And there are definitely little motors on the bike.

Technically no, morally yes.

And their little noise is horrible. That tiny electronic whine that says “I can’t shift my own derailleur.”

This is a sound that no bicycle should ever make. I'm tempted to get the SRAM stuff because it actually seems to be an improved way of shifting, but now I'm backing off that idea again.

I remember the first time I rode Di2 and hearing that noise, it sounded so unnatural on a bike. And if you're ever at a Pro CX race, you'll hear them all shifting enmasse, zzt,zzt,zzt,zzt,zzt,zzt! It's horrible!
kixsand says:

Feb 2 2016 at 4:29 pm

@Oli

@wiscot

The momentum of sliding out while whizzing down a hill will spin a wheel like that, I’ve seen it myself and there weren’t no goddam motors involved either. It looks completely normal at normal speed.

I would think Ryder would have been travelling at 60-65 kph there. When he slides out the rear tire instantly loses contact with the pavement and continues to spin at the same rate of speed. It makes sense to me that when it again touches the pavement that it could overcome the weight of the bike in that situation to be able to move the bike like we see here.

Now that Cancellara video...fishy as fuck. What the hell?
Teocalli says:

Feb 2 2016 at 4:31 pm

@TheVid

@frank

@EBruner

@litvi

If I can capture MY OWN energy and re-apply it later, through carbon layup nanoseconds later, oval chainrings microseconds later, and both are legal, maybe applying my own power from a flywheel or a dynamo later on isn’t cheating after all.

Is that like capturing your own blood and Re-applying it later?

Oh, ouch!

Great point. Its different, my gut tells me, but I’m not sure I can articulate why!

It’s different because in the case of capturing blood and re-applying it later, the rider didn’t take his/her blood from his/herself in the middle of the ride and put it back at the feed station, or at the 20km to go banner, like getting one last bottle/gel. If they depleted their red blood cells after the start, then put them back just before the finish, you’d be getting closer to the mark of what Frank is talking about.

The thing is they don't just reapply it. They spin it down and extract some of the plasma to raise the haematocrit count. So it is externally tampered with.
frank says:

Feb 2 2016 at 4:32 pm

@hudson

@slatanic

Cancellera ?? Go to 3:20 Very interesting stuff……

https://youtu.be/8Nd13ARuvVE?t=3m20s

wow, hadn’t seen this before….i’m just a mere mortal, but when i go faster i’m either going downhill, pedaling faster and or changing gears….none of that seems to happen to Spartacus here. Boy do i gotta lot work to do to channel that kind of V.

In this context, and watching how Femke and Fabs accelerate without any noticeable change in effort, it is hugely disappointing. Especially the Kapelmuur effort where he just went steady up with more speed. So he did indeed!
DavyMuur says:

Feb 2 2016 at 4:34 pm

Call me old fashioned, but I think even electronic shifting should be banned (from competition). It kind of defeats the purpose of the bicycle as a mechanical extension of the human body.
frank says:

Feb 2 2016 at 4:39 pm

@wiscot

@frank

@litvi

@wiscot

@Gopha

Other articles keep mentioning Froome and Cancellara(I won’t accept that) but I couldn’t stop watching this video then and I can’t stop watching it now;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ideiS-6gBAc

I watched it several times. I’m no mechanical engineer, but if the rear wheel was being driven by a motor, wouldn’t the bike have swung in the opposite direction?

seems like the right direction to me, if the rearmost part of the wheel moves up, toward the saddle… no?

Agreed. But maybe @wiscot is confused about how he descends verses how a Pro descends?

No sir. There’s no confusion about how I descend versus a pro. I descend like a big jessie compared to the likes of Faboo, Yates, Kelly et al. In fact, no-one would ever confuse me and a pro. Actually, I take that back. I was asked for my autograph by a kid while I was in the pits at the 1988 Grand Prix des Nations. I was young, fit, tanned and looked pro enough. Ask Darryl Webster, he was standing next to me having actually ridden the event – but was in civvies.

