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.
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@Buck Rogers
Ha! Same here, I must confess. If it's on two* wheels - and self-propelled - I'll flick a friendly wave in the general direction of, or at least briefly lift a salutatory index finger from the roadside hood towards it. (It helps, I suppose, that the roads here in the West of Denmark - while very pretty - are not thronged by cyclists, at least most of the time...)
* I may even have waved at a guy on a three-wheeled rec... Oh shit. Excommunication in effect as of now, I assume: I'll get me coat (and do numerous hill repeats on the way out in penance...)
And yes: I would also like to see/hear JiPM chime in again.
@ErikdR
Do you have hills in Denmark?
@Teocalli
Oh yes, absolutely. While the West Coast of the main land mass, Jutland, is flat as a pancake (with very much of a "Wadden sea" - i.e. salty-marshy - sort of thing going on), the East coast, where I live, boasts a landscape formed by the Ice Ages: nice rollers and some pretty steep climbs (though not overly long). Not unlike the Ardennes, really, if not quite as high. And very well-kept, quiet roads.
For a flatlander (read: Cloggy) like yours truly, it's paradise: great cycling in these parts
@Teocalli
One of the highest hills in the vicinity - about 70 km from where I live - is 170 masl. The Danes sometimes refer to this as a 'mountain', which completely cracks up the Norwegians.
@ErikdR
Can you get by bike from Korsor to Nyborg. It does not look like a bike friendly bridge. Is a ferry over to Aarhus a better route by bike?
Trying to think of somewhere to go for a summer visit and do a bit of cycling as well as sight seeing for the VMW. Plus I'd like to go to the vikingeskibsmuseet sometime so Copenhagen might be a start point.
@ErikdR
Yeah I looked up Hills in Denmark......
Møllehøj is the highest natural point[Note 1] in Denmark at 170.86 m (561 ft). It is in the Ejerbjerge hills in Skanderborg municipality, very close to Ejer Bavnehøj. The summit is marked with a millstone, a remnant of Ejer mill which was situated on the hill from 1838 to 1917. The mill had eight sides and had an onion-shaped roof.
New measurements made in February 2005 showed that Møllehøj was higher than both Yding Skovhøj (172.66 m including a Bronze Age burial mound on its summit, 170.77 m without) in Horsens municipality or Ejer Bavnehøj which had both been thought higher. These two high points' natural heights are however respectively 9 and 51 cm lower than Møllehøj. It was officially recognised as Denmark's highest point in 2005.
@Teocalli
Yep, that sounds pretty accurate. The one I was referring to earlier is the one called Ejer Bavnehøj. It was actually used as a beacon hill at some point, it seems ('bavn(e)' is Danish for 'beacon' or 'beacon fire').
At one time, fires were lit on top of the thing, apparently, to warn the resident Vikings of approaching foes. On the other hand: who would dare, I wonder?
@Teocalli
Korsor-Nyborg is strictly for cars - or trains. The ferry to Aarhus sounds like a good option - but you could also drag your bike on board a train in Korsor and get off in Nyborg.
Aarhus is a great place: University town, so plenty of good pubs and affordable restaurants, etc... While there, you'd be about 90 km north of where I live. You're more than welcome to drop by, if I happen to be at home around that time. I'd be happy to show you some of the fine bike routes in my neighborhood - plus what is arguably the best beer pub in the country, right here in Kolding...
Angus raced at a round of the National Trophy Series yesterday and whilst they were waiting to be gridded, a chap from the UCI waved his iPad at all of the bikes.
It may only be the Under 14s but Angus thinks he's hit the big time now he's being checked for motors!
I didn't think to take a photo of it at the time but here's one from the race.