[HN Gopher] How Olympics officials try to catch "motor doping"
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How Olympics officials try to catch "motor doping"
Author : belter
Score : 219 points
Date : 2024-07-23 18:43 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (spectrum.ieee.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (spectrum.ieee.org)
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| What's the trainer-athlete conversation like that leads up to
| installing such devices?
| reallymental wrote:
| Both parties want to win. There's no such conversation, they're
| all in it to win it. Do whatever it takes.
| willcipriano wrote:
| Just show up one day and your bike has an unexplained button
| on it that makes you go fast?
| brookst wrote:
| Sure, for training purposes. You know, on a long ride, you
| don't want to overdo it. Of course, the actual race bike
| needs the button for verisimilitude, and it would be a big
| mistake if a batter was left in, and...
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| Surely there are certain logistics, like making sure it's
| charged before the race, or asking, "wouldn't I perform
| better by losing the extra weight?" being brought up
| before, no?
| recursive wrote:
| There's a UCI minimum weight for competition bikes at
| 6.8kg. We _can 't_ remove the button, as that would put
| us under the weight limit.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| That's funny. Thank you for explaining it
| to11mtm wrote:
| Even as far back as 2005-2006 there were stories of
| riders taping wrenches to bikes to get to the requisite
| weight, it's not even a new thing per se.
| recursive wrote:
| I've heard stories of freezing ice inside the seatpost.
| It will stay frozen long enough to pass the pre-race
| weigh-in, but melt away before the start of the big
| climb.
| jessekv wrote:
| Another reason for those thermal cameras.
| legitster wrote:
| I cannot strongly recommend enough the documentary Icarus,
| which starts out with the premise of "how hard is it to ask for
| steroids" and spirals into completely insane territory from
| there.
| nl wrote:
| It's one of the best (and surprising!) documentaries ever.
| sorenjan wrote:
| Specifically about how Russia (Putin) wanted to look good by
| making their athletes stronger for their Sochi olympics. The
| soviet union was also known for doping their athletes for
| propaganda purposes.
| sctb wrote:
| And when does Mephistopheles chime in? I'm fascinated by the
| idea of doping in general, and there seems to be two distinct
| kinds: 1) something that everyone is doing (e.g. EPO at the
| Tour de France or AAS in bodybuilding) and 2) something that
| will give you an actual edge. "Motor doping" seems to be an
| example of the latter.
|
| It really boggles my mind that there are people who are capable
| enough to be in the competition and still decide to cheat in
| order to win. Not because it's immoral or dishonourable or
| anything like that, but just because it's so fucking _lame_.
| OrigamiPastrami wrote:
| > It really boggles my mind that there are people who are
| capable enough to be in the competition and still decide to
| cheat in order to win. Not because it's immoral or
| dishonourable or anything like that, but just because it's so
| fucking lame.
|
| If your competition is cheating you are going to lose if you
| don't cheat. It has nothing to do with honor - it's just
| about winning. Cheating may be lame but it's a reality. It's
| not just limited to sports either. In fact I can't think of
| anywhere I studied/worked where cheaters/liars didn't get
| ahead (I know multiple cheating students who got into MIT for
| grad school, and I know multiple abusive liars who were
| consistently promoted at unicorn startups or FAANG while
| simultaneously working to get their honest coworkers fired).
|
| Such is life.
| sctb wrote:
| > If your competition is cheating you are going to lose if
| you don't cheat.
|
| I put that in category #1, which isn't exactly cheating
| because it doesn't buy you an advantage. Cheating at school
| or at work is an interesting example. Perhaps by the time
| cyclists are considering motorizing it's just like... a
| job? And you have to win to eat?
| JohnMakin wrote:
| > It really boggles my mind that there are people who are
| capable enough to be in the competition and still decide to
| cheat in order to win. Not because it's immoral or
| dishonourable or anything like that, but just because it's so
| fucking lame.
|
| If you have devoted your entire life to a particular sport
| enough to compete and make a living in it, there inevitably
| will come a time when your ability to compete is not enough,
| whether that's due to declining ability or increased
| competition. When faced with the decision of ending a career
| or cheating, it is not too surprising that people could
| choose the latter.
|
| Of course there are many other reasons for cheating, but I
| imagine that to be a common motivator.
| sctb wrote:
| > When faced with the decision of ending a career or
| cheating, it is not too surprising that people could choose
| the latter.
|
| I do find it a bit surprising, myself.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| > I do find it a bit surprising, myself.
|
| Ok let me phrase it perhaps in a more relatable way -
|
| Your employer asks you to do an unethical or illegal
| thing. Not doing so will result in you losing your
| livelihood. Doing so presents a small but measurable risk
| to you, but you keep your livelihood unless caught, in
| which case you lose your livelihood anyway. Do you think
| there is a significant subset of people that take the
| first choice?
| sctb wrote:
| I find it surprising that athletes would choose to make a
| drastic departure from their prior intentions of fair
| competition in order to attempt to avoid the
| inevitability of retirement. I don't find it nearly as
| surprising that someone would make a bite-sized
| compromise in order to preserve their livelihood, even
| though it seems unwise to me.
|
| Sport qua job has a different feel than sport qua sport,
| as a sibling commenter illuminated.
| xanderlewis wrote:
| I imagine that the temptation is more to cheat in order to
| attain what you 'ought' to be able to achieve, given
| perfect conditions. Considered in that way, it's no longer
| about seeking something you don't deserve by deception and
| more like trying to avoid random fluctuations that seem
| like they 'shouldn't be part of the competition'.
|
| 'If only I hadn't torn that ligament a few years ago, I'd
| probably be very slightly faster. I deserve to win this
| because I'm naturally better. In a perfect world I'd win.
| By taking this drug, I can negate the unfortunate
| circumstances and ensure I live up to my true potential.',
| etc.
|
| In reality, of course, it's still plain old cheating. But I
| imagine it's fairly easy to rationalise it in your head by
| thinking along these sort of lines. It's probably not the
| same sort of feeling as robbing someone in the street --
| your morals can remain genuinely intact.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| Their rationalizations don't really matter though, only
| their incentives/motivation, and there are plenty of
| rational incentives to cheat, so people do - I simply
| don't find this surprising. You see it everywhere else
| this is the case.
| TheCondor wrote:
| What's boggling about it?
|
| Cycling is a really good example because it is so stark: 1)
| If you win you make more money, probably _a lot_ more money.
| I don 't know the current numbers, but during the Armstrong
| years there were plenty of Tour de France level riders that
| worked wrenching bikes to make ends meet and lived with their
| parents in the off season. You had Lance on private jets, and
| then guys on the team making under $30k supporting him. 2)
| Genetics is huge, you can do everything possible and simply
| not be good enough, if you've dedicated a big chunk of your
| life to this dream, you've won at every level, you live a
| completely monastic lifestyle and constantly diet and you
| reach your limit the desire to get just a little bit better
| is strong. The drugs work. 3) If enough people believe that
| "everyone is doing it" then the psychology of cheating
| disappears. 4) There is no external pressure or risk; the
| teams and sponsors don't get burned. When Lance won on a Trek
| they went from being something like a $200m company to a
| $2.5B company. They may very well have played a part in it,
| perhaps unbeknownst to them, but they never had any jeopardy.
|
| They're talking about what is physiologically possible after
| this year's Tour, it was a complete ass kicking. If your
| competition is doing things that are believed impossible, do
| you hang it up? accept defeat? Or rationalize that a few
| watts isn't really cheating since he's doing something
| impossible?
| sctb wrote:
| Doping as table stakes is understandable. Money too, after
| a while. But I genuinely wonder how an athlete who put a
| motor in their bike and then accepted the resulting victory
| would feel about themselves as a competitor and a person.
| If they were stoked then by all means go for it, but in
| that case they must have a different psyche than I do.
| nemo44x wrote:
| Mechanical cheating is pretty common in sports where it's
| viable. NASCAR crews were always finding ways to cheat so
| much that the saying "if you're not cheating you're not
| trying" was said without irony.
|
| Baseball has a history of guys corking their bats and when
| caught the excuse is always that the practice bat got mixed
| in.
| sorenjan wrote:
| I seem to recall that the most common type of doping is
| actually to increase recovery, both to make it easier to
| train hard again the next day and to recover from injuries
| faster. Apparently it's pretty common in football (soccer) to
| get injured players back in action, and that's not a sport
| that most people would think benefits a lot from the classic
| doping types that increase muscle mass or endurance. Sure
| they run and have some physical contact, but not that much.
| beAbU wrote:
| There are people who cheat in fucking tetris competitions.
|
| What do you mean your mind is boggled that pro cyclists
| cheat? Some people will literally sell their grandmothers if
| it brings them an inch closer to worldwide fame and fortune.
| alistairSH wrote:
| The same as the conversation that leads to athletes doping
| their bodies.
|
| Somebody in the athlete's inner circle suggests "hey, you'd be
| faster/stronger if you did X..." and it goes from there.
| KeplerBoy wrote:
| Motor doping is somewhat different imho. It's a ballsy move
| to propose something like "hey, you'd be a faster cyclist if
| you rode a motorbike". After all with conventional doping it
| was still your body, sweat and pain.
| nemo44x wrote:
| It's pretty rational really. You can linger in mediocrity
| always at risk of being replaced or you could take PEDs and
| either become competitive and important or get caught and be
| replaced, the same outcome as not using. Especially if you came
| from dirt.
|
| It's all upside if you can't compete without.
| buttercraft wrote:
| Well, unless you value honesty and integrity.
| sidibe wrote:
| For those who aren't following starting a few years ago the top
| cyclists have hit some crazy new levels unseen even in the EPO
| era and the top ones at this year's Tour De France were smashing
| power output records and not even looking tired in the winner's
| case.
|
| I think so far no one has been caught motor doping even though
| they've looked for it for years. The rumor is the new magic is
| carbon monoxide rebreathing
| RegnisGnaw wrote:
| Per the article, Femke Van den Driessche was caught motor
| doping.
| timeon wrote:
| That was not in road-race.
| Saig6 wrote:
| This is false, Pogacar and Vingegaards w/kg is lower than the
| best juicers in the 90s/00s.
| loeg wrote:
| Can you put some names and numbers to that?
| 0x000xca0xfe wrote:
| Do you have sources for that?
|
| Some quick searching yields this:
|
| "Based on the numbers, Tadej Pogacar has an FTP close to
| 7w/kg. These are the highest numbers that we've ever seen in
| professional cycling, and what's even more incredible is that
| Pogacar is pushing 7w/kg for 40 minutes after four hours of
| racing."
|
| https://velo.outsideonline.com/road/road-racing/tour-de-
| fran...
| EA wrote:
| And it looks like Lance was about 6.97 W/kg in 2004:
| https://sportsscientists.com/2009/07/tour-de-
| france-2009-pow...
| deng wrote:
| This number is useless without the time he was able to
| hold that value. Lanterne Rouge has calculated that Pog
| is about 10% over Pantani and Armstrong when it comes to
| W/kg over time interval.
| loeg wrote:
| In context from GP's source, the claim is for the 2004
| Alpe d'Huez climb. This was stage 16 of the 2004 tour.
| The stage was 15.5 km but only 13.9 of that is the actual
| climb. Lance's total stage time was 39 minutes, 41
| seconds, of which it seems like 37 minutes, 36 seconds
| was the climb[0].
|
| This is an interval on par with Pogacar's climb, although
| Lance had less same-day load going into the climb.
|
| [0]: https://www.stickybottle.com/races-results/cycling-
| fastest-t...
| cheeze wrote:
| Uh, it isn't? Pog AND Vig both had arguably the best
| performance of all time on stage 14.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Comparing raw times isn't accurate. The technology has
| improved Massively since Armstrong. Aero, weight, tire
| design, disc brakes (descending, wet).
|
| And the training is just as drastically improved. Nutrition
| dialed to the individual, seven days/week. Power meters are
| ubiquitous. No more "go ride 5 hours with your roommate"
| for a Saturday training ride - it's all planned all the
| time.