CLASSIC!!!

@Sparty

@ChrisO

Of course mechanical doping already exists… it’s called Di2 and EPS.

Seriously, I don’t see any philosophical difference. OK the Di2/EPS is not directly powering the bike but it is being used to help the functioning of the drive train which has a direct role in the bike’s drive. They are both external power sources being used to replace or enhance human energy.

If anything a power reserve which stored the riders’ energy and then re-applied it should be more acceptable than external battery power.

I said it when that stuff first arrived. A bicycle is a human powered vehicle and once you introduce external power sources it has become something else.

For everyone calling for her head, yes she has to be punished because she broke rules, but at a higher level I think the rules are hypocritical.

That argument can open a can of worms mate. If the UCI has approved the use of product X, it is legal to use in competition X. It only becomes “doping” if product X is unapproved or banned from competition. Di2, EPS, E-tap do make shifting much easier and reliable to an extent. However, they offer no power/wattage assist to the rider. One can argue that carbon wheels are a bigger advantage because they do save a rider watts, thus becoming a performance aide.

Training is a performance aide, too. We have to draw a line somewhere and really the only line we can draw is what is legalized by the governing committees. Which is a little bit bullshit, but it's all we can do.

I just wish they were more competent and less motivated to make their sport money and more motivated to promote fair play.
frank says:

Feb 2 2016 at 4:44 pm

@Oli

@wiscot

The momentum of sliding out while whizzing down a hill will spin a wheel like that, I’ve seen it myself and there weren’t no goddam motors involved either. It looks completely normal at normal speed.

This seems shockingly reasonable now that you mention it, even without pedals spinning. How easy it is to get sucked up in all this excitement.

But still, there is something fishy going on in Denmark.
Teocalli says:

Feb 2 2016 at 5:29 pm

@frank

Training is a performance aide, too. We have to draw a line somewhere and really the only line we can draw is what is legalized by the governing committees. Which is a little bit bullshit, but it’s all we can do.

I just wish they were more competent and less motivated to make their sport money and more motivated to promote fair play.

Extract courtesy of Flanders and Swann, Anthem for the English
And all the world over each nation's the same
They've simply no notion of playing the game
They argue with umpires, they cheer when they've won
And they practice before hand which spoils all the fun

The English the English the English are best
I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest

It's not that they're wicked or naturally bad
It's just that they're foreign that makes them so mad
The English are all that a nation should be
And the pride of the English are Chipper and me

The English the English the English are best
I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest
Buck Rogers says:

Feb 2 2016 at 5:29 pm

@frank

Don't you mean "rotten" in the state of Denmark, my Dutch friend?
Ron says:

Feb 2 2016 at 6:12 pm

@frank

@ChrisO

@wilburrox

Something like 90% of pro peloton is mechanical doping ? And will probably be even more once the SRAM sponsored teams have all the eTap gear the need (and racers want?). There is no doubt that the motorized derailleurs work very well. And there are definitely little motors on the bike.

Technically no, morally yes.

And their little noise is horrible. That tiny electronic whine that says “I can’t shift my own derailleur.”

This is a sound that no bicycle should ever make. I’m tempted to get the SRAM stuff because it actually seems to be an improved way of shifting, but now I’m backing off that idea again.

I remember the first time I rode Di2 and hearing that noise, it sounded so unnatural on a bike. And if you’re ever at a Pro CX race, you’ll hear them all shifting enmasse, zzt,zzt,zzt,zzt,zzt,zzt! It’s horrible!

Wait, don't you need to touch both paddles to make any shift on the new SRAM-e shifters? I thought I read that and when I did, I thought that I don't want to use both hands for every shift.

Maybe I'm just wrong though.

Good god though. With winter, work, and this...I'm reading more about cycling than I'm cycling. And for that, Femke is indeed a bad word.