|
| This has all happened since Pog was a small child.
| deng wrote:
| Your reasoning is really funny because that's _exactly_
| how all the EPO /blood dopers explained their drastically
| improved performance 20 years ago. Do you seriously
| believe that Armstrong didn't have individual nutrition
| and just drove aimlessly 5 hours a day without power
| meters? You make it sound like he just ate 10 raw eggs
| with a bottle of red wine before racing like it's 1924.
|
| Feel free to believe that nutrition, material, aero etc.
| will give you a 10% improvement over the most doped
| people in the history of cycling, especially on the final
| climb on plateau de beille, with incredible heat,
| headwind and after four cat1 climbs. Watch how Pogacar
| casually drives freehandedly, grabbing a bottle while
| Vingegaard pushes the fastest climb ever recorded,
| pulverizing Pantani's record, and seriously tell me this
| is because he had better breakfast.
| timeon wrote:
| > Watch how Pogacar casually drives freehandedly,
| grabbing a bottle while Vingegaard pushes the fastest
| climb ever recorded
|
| This was the moment when I stopped watching. I like
| Pogacar and there is no way for rider to rebut all the
| accusations even the rider really is clean. But it
| doesn't help that he is riding under people who were
| doping and managing teams with doping scandals.
| alistairSH wrote:
| It's been 20 years since LA "won" the Tour. Do I think
| the sport has advanced much since these guys raced...
| https://cycling-passion.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2012/09/marco...
|
| Absolutely, I do. The bikes are more aero. The position
| on the bikes is different - Pog rarely gets out of the
| saddle on climbs, where LA and Pantani were often
| slogging out of the saddle. The training plans and
| nutrition are absolutely superior.
|
| Does any of this mean Pog or Jonas are clean? No. We
| don't know either way. All I do know is the anti-doping
| program is one of the strictest in sports. If people
| still dope, there's not much we can do about it.
| Regardless, I'll continue to enjoy cycling as
| entertainment - there's no higher meaning to sports -
| it's all for fun.
| deng wrote:
| Pog rides like Indurain, staying in the saddle and just
| punching the watts, that's nothing new. Ullrich adhered
| to that style and was handily beaten by Armstrong,
| because Ullrich couldn't match Armstrong's intermediate
| sprints out of the saddle. Maybe Ullrich's style is
| actually superior and Armstrong simply had the better
| juice, we'll never know.
|
| These are just stylistic issues which might bring you a
| percent or two. The 10% we are seeing now is a world of
| difference on that level, especially because Pog simply
| exploded this year, beating both Giro and Tour without
| much trouble. I also heavily disagree with entertainment
| being the highest meaning of sports, because then I guess
| we would just all watch WWE or Peter Thiel's mutant
| games, but that's a topic for another day.
| isoprophlex wrote:
| That doesn't sound dangerous at all
| Aperocky wrote:
| Or just altitude camps. In the CO paper they were claiming that
| CO rebreathing had "similar impact" as altitude camps, which
| makes a lot of sense given both of them are essentially
| attempts to deprive body of oxygen.
|
| Don't be surprised if cyclist suddenly all started spending
| their off season in Tibet or something.
| solardev wrote:
| Tangentially, it would be cool to just have sanctioned ebike
| races. We have motorcycles and cars, why not ebikes? I'd love to
| watch a high speed, no holds barred e-cyclocross/gravel/MTB race.
| PierceJoy wrote:
| There is a UCI sanctioned electric mountain bike enduro race.
| anthomtb wrote:
| To the GP, an electric mountain bike (eMTB) enduro race is
| probably not what you are envisioning.
|
| Mountain bike (MTB) enduro is stage racing. Specifically,
| timed downhill-only sections separated by untimed transfers
| between stages. The name comes from motorcycle enduro racing.
| Riders do not go head-to-head like in road cycling,
| cyclocross or motocross. eMTB enduro is exactly the same
| format but using electric-motor assisted bikes and, IIRC, one
| timed uphill stage thrown in.
|
| MTB/eMTB enduro is great fun as a participant sport but
| either not-there-yet or not-suitable as a spectator sport.
| mariusor wrote:
| But of course that there are e-cycling races. E-Giro took place
| basically alongside the original race. It's mostly populated by
| amateurs, but it's still there.
| etimberg wrote:
| Why not just have the Olympic host supply the same bike model to
| every participant rather than having each rider bring their own
| bike?
| RegnisGnaw wrote:
| Why not have the Olympic host supply the same shoes to every
| participant? The same swim suit to every participant. What's
| the end?
| hanniabu wrote:
| They really should, that way everyone is competing on equal
| levels. Less variables means a greater chance the best person
| wins.
| solardev wrote:
| I don't think the Olympics were ever about equal footing or
| decreasing variables. To really level the playing field
| you'd have to have a clone army of athletes with the same
| genes, diet, lifestyle, training, coach, sleep, etc.
| Equipment is just one variable among dozens, and eventually
| the rules can change to limit their contribution (like with
| swimsuits).
| rhinoman wrote:
| Or it would benefit those participants who are best suited
| to the chosen gear.
|
| Taking an extreme example - imagine if we said "everyone
| must wear size 9 shoes so everybody's on equal footing".
| axblount wrote:
| I'm not sure how your extreme example is helpful. No one
| has made a suggestion like that.
| rhinoman wrote:
| The idea is that different equipment is better suited for
| different individuals. By mandating a specific kind of
| equipment for all athletes, you'd be benefiting some
| individuals over others.
|
| For example, road bikes have different frame shapes that
| are suitable depending on your torso length compared to
| leg length.
|
| Of course, the natural next step would be allow some
| flexibility (different frame size but same material), but
| you can see how that could be a slippery slope of
| legislation and lobbying that would end up in a similar
| situation to where we are today?
| vintermann wrote:
| > The idea is that different equipment is better suited
| for different individuals.
|
| Well yes, but different sports are also better suited for
| different individuals. It's just making the equipment
| part of the definition of the sport.
| lmm wrote:
| Suggesting everyone should have to use a specific bike is
| exactly a suggestion like that - bikes have sizes and
| shapes that are suited to riders of particular body sizes
| and shapes.
| jaggederest wrote:
| Especially in the context of the original olympics, which
| were largely conducted nude. The idea that a rich country
| can field better equipment is absurd.
| Am4TIfIsER0ppos wrote:
| Yes please!
| rurban wrote:
| That would filter out the US TV market. They would not
| survive this.
| jaggederest wrote:
| Providing standardized equipment? I'm not at all
| suggesting everyone compete nude, I'm suggesting that
| circumstances be standardized.
| thesz wrote:
| If you have been training in different gear than is
| supplied to you by host of the event then you are at
| disadvantage.
|
| Take a look at the variety of weightlifting shoes, as an
| example of gear for a specific sport.
| marinmania wrote:
| There was a controversy in curling a few years ago where some
| curling teams were using new brooms by a new company that had
| significantly better tech. It was so good it made it
| unnecessary to have two sweepers. The resolution was to ban
| it and only allow brooms from certain manufacturers.
|
| It seems reasonable that these sports could narrow down the
| list of approved equipment down to a few approved suppliers
| every year.
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/1427-broomgate-a-
| curl...
| alistairSH wrote:
| Shoes had a similar issue when Nike released their first
| modern super-shoe (Vaporfly, IIRC). The track and field
| body had to limit shoe sole height and the other brands had
| a lot of catch-up to do.
|
| Same for swimming with high tech, low drag, bouyant
| swimsuits. Again, the international body had to step in and
| ban some materials/designs to prevent domination by nations
| that could sink resources into the engineering.
| notatoad wrote:
| same thing happens in cycling all the time too. the UCI
| bans new equipment all the time, and the rules for what is
| allowed are very strict, to the point where there's a limit
| on sock height. there is a limited list of frames that can
| be used in UCI races, including the olympics
|
| but rules around the type of equipment you can use, and the
| race host supplying specific equipment to all riders, is a
| very different thing.
| altruios wrote:
| External supplies, clothing, and equipment... that's the
| end... we aren't going to be matching used muscles to see
| which brain pulls on them harder.
|
| External influences should be minimized within reason.
| scblock wrote:
| This is not a strong argument. In fact it sounds downright
| reasonable.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Have everyone compete in the nude, like they did originally.
|
| Viewership would break records, at least.
| vintermann wrote:
| Did you know that the Olympics used to be a strictly amateur
| competition? You would get disqualified if it turned out
| you'd taken payment for your sporting activity.
|
| So it doesn't sound as crazy to me.
| solardev wrote:
| Different riders have different preferences, and there's a lot
| of money and technology that goes into improving the bikes
| every year (or at least every decade). The materials, the
| construction, the electronics, the aerodynamics, the fit, the
| saddle, the tires... they're all constantly evolving. It's like
| car races, manufacturer sponsorship is a huge part of it, and
| the races in turn advertise those bikes.
|
| Would it make for more equal footing if everyone had the same
| model? Yeah, probably, but does that happen elsewhere in the
| Olympics? Does the host supply skis, shoes, bows, bobsleds,
| etc.?
| etimberg wrote:
| To me, the olympics are about determining who is best at a
| sport. It's not a technical problem like a car race where
| bending the rules with creative engineering is expected and
| encouraged.
| icoder wrote:
| Engineering is part of many sports, skiing, snowboarding,
| swimming (albeit limited after those floating suits),
| running. Even if you say they should all be about the
| sports performance only, there's engineering behind
| training schedules, equipment, diet, techniques & posture,
| etc.
| slaymaker1907 wrote:
| The trouble is that people have different preferences for
| different equipment and by mandating one particular bike,
| you disadvantage a lot people based on who does better on a
| particular bike and aren't judging people solely based on
| who is the better cyclist. Consider the absurd extension of
| using exactly the same equipment where even the size of the
| bike is exactly the same, saddle height is the same, pedal
| length is the same, etc. There will be maybe one person who
| that is ideal with and whole lot more people suffering
| injuries from riding incorrectly sized bikes.
|
| Therefore, since we can't all have exactly the same bikes,
| we need to come up with a definition of what is "fair" to
| adjust for the bike that someone races on. Sure, this
| allows for some degree creative engineering, but is that
| really a bad thing so long as money doesn't become the
| determining factor of who wins? It pushes the science of
| bikes forward and eventually that new tech will make its
| way to everyone, including amateur cyclists.
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| ...and pro-cyclists get told which bikes and bits to
| ride.
| pandaman wrote:
| The athletes can customize the bikes they are given by
| the sponsors as the sponsor is interested in winning the
| race even more than the athletes.
| prmoustache wrote:
| > The trouble is that people have different preferences
| for different equipment and by mandating one particular
| bike, you disadvantage a lot people based on who does
| better on a particular bike
|
| This is not backed by fact.
|
| Most world tour riders have very little choice on their
| equipment, nor do they choose the team sponsors. They
| have some leeway on a few third party components of their
| choice and can usually which frame model they use among a
| tiny selection of less than 3 models but that doesn't
| change drastically how the bike ride really as long as
| the bike fits. You could totally make a race where
| everybody ride the same kind of bike, and riders would be
| able to choose the frame size, saddle, stem and handlebar
| size, and possibly clipless pedal models that would make
| everything more standard.
|
| Actually in Japan they do something similar in keiring.
| All frames are built with steel tubes, they use old
| styles of pedals with clips, and only parts stamped by
| NJS, following design and construction principles of
| track bikes of the late 70's, are approved. Sometimes
| regular olympic track racers spend a few months in Japan
| in the off season to get some additional money, they swap
| their high end carbon bikes prototypes to what looks like
| vintage track bikes of the 70's, you can actually see the
| bikes bending under load, yet the best riders with the
| best strategy of the day still win.
|
| https://invidious.incogniweb.net/watch?v=9GWw31J60cM
| slaymaker1907 wrote:
| 3 models and a bunch of sizes as well. The Giant Propel
| Advanced SL 0 has 6 different size options. Even for
| cheap bikes, it's common to have a small, medium, and
| large frame size.
|
| As far as restricting technology, stopping at 70s tech
| seems really arbitrary. There are already rules and
| regulations for what you can use.
|
| One final note: I'm pretty sure UCI would get a big
| lawsuit if they mandated one bike from a particular
| manufacturer due to antitrust concerns.
| prmoustache wrote:
| > One final note: I'm pretty sure UCI would get a big
| lawsuit if they mandated one bike from a particular
| manufacturer due to antitrust concerns.
|
| I don't think so. It happens all the time in lower series
| of Motorsport and even the highest for tires. Formula 1
| and Motogp are working respectively with Pirelli and
| Michelin if my memory is correct.
|
| For esport world championship the UCI used Zwift in the
| early years and now it is their competitor MyWhoosh.
|
| The keirin regulation using 70's tech was just an example
| to illustrate that controlling specs is possible. Same
| could be done but with a single make of bikes and just
| various frame sizes available for world tour. The issue
| is mostly that team would lose sponsorship so nobody has
| anything to gain. In the grand scheme of things, the
| difference between pro bikes is rather marginal and
| doesn't decide the outcome of the races.
| anthomtb wrote:
| In your view, are activities like cycling and snowboarding
| valid as Olympic sports? Neither could exist without a
| significant amount of creative engineering.
| playingalong wrote:
| There's a difference between creative engineering
| enabling the whole sport and creative engineers competing
| with each other behind the scenes.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Famously difficult to draw a satisfying line between
| these two things. The history of every sport is a
| conflict about exactly this, entire modern sports are the
| relics of people being unsatisfied with how the line was
| drawn at one particular time.
|
| I'm not saying it's not a good goal to have, just you
| kind of have to view it as an inherently unsolvable
| problem to get anything productive out of it.
| Someone wrote:
| Bicycle-tech wise, little can stay behind the scenes in
| cycling.
|
| https://assets.ctfassets.net/761l7gh5x5an/6cmP3f8KY4mTfI6
| hAY...:
|
| _"Equipment shall be of a type that is sold for use by
| anyone practicing cycling as a sport.
|
| Any equipment in development phase and not yet available
| for sale (prototype) must be subject of an authorization
| request to the UCI Equipment Unit before its use.
| Authorization will be granted only for equipment which is
| in the final stage of development and for which
| commercialization will take place no later than 12 months
| after the first use in competition. The manufacturer may
| request a single prolongation of the prototype status if
| justified by relevant reasons"_
|
| So, that gives manufacturers an incentive to innovate,
| but won't give teams an advantage for long.
|
| Other sports have similar regulations.
| eitally wrote:
| It's not actually, though. For the majority of these
| sports, the professional leagues often have superior
| competition and performances than you see in the Olympics,
| with the notable exception being many of the individual
| sports where there isn't enough global interest to drive
| commercial organization outside the Olympics.
|
| For example, the quality of basketball, soccer, and
| baseball you find in the pro leagues is all MUCH better
| than in the Olympics. Track & Field has a regular annual
| season that's already international (Diamond League), plus
| many standing invitationals, any of which are as likely to
| see records broken as the Olympics.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| Diamond league may be _more_ likely to see records
| broken, frankly, because it allows pace setters and the
| light indicators on the infield rail telling the runners
| exactly where the world record pace is at. But most
| athletes don 't compete in every meet, so the field isn't
| usually as competitive, and nobody plans a four-year
| training peak around a diamond league meet, so maybe that
| makes up for it.
| solardev wrote:
| Is it that black-and-white? Many sports are a mix of
| athlete ability and equipment (alongside other variables
| like training, diet, etc.). Everything from running shoes
| to swimsuits to climbing shoes are engineered to heck and
| back, and the training regimes etc. are also super-
| scienced.
|
| It's not like we just have naked people wrestling each
| other these days. The equipment is a part of the package
| now.
| alistairSH wrote:
| _Yeah, probably, but does that happen elsewhere in the
| Olympics?_
|
| Yes, sailing. I believe all but Formula Kite are one-design
| classes (Laser, Laser Radial, IQFoil, Nacra 17, 49er, and
| 470). A few have options between licensed manufacturer (but
| to same spec) and a few are true one-make (Laser, Laser
| Radial), not sure about the others.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| As someone else pointed out in another thread: for any
| given sport the olympics is just one competition. For it to
| remain prestigious it needs to have most of the best
| competitors in each sport competing in it, and for that it
| needs to stay fairly close to the mainstream format and
| constraints of each sport.
|
| Single-design classes are standard in sailing, so the
| olympics uses them also. They are _not_ standard for
| cycling, and it would be a huge deviation from conventions
| of competitive cycling for the olympics to demand them.
|
| That doesn't mean they _can 't_ or that it wouldn't
| possibly be worth while. But there are huge costs to doing
| that, like possibly few or none of the major competitive
| cyclists competing.
| alistairSH wrote:
| 100% agree. Just a literal answer the the question.
|
| I'd love to see track cycling get more standard
| equipment. As it is today, some nations pump a ton of
| money into aerodynamics and RR to substantial advantage.
| More so than the difference between a Cannondale or
| Specialized road bike. Or so it seems to me.
| eitally wrote:
| And to put a point on this, the top professional road
| cycling teams in the world only have annual budgets of
| about $50m (covering 30 cyclists, all the coaches and
| directors, mechanics and any other crew they may need -
| physical therapists, chef, etc). Barely the top ten of
| the top road cyclists earn >$1m/yr. Compare that to
| mainstream sports that might have a _just salary_ cap of
| $250m /yr.
| emacdona wrote:
| > They are not standard for cycling, and it would be a
| huge deviation from conventions of competitive cycling
| for the olympics to demand them.
|
| The Olympics (or, perhaps more generally, national team
| cycling events) _do_ make a huge deviation from the
| conventions of competitive cycling already: no team
| radios. One of the reasons they are so fun to watch :-)
| roelschroeven wrote:
| That is indeed an exception, but IIRC it's not the only
| event with that exception: I think the world, continental
| and national championships also don't allow team radios.
|
| Another exception is that the Olympics and world and
| continental championships are ridden with national teams
| instead of the various commercial teams. That makes quite
| a difference too.
| ben7799 wrote:
| Everything about the equipment has been a charade for many
| decades.
|
| All the real improvements in bikes have been banned for a
| very long time and pro racing is used these days to sell all
| kinds of things which have been sideways moves at best.
| notatoad wrote:
| The olympics don't really set the protocol for any of this. the
| rules and procedures for each sport are set by their respective
| international sport organization. for cycling that's the UCI.
|
| the olympics is only one event, and only happens once every
| four years. the rest of the season, that happens every year, is
| much more important and doesn't have an olympic host to provide
| bikes. so there needs to be some procedure that catches motor
| doping at all the races, not just one infrequent race. The
| olympics is just going to follow the same procedures that are
| used for all the rest of the worldtour level races. and while
| the olympics might not care about keeping the rider's bike
| sponsors happy, the rest of the races do.
|
| if riders weren't out there promoting bike brands and riding
| bikes provided by their sponsors, pro bike racing wouldn't be a
| thing.
| dmckeon wrote:
| > promoting bike brands and riding bikes provided by their
| sponsors
|
| Therein lies an answer - change the disincentives - instead
| of banning cheating riders, ban all of the sponsors of those
| riders for a time. Now the onus is on the sponsors to
| discourage cheating.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| I don't know much about sponsorship. How would a sponsor be
| banned? What sort of activities or relations would be off-
| limits during a ban?
| labcomputer wrote:
| You wouldn't ban a sponsor, but a team. People typically
| refer to a cycling team by a sponsor's name, but teams
| can (and do) change sponsors from season to season (or
| sometimes even within a season like "Jumbo Visma" ->
| "Visma Lease a Bike" did this year between the Giro and
| the Tour).
|
| Jumbo Visma is the same team as Visma Lease a Bike. They
| have the same riders, managers, athletic director, staff,
| etc. Just a different name on the jersey.
|
| As for how a team is banned: you simply ban them. In most
| of cycling you need to be a member of a team
| (professional) or club (amateur) to even enter a race.
| Your racing license will name your team/club. If your
| team is banned you may not register for the race.
|
| Also, at the World Tour professional level, your team
| would have several cars driving within the race to
| support riders with food, bottles, and mechanical
| assistance. Since the race will be on a closed course,
| only official vehicles can drive with the riders. Even if
| started the race, you would be at a serious disadvantage
| to race with no team support.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| How does it work now? Are teams banned if caught
| cheating?
| labcomputer wrote:
| They can be. For example, Team Astana's license was
| initially not renewed for 2007 following a doping
| scandal.
|
| Unfortunately, the UCI usually reissues the license if
| the team pinky promises not to dope again.
|
| Team Astana signed Lance Armstrong in 2009 and we all
| know how that went.
| roelschroeven wrote:
| (Just an aside, doesn't invalidate any of your reasoning)
|
| The name change from Jumbo Visma to Visma | Lease a Bike
| didn't happen between the Giro and the Tour, it was a lot
| earlier. I would say, but I'm not 100% certain of this,
| that the name change happened between the 2023 and 2024
| seasons. I think teams have to register their name with
| the UCI, and can't change it during the season.
|
| For example here is a photo of Jan Tratnik finishing
| first in Omloop Het Nieuwsblad on 2024-02-24, long
| beclearly wearing a Visma | Lease a Bike shirt.
|
| The team did change the design of the shirts before the
| Tour, because their old shirts had a lot of yellow which
| conflicts with the yellow jersey of the GC leader. Maybe
| that's what you were thinking of?
| ben7799 wrote:
| UCI has barely ever had the willpower to do this.
|
| Tons of teams are still run by folks who were heavily
| involved in the 1990s and 2000s doping scandals. They all
| claim they're all clean and reformed but most of them
| were never really punished.
| floam wrote:
| "Red Bull caught cheating at $event in sprawling plot;
| banned for 6 years" - they might invest some dollars to
| avoid such a disaster. According to the quote in the
| article, curbing this is only a matter of will and $$$.
| Aerroon wrote:
| Of course it's a matter of $$$. Sports doesn't actually
| make anything. It's entertainment that's paid for via
| ads. But that's also why hitting the sponsors wouldn't
| work, because without them the (professional) sport might
| not survive.
| OtherShrezzing wrote:
| Surely this just moves the incentive from the
| sportsperson/team to the sponsor - who have significantly
| deeper financial resources to undermine WADA's testing
| regimes.
|
| WADA's budget is something like $50m. The likes of Ineos &
| Red Bull have sports marketing budgets well into the
| billions.
| hervature wrote:
| It is important to separate the teams vs. the company
| itself. The Ineos cycling team has a total budget closer
| to $50M. That's the budget to support 20+ riders and all
| the support staff.
| adolph wrote:
| I had to look up Ineos bc I'm only familiar with the
| Grenadier truck. Turns out to be a 20b English
| chem/energy chaebol.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ineos
| extr wrote:
| Seems like they would have a lot more to lose as well. A
| scheme where Red Bull is helping athletes cheat is front
| page news. It would be catastrophic to their reputation.
| Much bigger deal than the athlete themselves getting
| caught.
| ars wrote:
| They would just funnel it through some other company that
| they can blame.
| dooglius wrote:
| In GP's proposed scheme, the sponsor gets punished
| whether or not it knew or assisted
| usrusr wrote:
| The sponsor isn't punished when their reputation gets
| associated with a cheat? US Postal sued Armstrong for
| $100M (settled for $5M) after he got caught. Guilty by
| association with a PED athlete is the dominant economic
| risk of sports sponsoring. At least in sports that have
| dropped the "just pretend we did not notice" attitude
| that's still going strong in e.g. football (both of them,
| I suppose)
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| _A scheme where Red Bull is helping athletes cheat is
| front page news. It would be catastrophic to their
| reputation._
|
| Well, either that or it would triple sales overnight.
| "Hey, this stuff really DOES give you wings!"
| elevatedastalt wrote:
| I mean we are talking of an overrated "energy drink" that
| no one actually needs to consume but yet manages to sell
| billions of dollars worth of every year.
|
| I don't think their target market is that susceptible to
| reason.
| Retric wrote:
| Energy drink is an arbitrary category. Caffeine + sugar +
| water is the root of a lot more than 1 billion in
| beverage sales because the combo works.
| aleph_minus_one wrote:
| Energy drinks additionally contain taurine.
| Retric wrote:
| Several call themselves energy drinks and don't like C4
| Smart Energy.
|
| At least as far as the Federal Trade Commission is
| concerned that's not an issue.
| rightbyte wrote:
| It's good iff you mix it with Vodka.
| mvkel wrote:
| The biggest world tour team has a budget of $50 million
| eitally wrote:
| Because the Olympics organization would never want to pay
| to outfit athletes with non-sponsored gear (whether for
| cycling or any other sport).
| pdxandi wrote:
| It's hard enough for bike teams to get sponsorship. Adding
| that burden on the sponsor could kill the sport.
| scosman wrote:
| The sponsors aren't partners who are tuning up the bikes.
| It's companies who cut a cheque and expect logos
| everywhere.
|
| Individual riders/teams are motivated to win and get
| sponsor dollars, so may resort to cheating. They know they
| will lose sponsors forever and be banned if caught, so they
| try to hide it from sponsors and officials. Basically: the
| same disincentives exist today. They just need to catch
| folks. It's just doping v2.
| kyleblarson wrote:
| Alternatively it would be interesting to have a race or
| series of races where it's anything goes, including drugging.
| It's already such a cat and mouse game so why not just
| embrace it.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| If you allow e-assist, at that point wouldn't you just have
| motorbikes?
| chongli wrote:
| Yeah how silly would that be? A guy on a MotoGP bike just
| blowing past the peloton on their e-bikes.
| andrecarini wrote:
| > why not just embrace it
|
| Everything-goes sounds fun in theory but in practice it'd
| just kill the athletes (and the sport, by extension)
| dalmo3 wrote:
| Case in point, Group B rally.
|
| https://youtu.be/FN93WoPDJS0?si=vL90dmpYovOLjiiR
| masklinn wrote:
| And even that still wasn't "no holds barred", leaving
| aside what little safety rules it had (and how weakly
| enforced they were) Group B did have rules on minimum
| weight and displacement classes (with negative offsets
| for turbo and super charging).
| mvkel wrote:
| This would just mean the teams with the biggest budgets
| win. Doping is expensive.
|
| Not to mention, every person responds differently to doping
| protocols.
|
| What if you're a C rider who becomes an A+ rider when
| doped? And you race against a B+ rider who becomes an A
| minus rider when doped. Still not an even playing field.
|
| This is effectively what lance did. He had record levels of
| hematocrit naturally, and an extremely high vo2. It meant
| he had a magnified sensitivity to doping protocols that the
| other riders didn't. So his doping advantage actually
| increased his relative abilities even -higher- than his
| also-doped competitors.
|
| Not to mention kids coming into the sport. Would be a
| massive mountain to climb to go from a prodigy 16 year old
| against doped pros.
| notatoad wrote:
| e-bike racing is a thing that exists. nobody wants to watch
| it because it's incredibly dumb.
| clort wrote:
| beacuse what will really happen is, some nation desperate
| to make a statement on the world stage will take a thousand
| small children and force feed them drugs to make 10
| athletes
|
| 100 die of the drugs during childhood
|
| 700 suffer the rest of their shortened lives from
| consequential medical issues
|
| perhaps its easier to just throw the 'failed' 990 into a
| meat grinder to ensure there is no controversy later
|
| but sure, its fun to watch the 10 athletes at the peak of
| their game!
|
| east germany
| prmoustache wrote:
| There is actually a proposition to do just that but it
| hasn't been getting a lot of traction so far for obvious
| ethical and moral reasons.
|
| https://enhanced.org/
| nonameiguess wrote:
| There are high level competitive sports leagues that
| effectively allow doping. Pro bodybuilding is probably the
| most obvious. There are tested federations, but they're
| virtually ignored because the guys competing are half the
| size of the guys doing drugs. Powerlifting also has
| untested federations, and strongman I think might do token
| testing just to appease law enforcement since you can't
| openly allow something that is illegal is most
| jurisdictions, but it's designed to be easy to beat and
| everyone is well aware that the top competitors are not
| only using drugs but have to use drugs to do what they're
| doing.
|
| Notably, this is probably part of why the Olympics doesn't
| have bodybuilding, powerlifting, or strongman on the
| program, as sports need to have a WADA-approved antidoping
| program to qualify.
|
| Also, the Olympics itself from the 50s to the 80s basically
| was what you're asking for. This is the time between when
| synthetic steroids were first widely available and when
| tests for them became possible. In the meantime, with no
| way to catch anyone, it was anything goes. I wouldn't say
| that led to pretty outcomes. Records that stood for 40
| years, sure, but eastern bloc nations with mandatory
| athletics camps were injecting 12 year-old girls with
| testosterone and telling them it was vitamins. At a
| reasonable dose, most performance enhancing drugs are
| fairly safe for men but virtually none of them are safe for
| women because of the masculinizing effects. The changes to
| a female body are permanent.
| harry8 wrote:
| > if riders weren't out there promoting bike brands and
| riding bikes provided by their sponsors, pro bike racing
| wouldn't be a thing.
|
| That would be a bonus.
| prmoustache wrote:
| Not for those that are concerned by this which is the
| important part.
| killingtime74 wrote:
| Sailing does this (one design), so it's possible
| ActorNightly wrote:
| Nobody buys the sailing boats that are being used for
| recreational use.
| killingtime74 wrote:
| I myself have sailed several of them. Currently the
| laser. Previously the 49er and 470. There's actually lots
| of great second hand boats because of the competitors
| selling them after 1-2 seasons.
| notatoad wrote:
| It's definitely possible, it just means the professional
| level of the sport can't be funded mostly from the amateur
| level of the sport.
|
| cycling is getting there, a lot of the big teams have
| petrostates or oil companies as sponsors now, but the bike
| brands are still too important to cut out.
| ben7799 wrote:
| The race organizers actually don't care about the bikes or
| sponsors the same way. The race organizers (at the world tour
| level) have a solid income stream. The biggest races are
| bigger than the World Tour and are older, and will still be
| around when the current World Tour setup folds.
|
| It is the teams that are begging for money, all the teams
| need sponsorships for bikes and everything else. Teams in
| cycling have no home stadium and have no place they own and
| can sell tickets. They aren't in control of TV rights or
| anything like that for races that are big enough to be
| televised.
|
| It's one of the unique things in cycling. Even at the
| grassroots levels clubs were often volunteer but race
| organizers might have been or are for-profit. Even at the
| grassroots level the organizer charges entry fees.
| epanchin wrote:
| That is the premise behind formula E, and no one watches it.
| porkbeer wrote:
| But that isn't why, Spec Miata (for example) is the same and
| has an outsized following. in fact, single-make racing is
| nearly as common as mixed.
| anthomtb wrote:
| Does Spec Miata have a spectator following? I have always
| taken it to be an accessible form of motor racing in which
| to participate, not something to watch.
| m463 wrote:
| There was the IROC-Z and I don't know what the viewership was
| like, but people recognized the car.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Camaro_(third_genera.
| ..
| xnx wrote:
| A big part (possibly the primary reason) is to promote and sell
| overpriced gear to amateurs. The Little 500 race is run with
| all riders using standard bikes, so it's not unprecedented.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_500
| drstewart wrote:
| Some random one-off tiny race in the middle nowhere does not
| make the existence of bike racing an overpriced scam, dear
| lord.
| hoseja wrote:
| No, it itself makes it.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| I'm a very avid cyclist.
|
| Kinda quietly making fun of folks who show up on (e.g.)
| $10,000 road bikes and then get dropped 5 miles into the ride
| is a whole Thing.
|
| True life, I'm not sure there's a good reason for a person
| spending their own money to buy a new road bike that costs
| more than $4-5K new. You can absolutely get started for way
| way less (probably $1500 new retail), but once the hook sets
| and you decide This Is Something I Like, there are things
| you'll want.
|
| Carbon frames are far more comfortable to ride than aluminum.
| This extends to handlebars, stem, and seatpost.
|
| Lighter-weight wheels -- also carbon -- are an upgrade you
| can feel IMMEDIATELY. I think it has to do with rotational
| weight vs. static weight. Nicer wheels have nicer bearings in
| them, too.
|
| Electronic shifting doesn't make you faster in and of itself,
| but once you've used it you'll fall in love with it. Shifting
| is effortless, and combined brake-and-shift actions become
| viable in a way they aren't with mechanical shifting.
|
| My Giant was just under $5k, and that's after an upgrade or
| two (mostly the addition of a power meter). Do I ride with
| folks on $10-15k bikes? Oh yeah. MOST of them are pretty
| serious riders, but they're not any faster on that Pinarello
| than they would be on (e.g.) my bike. It's effectively
| jewelry at that point.
|
| (Now, the exception is if you're shaped in a way that makes
| off-the-shelf frames difficult. I know a couple folks -- one
| very well off and very short, the other decidedly middle
| class and VERY tall -- who got fully custom frames, but for
| both of them it was really the only way to get a bike that
| fit. For the middle-class guy, this means his bike is worth
| more than his car, but it's a forever-bike (titanium frame),
| and he's an 8-10,000 mile a year guy, so...)
| stainablesteel wrote:
| doesn't really seem fair to me if you've practiced on what you
| own and perhaps have made it custom to fit to your limb/torso
| ratios for posture, have a handlebar grip you like, prefer the
| kind of derailleur and shifters you chose etc
|
| its all a matter of equipment preference and for sports that
| involve using equipment i think that would be a personal choice
| of minor optimizations and preferences that you should be
| granted given you would have worked a lot with it to get to the
| olympics
| mvkel wrote:
| Define "bike model."
|
| Every rider IS effectively on the same bike. They're either
| running Shimano drivetrains, or SRAM. I don't imagine the
| Olympics could spend the millions in R&D to invent their own
| drivetrain system for a once-every-four-years event.
|
| If you were referring to the bike frame itself, it's kind of
| the least-important part of the bike.
| martinky24 wrote:
| What leads you to believe the frame is the least important
| part of the bike...?
| shejdb688 wrote:
| Arguably the most important which is why they should be
| riding identical bikes
| crote wrote:
| Bikes are sized to the individual rider, even at amateur
| levels. You can't give a bike designed for a 5'4" guy to
| a 6'4" guy or vice versa, they physically won't be able
| to use it. Proportions makes this even worse: the cycling
| equivalent of Michael Phelps won't be able to use a bike
| designed for a normally-proportioned person.
| mvkel wrote:
| It's the thing that the entire drivetrain bolts to. Aero
| matters, but the differences between frames are negligible.
|
| If we're talking about emotors, they need to be compatible
| with the drivetrain, regardless of frame.
| martinky24 wrote:
| At the highest level of cycling, what you call
| "negligible" is known colloquially as "marginal gains",
| and "marginal gains" are what win/lose races!
| shejdb688 wrote:
| The Olympics cost billions as it is, millions are peanuts.
|
| But why invest millions to develop a bike? Get a few score
| identical (but the fit) top model bikes off the shelf and
| call it a day.
| NoPicklez wrote:
| That's because in the sport of cycling, the bike is main part
| of the athlete and therefore sponsors want athlete's to ride
| the bikes they ride all throughout the rest of the year.
|
| It's purely a branding and sponsorship related piece.
| Aperocky wrote:
| They basically already did, forced the bikes to be heavier than
| 6.9 kg, killed almost all design innovation that didn't results
| in 2 triangles on the frame, etc.
|
| Everyone is essentially riding very expensive version of the
| same bike. 90% of riders will be on Dura Ace and equipment that
| the biggest distinguishing qualities are paint and size.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| I was surprised by your 90%-Dura-Ace assertion, so I went
| looking.
|
| https://www.cyclingnews.com/features/tour-de-
| france-2024-tec...
|
| You're reasonably close to right: 18 of 22 teams ran Dura-
| Ace, which surprises me because in my enthusiast circles
| locally the split with Shimano and SRAM is much, much more
| even. (I personally prefer the latter.)
|
| What REALLY shocked me is this:
|
| "2024 marks the first year that the Tour de France has been
| without a team using a Campagnolo groupset. This means that
| it was a two-horse race between Shimano and SRAM for stage
| honours."
|
| I mean, I know Campy wasn't what it had been. I only know a
| few folks who run Campy groups, and I don't know anyone who
| uses the Campy electronic groupset. It's all so expensive,
| and most shops don't have someone with any experience with
| their gear anymore, which becomes a death spiral for people
| who buy their own gear. Still, the idea that the only Euro
| maker got shut out of even participating in the Tour is
| amazing to me.
| wiether wrote:
| SRAM decided to do something clever : instead of giving
| money to pro-riders to promote their products and hope
| regular people will be convinced to buy the products ; they
| invested in partnership with bike manufacturers, since most
| groupsets are sold already assembled to a frame.
|
| More and more new bakes are sold with SRAM components than
| it used to be. So people have now more opportunities to pay
| for SRAM products on a new bike, and afterwards buy
| replacement parts when required.
|
| Also, for each given price category, SRAM is usually a bit
| cheaper than Shim.
|
| Meanwhile Campagnolo is more and more expensive while
| offering nothing more than the two others. Also less
| partnerships with bike manufacturers, even Italian ones.
|
| And some Asian brands are starting to be more and more
| reliable.
| EnigmaFlare wrote:
| One downside is that if (when) the equipment fails, it'll be
| unfair to whoever happened to be lumped with the bad one and it
| would sometimes be hard to prove if it was the equipment's
| fault or the athlete's. With their own bike, it's their own
| responsibility.
|
| Another is there would be no pressure on the bike technology so
| the audience would know they're not performing as well as they
| could on some consumer bike, reducing the appeal of it. It's
| already stink that there are weight minimums.
| whakim wrote:
| Escape Collective did an article on this
| (https://escapecollective.com/what-would-happen-if-
| everyone-i...), and while at first glance there's a lot to like
| about a "spec series" for cycling, ultimately it would
| definitely advantage/disadvantage some riders. Plus, people
| just want to race a bike that works for them, not some spec
| bike.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| A Soviet model like that would end up killing any technical
| progress in the space.
| vintermann wrote:
| I think maybe society is investing enough into cycling
| technology as it is.
| wiether wrote:
| Why is that?
|
| The actual EV revolution that the Worlds needs is through
| bikes, not cars.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Well that's not right either. That only works for people
| that live in urban areas. Very few people are going to
| bike 30 miles to work everyday.
| rurban wrote:
| Because the most likely doping they still use is self blood-
| infusions, as described by Infuentes recently. Not detectable.
|
| And those incredible new records by the top riders can only be
| explained by doping. Faster than with EPO. Mechanical doping is
| still an additional possibility, sure. Esp. after several
| riders complained about those motor noises last year.
| RCitronsBroker wrote:
| EPO as a Doping Agent is almost useless. The gain in red
| blood cells is bottlenecked by total volume and the
| inevitable increase in blood viscosity.
|
| This truth, however, is obfuscated by mental side effects of
| erythropoietin, which tend to convince users of it's efficacy
| nonameiguess wrote:
| Self-transfusion _can_ be detectable now that they have the
| athlete biological passport. At least, that 's the intent of
| it. If your red blood cell count goes up faster than is
| naturally possible, they'll be able to tell. This can't keep
| you from doing it very gradually, of course. Plus, basically
| all of these guys sleep in altitude tents now to boost red
| blood cell production via low oxygen. I don't think anyone
| has been caught doing it yet, but it's also possible now to
| use a carbon monoxide inhaler to induce hypoxia and boost red
| blood cell production that way. Escape Collective did an
| investigation into a few months ago. That is pretty
| dangerous, but it's hard to believe not a single person would
| at least try, and it can't be detected. It's not even
| actually banned right now, though UCI did ban huffing xenon
| gas to do the same thing. Detecting carbon monoxide huffing
| seems undetectable even in principle, though, since it's a
| naturally occurring pollutant. You'd effectively be banning
| riders from ever smoking since that would produce a positive
| test.
| killingtime74 wrote:
| Sailing does this. One design class. Not supplied by host but
| to a specification
| _trampeltier wrote:
| Because not all have the same size and some like diffrent
| handles, seats and so on. For racing bicycles are already a lot
| rules in place. Shape, geometery, weight. That's why some fancy
| by bicyles are ok for Triatlon but not for bicycle races.
| beAbU wrote:
| There are certain motor racing categories where things like
| engines (or even entire cars) are provided by the race
| organiser and teams are not allowed to make any
| modifications. Formula A1 comes to mind as an example.
|
| These categories are much more focussed on the driver, as the
| racetrack and cars are all identical.
|
| I'm pretty sure that something like this can be brought into
| cycle racing. Everybody gets the same frame, wheelset,
| crankset and groupset, and you install your own cockpit
| (saddle and handlebars).
| oksurewhynot wrote:
| For those wondering what egregious motor doping (probably) looks
| like, here's an extremely famous (and some would say obvious)
| example of it:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6z7uUe0tVA
|
| For those not familiar with Tom Boonen, Cancellara effortlessly
| spinning up the Kapelmuur and putting in so much time that the
| chase helicopter can't even find him would be like beating Usain
| Bolt in the 100m by 5 seconds.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Nobody has ever shown that Cancellara was cheating there. Maybe
| he's just a monster. When Joop Zoetemelk casually disappeared
| from the front of the pack in the 1985 World Cycling
| Championship nobody could believe it because Joop was 40 years
| old. Nevertheless, he did it, and there was no stealth motor
| technology at the time.
| renewiltord wrote:
| So far, with cycling, P(discovered cheating later |
| outrageous) ~ 1. Some people will believe that when they go
| indoors the sun stops shining because there is no longer any
| proof. It's certainly a strict way to seek one's knowledge.
| Others have a different view.
| scheme271 wrote:
| Yeah, except for Boonen is a sprinter and a hill climb even a
| short very steep one is probably the worst terrain for him.
| Cancellara isn't a climber but as a time trial specialist, he's
| a lot better suited for the kapelmuur than Boonen. And
| cancellara is better at descending as well.
| oksurewhynot wrote:
| Ah yes Tom Boonen, famously ill suited to the flandrian
| classics
| hondo77 wrote:
| Yes, Tom Boonen was ill-suited for going up an 18% grade.
| matsemann wrote:
| I don't buy your comparison with bolt. This is just a video
| showing someone exploding? Happens all the time. They're riding
| at the limit for long, and then when one can't handle it
| anymore the difference is stark.
| Invictus0 wrote:
| The sport of cycling is toast. The culture is too far gone and
| honest folks can't escape the suspicion of doping.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| Well it could have a resurgence if doping were explicitly
| allowed.
| dylan604 wrote:
| If we want to see the best athletes, then we need to allow
| them to do whatever it takes to be their best. We want the
| best*. Is the best they can do with limits
| parpfish wrote:
| yeah, it seems weird that certain scientific and
| technological breaktroughs are seen as cheating while other
| are not.
|
| nutrition and sports science have made training far more
| effective than it used to be. materials science has created
| lighter/better/faster _everything_.
|
| the only harm i can see is if it encourages unhealthy
| behavior (i.e., convincing people to take dangerous
| supplements, potentially early in their career before
| theyve even come close to 'making it')
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| > if it encourages unhealthy behavior...
|
| i often think this about the olympic gymnasts, some of
| whom are so much shorter than normal for the ages that i
| wonder if the activity altered their growth.
| 4ggr0 wrote:
| Peter Thiel seems to agree, https://enhanced.org/
| tgv wrote:
| Yeah, let's let people fuck themselves up for our
| entertainment! Which movie was that again?
|
| Seriously, let's not. Those drugs are bad. Let's protect the
| people from the ridiculous pressure to win. Let's have some
| dignity.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Cycling has the second strictest out-of-competition testing
| regime (second to athletics). They put pro sports like football
| (US) and baseball to shame.
|
| It's also nothing new. Cycling has been known for doping for
| 100 years or more. Armstrong took it to new heights but it's
| always been there and always will be.
|
| For me, I'm more interested in doping control for the safety of
| athletes. Potentially equalizing competition is second to me.
| After all, it's "just" entertainment.
| renewiltord wrote:
| These motors are pretty cool. They'll make mountain biking a lot
| more accessible and for me, a lot more fun since a lot more time
| on the downhill sections :)
| cheeze wrote:
| Ebikes are fantastic, but this would be like having a motor on
| a rowing competition.
|
| Nobody is hating on ebikes here, just using them to cheat to
| gain an advantage at the olympics... in a sport ripe with
| doping since day 1.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Absolutely, I'm talking about recreation. These are light
| motors, which makes them cool.
| Beijinger wrote:
| Well, people dope now with CarbonMonoxide
|
| https://escapecollective.com/exclusive-tour-riders-are-inhal...
| beezlebroxxxxxx wrote:
| Under the rules, how different is that from something like just
| taking caffeine?
|
| Doping is usually in reference to banned substances. But
| huffing CO genuinely seems completely out of left field of any
| rules that I know. They probably will ban it, but before they
| do is it correct to call it doping?
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Yes. The point is to see who is the best cyclist, not to see
| who can come up with the most clever biological hack to give
| themselves an edge.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Every single world class athlete spends most of their
| waking hours coming up with the most clever "biological
| hacks" to give themselves an edge. Training regimens,
| diets, rest and recovery schedules, equipment, sports
| psychology support, etc. etc. all are optimized to the nth
| degree to give athletes an edge.
| beAbU wrote:
| I think you are missing the point of pro cycling to be
| honest.
|
| As other commenters have said, the very purpose of this all
| is to see who can cheat in a way that's not outright
| illegal.
|
| We are at a point of such peak human performance and
| conditioning that if you bring in equalisers such as the
| same bike for everyone etc, you'll just have a whole
| peloton crossing the finish line at the same time.
| Heliosmaster wrote:
| That story is a nothing burger. CO rebreathing is the technique
| to monitor hemoglobin mass changes after a period at altitude.
| It's a test that lasts 3 minutes and has no consequence.
|
| It's like saying "cyclist get better by drawing blood" when
| they just have their bloodwork done to see how they are doing
| with training.
|
| They aren't sleeping attached to a car exhaust.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Don't think you read the link. It talks about CO rebreathing
| as an analytics tool, and then specifically talks about a
| more aggressive method to increase performance:
|
| > A second, more aggressive approach, which is called carbon
| monoxide inhalation and uses the same equipment and
| techniques, steps into the scientifically new and much
| riskier realm of inhaling the poisonous gas for the express
| purpose of performance enhancement. A growing body of recent
| scientific research suggests CO inhalation can have a
| powerful impact on measures of aerobic capacity like VO2max,
| or maximal oxygen uptake.
| sorenjan wrote:
| And the teams say that they only use it to analyze blood
| values during altitude adaptation. As the article mentions,
| the technique isn't new, so why imply that teams are using
| it for nefarious purposes?
|
| > And there is no hard evidence that any WorldTeams are
| currently using CO inhalation for performance gains. But
| multiple sources for this article voiced concern that it
| might be imminent, and possibly already happening in
| cycling or other sports.
|
| To go from that to "people dope now with CarbonMonoxide" is
| dishonest.
| 4ggr0 wrote:
| > And the teams say
|
| i think it's equally as dishonest to believe anything
| these teams say about topics which relate to doping,
| performance enhancements etc.
|
| of course not a single team says that they're using these
| methods to get performance gains, why on earth would they
| admit it?
| swarnie wrote:
| A 20w electric motor is child's play, real women beat the shit
| out of a horse until it learns to dance.
| kart23 wrote:
| Can't you just weigh the bike? how much weight does a
| motor+batteries add? And anything that isn't super light would
| get heavier scrutiny.
| cheeze wrote:
| Bikes are at a point where they can be lighter than the UCI
| mandated minimum weight. Aero has been the name of the game for
| a while as well, so it's possible that a riders bike already is
| heavier than expected for aero benefit
| alistairSH wrote:
| Bikes can already be built WAY below the minimum weight set by
| UCI (6.8kg), so that doesn't help - it's easy to install a
| motor, battery, and still come in right at the limit.
| fire_lake wrote:
| Why call it motor doping? This has nothing to do with doping.
| more_corn wrote:
| Has a good ring to it.
| Culonavirus wrote:
| Rhymes with motor boating, there's also gonna be plenty of
| that, as usual :P
| northwest65 wrote:
| I feel sorry for the poor bastards that had to go to Tokyo.
| As I understand it, clapping the other super fit athletes
| is a great part of the experience of competing (father was
| an athletics coach).
| Retr0id wrote:
| It's doping-adjacent if you ask me
| margalabargala wrote:
| Why do we suffix -gate onto political scandals that have
| nothing to do with the second half of the Watergate hotel?
| harrison_clarke wrote:
| wait until you hear about train doping
| jessekv wrote:
| or semiconductors
| everly wrote:
| Neither does blood doping, it's just the term they use for
| manipulation.
| fortran77 wrote:
| Are bicyclists particularly bad when it comes to cheating?
| this_user wrote:
| No, it's just that nobody wants to look too closely at other
| big sports. The same Spanish doctor who got busted for working
| with a lot of cyclists was also working with a lot of Spanish
| footballers at a time when their national team won both Euros
| and World Cup. Yet, the last part was quietly swept under the
| rug...
| tonymet wrote:
| the other leagues have arenas which are vehicles for bribes.
| Cycling events span many different regions , are not as
| lucrative and don't have the means to cover up doping scandals
| like the other leagues do.
| duxup wrote:
| Why does cycling have such a reputation for this kind of thing?
|
| Is it just that we see it more there? Or is there actually more
| cheating in that sport than others?
| gpm wrote:
| Is it a surprise that different sports have different cultures?
|
| In hockey you'd never see the sort of diving that you see in
| soccer. You'd be laughed off the ice.
|
| In soccer you'd never see the sort of casual violence after the
| whistle that you see in hockey. You'd be kicked off the field.
|
| If you weren't willing to play with people who will fake an
| injury, you wouldn't play soccer.
|
| If you weren't willing to play with people who will take
| physical shots at you, you wouldn't play hockey.
|
| if you weren't willing to be around doping... you wouldn't go
| into professional cycling.
|
| So once a sport gets that sort of reputation, of course it
| persists. The reputation causes the problem, the problem causes
| the reputation.
| timeon wrote:
| There is doping in these games as well. But there is more of
| it in cycling since it is more demanding on physical
| abilities.
| farnsworth wrote:
| It's harder to hide the motor in gymnastics
| White_Wolf wrote:
| I wonder...is it?
| tedunangst wrote:
| Less variation at the top. The bike has a sort of normalizing
| effect. But the mechanical advantage also means minor cheating
| benefits get multiplied.
| tonymet wrote:
| in the usa most of the other sports allow doping
| 15155 wrote:
| At least for this type of cheating: cycling equipment is
| competitor-supplied.
|
| Professional gaming tournaments that don't issue/mandate
| equipment have this issue as well, professional paintball has
| had this issue, etc.
| andix wrote:
| Because road cycling is 95% pushing the endurance/strength of
| the human body to the limits. Most other sports are a
| combination of many different skills. Road cycling is mostly
| about pushing the pedals as strong as possible for the duration
| of the race.
| lmm wrote:
| It's because the US' big star was caught doing it, so American
| media tries to project an image of it being normal in the
| sport. Same thing as those Soviet weightlifters. The actual
| prevalence is surely no different from baseball or tennis or
| what have you.
| sorenjan wrote:
| There's plenty of inspection in motorsport to make sure the
| cars are conforming to regulation too. Boxers gets checked by
| the referee before the fight, runner's aren't allowed shoes
| with a stack height above a certain threshold, etc. Cycling has
| had high profile doping scandals, but plenty of other sports
| have more doping but without the scandals. There's not a single
| bodybuilder or strongman that aren't doping for instance, and
| it's not even a secret. Plenty of athletes talk about how they
| make it through the season or individual games by injecting
| painkillers, cycling has a total ban on all injections.
|
| Motor doping is not a realistic issue, there has been one
| cyclist getting caught in 2016, and that was in cyclo cross,
| not road racing. It's just not happening on the higher levels.
| For instance, this years olympic road race course is 273 km
| long with 2800 meters of climbing. Even if you could hide a
| motor and battery from the inspection and other riders, even if
| a team would be willing to risk their entire future if they got
| caught, even if nobody in the entire team would say anything,
| you're only going to fit a very small battery inside a road
| bike. For most of the 273 km it's unnecessary weight, so even
| if it was possible to get away with, which I don't think it is,
| would it even be a net benefit? I doubt it.
| mft_ wrote:
| Well, the _reputation_ comes directly from a few big scandals
| in the past - Armstrong /US Postal most obviously.
|
| More generally, it's obviously an ideal sport for some forms of
| doping given it's based around extreme endurance. But there's
| probably also lots of doping in other appropriate sports -
| running has plenty of history, swimming, biathlon, cross-
| country skiing, etc.
| bedrockwireless wrote:
| They've used thermal cameras in the past to catch this. Motors,
| especially motors this small putting out this many watts will get
| warm. Carbon fiber tubes generally don't get very warm. You just
| have to figure out how to point it at the riders when (or shortly
| after) you think they may have had the motor running.
| cooper_ganglia wrote:
| I _desperately_ want an Olympic games where everyone is allowed
| to do whatever they want to win; where cheating is not only
| accepted, it 's strongly encouraged.
|
| Everyone comes roided up and doped out of their minds, and we see
| the limits the human body is truly capable of.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| We already have CrossFit
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| While I think that would be a giggle, this is about putting
| motors in your bicycle, and so this would still be outside
| that.
| cooper_ganglia wrote:
| F1 rules apply, modify your equipment however you want, just
| don't let the other guys find out what you did, or else
| they'll copy it the next time.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Because one, it's dangerous to people's health; how far are
| people willing to go?
|
| Second, not everyone has access to the same "help". I mean to a
| point this is true today as well as not everyone has access to
| universities developing snake scale outfits or what have you,
| but at the same time most olympic sports are still about the
| human performance. But this is why e.g. F1 has such strict
| regulations that get tightened every year; if it hadn't, the
| richest team would win, or the one that has an innovation this
| year (like side skirts) that other teams don't.
| cooper_ganglia wrote:
| I want to see the unholy abominations that would come out of
| a billionaire match-up between Bezos, Musk, and Gates all
| sponsoring a competitor. Just a heap of unnatural flesh,
| vaguely in the shape of a human, pumped full of every
| possible performance-enhancing drug to be the best possible
| athlete.
|
| Actually, my entire premise for this is actually based on F1
| racing, and how they operate. Every team literally has no
| rules, other than: Do not kill or injure anyone. Nearly
| anything else outside of that very broad limit would be
| allowed. I just think it would end up being very interesting
| and funny.
| aleph_minus_one wrote:
| > or the one that has an innovation this year (like side
| skirts) that other teams don't.
|
| This honestly sounds like a very interesting competition to
| me that I'd love to see: a competition that is about _both_
| the athletes and the engineers behind the winning athletes.
| michaelt wrote:
| While that sounds interesting in the abstract sense, I'm pretty
| sure the athletes would all end up dead or severely disabled by
| age 25.
|
| Which would totally ruin the vibe. If I wanted to watch guys
| killing themselves for my entertainment, I'd watch motorcycle
| racing.
| Balgair wrote:
| Yeah, look at all the Russian figure skaters. Nearly all of
| their medalists are using canes by 30 just to get around.
| kfichter wrote:
| Is this even remotely true
| psychlops wrote:
| Here you go:
|
| https://enhanced.org/
| cooper_ganglia wrote:
| Yes, exactly this! The messaging on that site is actually
| really refreshing!
| Etheryte wrote:
| This is a nice idea until you think about the fact that
| bodybuilding is the only sport where professional athletes
| consistently die younger than their non-athlete peers, often
| considerably so. Steroids are not fun get big muscle candy,
| they thoroughly wreck your body and then you die.
| 15155 wrote:
| Olympian competitors using PEDs aren't running around on vast
| amounts of aromatase inhibitors and diuretics to completely
| eliminate all water from their bodies - this is practically
| standard in pro bodybuilding.
|
| Powerlifters don't die nearly as frequently and it's largely
| because aesthetic dryness isn't required.
|
| Olympians also aren't explicitly trying to obtain _mass_ as a
| goal and wouldn 't customarily be walking around at
| 5'10"/300lbs (for instance - extrapolate) as a bodybuilder
| might in their off-season. Excess mass is usually detrimental
| in most Olympic sports and is avoided.
|
| Being medically obese, regardless of body composition, is
| tough on the human heart - add in extreme/forced dehydration,
| stimulants, and possibly recreational drugs, and you have a
| recipe for early expiration.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| That's part of the fun though! You can setup:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_pool and/or
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_market to make a
| fat profit off of betting on their life expectancy.
|
| Folks who would participate embrace the "live hard, die
| young" mantra. We love folks who do this in our society.
| James Dean is still the coolest man who ever lived, and a
| significant reason for that is that he joined the 27 club in
| a car crash.
| tedunangst wrote:
| Yes, basketball with brass knuckles.
| cooper_ganglia wrote:
| Yes, exactly! For most sports, the rule would be: Do not kill
| or injure your opponent. But for contact sports like
| basketball, I think a good brawl would really liven up the
| game! Brass knuckles is almost certainly too much, but the
| idea of knocking out all your opponents so they can't score
| would actually make basketball much more interesting and
| strategic. Basketball + Boxing would make a fun combo!
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| People think this is a joke or meme but the fact that
| modern Hockey is full on a blood sport indicates that this
| would be extremely popular.
| cooper_ganglia wrote:
| Oh for sure, I'm not joking at all actually! I've enjoyed
| watching chess-boxing before, I figured putting boxing
| into other sports that are actually physical would at the
| very least be entertaining! We've had the same sports for
| so long, let's spice it, do some fun fusion stuff, haha
| Someone wrote:
| > But for contact sports like basketball
|
| Basketball isn't really a contact sport, is it? With a few
| exceptions, making contact results in a personal foul
| (https://official.nba.com/rule-no-12-fouls-and-
| penalties/#fou...)
| tonymet wrote:
| at least with biking we already have MotoGP
| eCa wrote:
| If you have kids, would you want them to compete in that?
| B1FF_PSUVM wrote:
| I think it was Orson Scott Card who wrote a story about that. I
| seem to remember it included boxers with their brains below the
| belt.
|
| (Can't find it, I think it was in Omni magazine in the 1980s)
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Likewise, I've always thought that baseball would be a lot more
| interesting to watch if each player were issued a handgun with
| a single bullet.
| livueta wrote:
| Sounds like the plot of a Fukumoto Nobuyuki manga.
| arp242 wrote:
| Okay, so I will show up with my Kawasaki Z750 and win
| everything.
| aquafox wrote:
| Every cyclist has a powermeter and the power is recorded. Why not
| require them to upload the power file directly after the race?
| Since they all ride the same course, you can correlate power
| output with speed (taking riders height and weight into ac ount)
| to spot outliers. I know there's drafting, differently
| aerodynamic bike setups and other factors to consider, but in
| principle I guess a sudden 20 watt external power gain could be
| detected that way.
| cheeze wrote:
| Would be trivial to fake the data
| karaterobot wrote:
| How?
| blakes wrote:
| Things like this have been done before:
| https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2022/12/zwift-uci-cheating-
| astou...
| genedan wrote:
| When I used a power meter, the data could be exported in
| some kind of machine-readable format like CSV. All you do
| is change the numbers.
| giobox wrote:
| It wouldn't be that hard to mandate the riders use pedals
| that are only fitted at the course/track and otherwise stored
| by olympic officials. Power meters integrated in pedals have
| been a thing for a long time now:
|
| > https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/658593
|
| It doesn't need to be pedals either - it could be a standard
| crank arm or any other easily accessible part that can
| effectively house a power meter.
|
| I'm sure there are plenty of other issues with this power
| meter based approach, but securing the data is probably
| doable to a reasonable degree.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| All these parts (pedals, cranks etc) are very much an
| integral part of precisely how you set up the bike, not so
| much things you swap out without noticing. You'd get
| pushback from the teams if suddenly you mandated a
| particular pedal or crank. Some racers are very particular
| about what pedals they want. And cranks aren't exactly
| roadside-replacable.
| giobox wrote:
| You can be assured the component manufacturers would
| happily sell "certified" gear, and lots of us would buy
| it imitating our heroes etc. The parts can be identical
| to the parts used in training. Said certified gear can
| meet the olympic standards for data integrity. The
| cycling industry adores selling "pro" gear to amateur
| customers and the associated markups (UCI approved!).
|
| This is not that different to amateur motor racing, where
| its expected you only bring a helmet that's certified by
| an external body (Snell/FIA etc). There are generally
| only a handful of pedals designs in use in the pro-
| peleton today, so not like we are talking about moving a
| mountain, and the UCI already regulate a lot of existing
| parts.
|
| As I said, I suspect this is not the main problem with
| this approach, there are likely many other much better
| reasons why this isn't a good idea.
| heroiccocoa wrote:
| I wonder if we did a Fourier Transform of the power signal,
| would the 20 W appear in the DC bin as an anomaly?
| rich_sasha wrote:
| I guess you wouldn't detect it. Elite cyclists can easily
| sustain 400-500 watts for many minutes, 20 watts is like 5% - a
| rounding error compared to variability of power input.
|
| The issue with drafting would be that it comes and goes. In a
| sprint finish, one moment you might be drafting, another trying
| to overtake the other guy (so not drafting), then fall behind
| again and draft, all in a matter of seconds.
|
| Then, there's the road gradient, also a massive impact on the
| power/speed function, and it's highly localized. You might know
| that a stretch of the road is 8% on average, over say 100m
| segments, but locally it can be much more or much less. On
| sharp switchback the inside of the corner can be 20+% when the
| outside is only 5-10%.
|
| Plex it's a race, power goes up and down in response to events,
| one moment you're sitting in a group, another you're chasing
| the guy in front. Presumably that's also where you'd press the
| boost button - when you'd legitimately be putting down more
| power.
|
| In amongst all that I doubt you would see an extra power boost.
| Aperocky wrote:
| I think the only reason that motor doping is pretty much non-
| existent today is really because that it's useless unless
| it's a flat sprint stage.
|
| The battery and the motor would be significant weight to
| carry when it comes to the mountains, not to mention this
| deadweight must be carried all the way from start to finish
| and only be used for maybe 60 seconds.
| throwup238 wrote:
| _> The battery and the motor would be significant weight to
| carry when it comes to the mountains, not to mention this
| deadweight must be carried all the way from start to finish
| and only be used for maybe 60 seconds._
|
| Bikes have a minimum weight of 6.8 kg in UCI competitions
| and the lightest bikes are at least a kilogram lighter than
| the minimum, so they have to add weight anyway.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| Pro bike weights are already often below UCI minima (6.8kg
| IIRC), and ballast is added to meet minimum weight
| requirement. So I guess this could replace some of the
| ballast.
| andix wrote:
| Isn't the powermeter usually measuring tension forces on the
| pedal arms? So it won't measure the forces of a motor which is
| probably inside one of the bearings.
| trillic wrote:
| Exactly, it would show outlier performances where speed /
| pedal power ratio was too high in certain sections.
| andix wrote:
| This seems hard to do in my opinion. There are a lot of
| hard to predict factors, like aerodynamics (riding behind
| another rider takes much less power) and wind. Also the
| speed and power measurements are usually not extremely
| precise. There is a few percent of tolerance in most
| standard equipment. Exact GPS speeds are really hard to
| measure during cornering or in areas with limited
| visibility to the sky.
| klyrs wrote:
| So we need a power meter at the pedal and a power meter at
| the tire/road interface. And of course, you don't expect
| those values to agree due to mechanical inefficiency. Which
| means that even with that level of scrutiny, there's a few
| percentage points of overhead for your motor-dopers to play
| in.
| Jean-Papoulos wrote:
| - The number of ways data could be faked is frankly staggering
| - Drafting is huge - Since drafting is huge, to win you often
| have to just "unstick" the rider behind you from your wheel,
| then stay on his pace for the rest of the distance. So you only
| need a very short burst (10-15s of effort) where a few watts
| will make a great difference. That's hard to detect. - In a
| climb, everybody will ride differently (different lines, levels
| of power) due to body shape, current objective, available
| draft, etc... You end up with insufficient data to reach the
| level of certainly that would be needed to accuse someone of
| motor doping
|
| Overall, it's just simpler to just scan all the bikes.
| 2716057 wrote:
| One can tamper with the data or the power meter itself. If a
| cheater is faster than a competitor pushing more watts, his
| team will respond with the usual BS: the bike's aerodynamics,
| stiffness and its super-innovative tires made him faster...
|
| However, mandatory power recording could become quite valuable
| over the long run. The peloton should be large enough to allow
| data scientists to detect the abnormalities (unless all the
| teams reach an agreement to cheat consistently ;)). Once a
| history is built over a decade or longer, "unphysiological"
| power output could be detected quite easily.
| ertgbnm wrote:
| The problem is that Olympians are kind of just by definition
| outliers. Is this competitor a cheater because he can sustain
| 20 watts higher than others for most of the race? Or is he just
| a physical outlier who made it to the Olympics because of his
| unusual power output?
| Cpoll wrote:
| > sustain 20 watts higher
|
| This would theoretically detect the opposite. The power meter
| (on the crank arm) detects force applied on the pedal. The
| discrepancy would be if they're overtaking other racers
| pedalling the same wattage.
| KeplerBoy wrote:
| This whole topic of motor doping in cycling is so ridiculous.
|
| For those not familiar with the subject: Only one racer was ever
| caught doing it.
|
| I find it tremendously hard to believe that no one is cheating.
| Aperocky wrote:
| It's because the tiny engine is pretty much useless except for
| flat courses with a sprint finish. Any mountains and the
| cyclist have to carry that deadweight all the way just for it
| to work for the last minute, and by the end of the climb the
| cyclist carrying this might as well be gapped because of this
| weight.
|
| Same reason that you see riders jettison their bidons just
| before a climb in the tour de france.
| tombert wrote:
| I have no plans on competing; for a purely civilian purpose, is
| there a way to get the "motor doping" stuff for bikes? It seems
| like it would be kind of cool to get a bit of an artificial push
| when biking.
| zacharycohn wrote:
| That's just an ebike. There are many available, and even
| conversion kits for your existing bike.
| andrewf wrote:
| Something I didn't realize before trying one is the different
| assist settings available. The lowest one just made it feel
| like I'd slept better and was having an easy ride. The
| highest assist setting had a really obvious "kick".
|
| The bike I used didn't have a "cruise" setting that moved the
| bike along while your legs sat still, like I've seen on some
| bikes.
| MengerSponge wrote:
| And yes, it's beyond kind of cool. It's a total game changer
| to be able to ride _that fast_ with so little exertion. It
| feels like a superpower.
|
| Fun fact: net net, people are more active with an ebike, even
| though they expend less energy at any point of any particular
| ride.
| bombcar wrote:
| My experience with an e-bike is that range anxiety goes
| away. You don't mind traveling further because you know
| that if you get really tired, the motor will bring you
| back.
| hasbot wrote:
| Yes and hill anxiety goes away too because I know the
| e-bike will help me up the worst gradient.
| sahila wrote:
| What does net net mean in this context? Is the implication
| that there's more riding ebikes vs regular ones and so
| they're more active? Hard to imagine that there's people
| taking long rides on ebikes, if they even last that long
| (25+ miles rides).
| tim333 wrote:
| I think that quote is based on survey research such as
| mentioned here https://storybicycles.com/blogs/ebike-
| blog/study-shows-e-bik...
|
| Obviously it's going to vary a bit with individual cases.
| As an ebike myself it's handy you can choose the effort
| required depending on your mood etc.
| weberer wrote:
| I make frequent bike rides to work on my ebike that I
| would never do on a regular bike since the last stretch
| is uphill and I don't want to arrive sweaty. So that's
| 5mi vs 0 in that specific example.
| jwagenet wrote:
| I think the ask is for a cheeky, hidden seat tube motor like
| one referenced in the article to preserve the bike aesthetic
| rather than external mounted stuff:
| https://goatbikes.com/vivax-assist/
| pierrefermat1 wrote:
| https://www.scott-sports.com/us/en/products/bike-ebikes-
| road
|
| I think Scott has one of the cleanest looking road bike
| ebikes around, but many other brands do the same. With how
| chunky aero bikes are they are indistungishable to the
| masses.
| andix wrote:
| Just get a regular pedelec that doesn't look like a regular
| pedelec. For example something from Fazua (https://fazua.com/),
| it doesn't scream pedelec right away, still it provides decent
| electric support and can also be used without the motor. There
| are for sure way more stealth solutions.
| andix wrote:
| PS: this is not a recommendation to buy Fazua, they seem to
| have quite mixed reviews regarding reliability.
| Aperocky wrote:
| If you don't need it to fit into your existing skinny road bike
| tube you might actually get one that last for a few hour
| instead of a few minutes lol.
| dtgriscom wrote:
| I've rented an e-bike where you have to pedal, and it adds
| "oomph" to your efforts. It feels like having a superpower,
| pedaling easily up a steep hill.
| toast0 wrote:
| Something like this looks pretty ordinary, but has a motor.
|
| https://www.bianchi.com/store/us_EN/yqbn8-aria-e-road-ultegr...
|
| I think your usual high end bike makers all have some e-road
| bikes, some of which are going to be pretty stealth.
| motohagiography wrote:
| The brilliance of cycling is that if you were to invent a
| cheating competition, you could never call it that because it
| would give away the game. You would need a pretext for rules, one
| that used some arbitrary but very specific set of contraints that
| disqualify all functionally efficient solutions outside their
| domain. They would enable byzantine regulations that created jobs
| for (pliable) authorities who outnumbered athletes, and be a
| constant source of subtext, scandal, misdirection, and betrayal.
|
| To appreciate the peculiar beauty of cycling you need to
| understand what it is. It is not merely a sport or an athletic
| competition, it is itself the art of cheating.
| jgust wrote:
| You also, perhaps intentionally, described all of motorsports.
| ryukoposting wrote:
| When I think about "cheating taken to an artistic level,"
| Baseball is the sport that comes to mind first. Drugs,
| tampering with the ball, tampering with the bat, sign stealing,
| and so on.
|
| Baseball is also rife with gamesmanship. stuff that feels like
| it _could_ be cheating, but isn 't - or, stuff that's cheating,
| but mostly unenforced. There's too much to be worth talking
| about here. Just read [1] instead.
|
| It makes sense that Baseball would be this way. It's
| stochastic. The outcome of one pitch has no innate correlation
| with the outcome of the next. There's relatively little
| causality in Baseball, and when everyone is a pro, it's hard to
| rely on talent alone. Some might even say it's a fool's errand.
|
| [1]: https://thebaseballcodes.com/2021/06/24/gamesmanship-in-
| base...
| mulmen wrote:
| May I introduce you to Smokey Yunick:
|
| > In another incident, Yunick showed up for a race with stock
| fender wells still installed on his Chevelle, even though the
| rules stated they could be removed. After the car qualified
| well due to improved aerodynamics, fellow competitors
| complained. Yunick replied, "The rules say you MAY remove
| them. They don't say you HAVE to." After qualifying, Yunick
| promptly cut out the fender wells. After further complaints
| to NASCAR, Smokey said, "The rules don't say WHEN I can
| remove them."
|
| A racer after HN's heart.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smokey_Yunick
| bagels wrote:
| Motor racing has the best opportunities for cheating by
| engineering and almost cheating by creatively interpreting
| the rules. My favorite two cheats are the NASCAR that shed
| weight in the form of ball bearings when lapping, and
| Toyota's air restrictor that opened up when installed that
| got them banned from rally racing.
| mulmen wrote:
| The ball bearing thing is especially brilliant because
| they were released from the jacking points where NASCAR
| inspectors lifted the cars. The one point under the car
| they _couldn 't_ inspect.
| vasco wrote:
| I don't understand enough about cars to see what is special
| about this. Do the stock fender wells help and that's why
| it was better for him to keep them when nobody else did?
| And if so why did he remove them later to be like everyone
| else? What am I missing?
|
| If the advantage is aerodynamic he should've kept them the
| whole time. If the point was to lose weight for the race, I
| don't get why doing it in qualification. Can someone
| explain?
| mulmen wrote:
| Not sure of the specifics. The point is he did something
| different that appears to have been advantageous. His
| competitors read the rules differently or didn't think to
| try.
|
| If I had to guess taking the fender liners out could help
| cool the brakes. Qualifying is short so the heat buildup
| isn't as important as in a full race.
|
| NASCAR racers have also been known to blatantly cheat in
| one area to deliberately get caught and draw the
| attention away from additional cheats. The inspectors
| find one thing, flag it, then pass the car when it is
| fixed, leaving the bigger cheat undiscovered.
| taneq wrote:
| If you're taking a car over the pits (rectifying a defect
| notice - not sure how universal this term is?) you leave
| a blown tail lamp or something so they have something
| easy to find. Then they don't try too hard and find
| something expensive that needs rectifying. When you come
| back they only check the tail lamp noted earlier.
| bisRepetita wrote:
| Most iconic cheating I can think of is taking the subway
| during the NYC marathon.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosie_Ruiz
| wouterjanl wrote:
| > To appreciate the peculiar beauty of cycling you need to
| understand what it is.
|
| In the middle of nowhere, festoons are hanging over the streets
| of a small village. It's a long forgotten village, except for
| today, when for around 10 seconds, it becomes the stage of a
| show in which the nation's biggest hero's and antihero's
| participate.
|
| The noise of the television helicopter coming closer is the
| sign for the butcher and the baker and their customers to leave
| their shops and head for the street. Here they line up next to
| the village's grandads and grandmothers, who are firmly holding
| the hands of their grandkids, equally excited, eagerly awaiting
| the caravane of sponsor cars and police bikes that signal the
| head of the race.
|
| There is nothing quite like the vivid brush of colors of the
| jerseys of a peloton rustling by at 60 km/hour. The whoosh of
| two hundred times two 25mm rubber tubes rolling over asfalt, a
| peloton displacing itself through air as one giant organism,
| the sound of shifting gears, the shriek of someone hitting the
| brakes, a shout perhaps to warn for a pothole or the odd street
| furniture. A sunray hitting the large sunglasses covering most
| of the faces of the riders, the rest of which give away a
| familiar mix of concentration and nervousness. The same
| questions racing through the minds of all the riders. "Did I
| train enough?" "How much will I be able to suffer today?"
|
| Vamos!! Ale ale! Cries from the spectators at the side of the
| road, transcending any language, the grandma and the grandkid
| equally loud. Support, not for a particular team, less for a
| particular rider. Encouragement that is as much destined for
| the champion, feeling the pressure, chasing a new record, as
| for the anonymous rider who tries to make him or herself
| believe that if everything falls into place, it is possible for
| him or her to sneak away and grab an upset victory. It has
| happened.
|
| A rider at the back of the bunch, looking for distraction, his
| legs hurting more than they ought to, spots a kid at the side
| of the road and throws his bottle at her feet. Rare will be the
| moments in her life that she will feel equally much at the
| center of the world.
|
| Ah, the beauty of cycling. Maybe I misunderstand what it really
| is.
| lnx01 wrote:
| *heroes
| russfink wrote:
| Beautiful!
| Micand wrote:
| This is very excellent.
| busyant wrote:
| Beautifully written.
| motohagiography wrote:
| beautiful indeed. I loved the Tour for many years and rode in
| group rides. my favorite parts were the team time trial and
| the breakaway of the sprinters from the rest of the peloton.
| Armstrong's cheating itself wasn't so much the issue that
| took the romance away from it, but the pathetic way he
| conducted himself afterwards. Seeking redemption was so
| american and overbearing, and somehow he even managed to make
| cancer seem cloying, it tainted the ambiguity of the sport
| more than every other perennial doping scandal. It was too
| much to shrug off.
| jajko wrote:
| When the effort itself loses meaning and cheaters take over,
| sport/activity receives 0 of my attention since it moves into
| pathetic amoral category, with little hope for improvement. It
| doesn't matter whether I do it or not.
|
| One of benefits in my beloved climbing, alpinism, paragliding
| etc. - even top people there struggle to have good living and
| thus pros and amateurs alike are in _for the actual sport_ ,
| not chasing sponsors, getting an edge above the rest at all
| costs. Something about morality, fair game etc. Call me old
| fashioned if you want, I'll gladly wear that badge with honor
| (also a word very much applicable in these scenarios).
| AlexandrB wrote:
| With alpinism it seems like the problem is that you can pay
| for achievement. See all the Everest "tourism"[1].
|
| [1] https://theconversation.com/death-on-everest-the-boom-in-
| cli...
| Jean-Papoulos wrote:
| This is one of the things I like about F1. Everybody plays the
| game and everybody knows everybody plays the game, even the
| fans (one with brains anyway). There's this sort of "Oooh
| clever one dear adversary, let me copy that/make a complaint"
| energy because everyone recognizes that the goal isn't to race
| within the rules, it's to find what the rules don't cover and
| race there.
| anal_reactor wrote:
| While you can argue that amateur sports competitions promote
| healthy lifestyle and whatnot, professional sports is already a
| caricature of that. I don't see any reason not to organize
| "Olympics of doping" where rules allow participants to
| virtually do whatever they want in order to win.
| timeon wrote:
| There was era when doping was not banned, especially in
| cycling. But they had to do something with increasing number
| deaths.
|
| Also amateurs try to emulate pros whenever possible.
| bjourne wrote:
| Do not forget all amazing discoveries made by cycling's so
| called cheaters. Where would the Furies, Joshuas and, dare I
| say it, Usyks be today if it weren't for Armstrong's pioneering
| work on blood doping in the 90's?
| thrownblown wrote:
| I would say that this one of the greatest casualties in the
| war on doping, Dr Ferrari especially has amassed a wealth of
| knowledge on blood and human energy systems that will never
| be acknowledged.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michele_Ferrari
| gosub100 wrote:
| couldn't they optimize this by only testing, say, the top 5
| finishers?
| ipython wrote:
| What's incredible to me is the continued cries of innocence from
| the cyclists that have been flagged by these detection
| mechanisms. Just like Armstrong after he was accused of doping.
|
| It takes a special kind of person to continue to proclaim their
| innocence so fervently even when presented with irrefutable proof
| that they've cheated.
| voidUpdate wrote:
| I think this a lot when I watch videos about speedrun cheating.
| People provided with evidence that they cheated but often they
| still deny it
| vintermann wrote:
| My guess would be that keeping up the public facade that
| you're not cheating requires a little "self-brainwashing" for
| lack of a better word, and that you don't get out of that
| mindset on a dime.
| lawn wrote:
| > It takes a special kind of person to continue to proclaim
| their innocence so fervently even when presented with
| irrefutable proof that they've cheated.
|
| Is it?
|
| I'd say that everyone has the potential for this weird
| survivorship behavior where you can't admit the truth for
| yourself.
|
| It's probably related to a deep rooted cognitive dissonance
| where it's less painful to keep maintaining your innocense than
| to admit the truth.
|
| In the right environment (such as an ultra competitive one
| where your livelyhood is at stake) most people would rise to
| the occasion. Just as most people would be able to kill people
| in a war.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Not to defend their cheating, but when you saying "I cheated"
| ends your career and the career of everyone involved with you,
| it's easy to see why they may dig in. It's not some game for
| them, this is their livelihood.
| ipython wrote:
| Right, but wouldn't you be better off by admitting it, then
| making amends to address it? At least you will be seen as
| having some shred of integrity. You're banned from the sport
| for a period of time regardless. IMO continuing to deny the
| obvious is way worse than addressing it head on and moving
| forward.
| nemomarx wrote:
| are there cases of anyone doing that and being allowed
| back?
| ipython wrote:
| Are there any cases where someone was caught cheating and
| promptly copped to it? I guess it's hard to tell if
| that's never happened. I'm truly intrigued.
| ffhhj wrote:
| > Then, a magnetometer and custom software register disruptions
| to the field that may indicate the presence of metal or magnets
| in and around a bike's carbon-fiber frame.
|
| Hmm, they could try building an energy storage spring made of
| some composite materials.
| gorgoiler wrote:
| Electric motors are definitely one way to achieve this but it
| seems so crude to use a device that's detectable after the race.
|
| Instead, how about sealing up the downtube and filling it with a
| weakly exothermic gas producing mixture* and then adding some
| turbine blades -- sorry I mean "triple butted crank stiffeners",
| your honour -- to the bottom bracket instead? One doesn't
| normally pedal at 10,000 RPM so some other sort of gas-energy
| harvester design would be better but you get the idea.
|
| In a similar way to the case of the [spoiler alert] man stabbed
| with an icicle, the evidence will neatly and literally evaporate
| into thin air**.
|
| *Something on the chemical spectrum between "science fair
| volcano" and "sugar and fertilizer oh whoops I've made a pipe
| bomb" ought to do it.
|
| **Erm, apart from the gas turbine bit.
| thepasswordis wrote:
| I wonder if you could use downhill sections to regenerate the
| high pressure inside of the tube.
|
| I love this idea. You're hired.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| Wait now I'm imagining purely mechanical regenerative
| braking. Like the bike has no ability to generate its own
| power, but it has a spring (or compressed air or compressed
| liquid) inside the frame that contributes to turning the
| gearshaft but gets rewound/compressed while braking.
|
| Is this possible? Would it be against the rules as written?
| daemonologist wrote:
| The UCI rules are... extensive; it's definitely disallowed
| [1]. Even if not, there's a rule along the lines of "any
| technical innovation must be pre-approved," and I am pretty
| confident it would not be.
|
| [1] Probably by article 1.3.010: "The bicycle shall be
| propelled solely, through a chainset, by the legs (inferior
| muscular chain) moving in a circular movement, without
| electric or other assistance." -
| https://www.uci.org/regulations/3MyLDDrwJCJJ0BGGOFzOat
| Aerroon wrote:
| Therefore you put the motor inside the leg muscles
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > Probably by article 1.3.010: "The bicycle shall be
| propelled solely, through a chainset, by the legs
| (inferior muscular chain) moving in a circular movement,
| without electric or other assistance."
|
| Well that just says you need to build your regenerative
| braking system into the chainset. Use of stored energy is
| obviously allowed or else you couldn't make use of
| gravity when on a hill.
|
| > Even if not, there's a rule along the lines of "any
| technical innovation must be pre-approved,"
|
| What innovation? Mechanical energy storage is ancient
| technology.
| eru wrote:
| >> Even if not, there's a rule along the lines of "any
| technical innovation must be pre-approved,"
|
| > What innovation? Mechanical energy storage is ancient
| technology.
|
| The actual unwritten rule is not so much against
| inventions, as against having any fun.
|
| Recumbent bikes are also forbidden.
| masklinn wrote:
| > The actual unwritten rule is not so much against
| inventions, as against having any fun.
|
| The rules, written or not, are about trying to adjudicate
| a competition of people, if you want a no holds bared
| technology based competition nothing precludes creating a
| different one (or participating in one, there's no dearth
| of alleycat races and other odd events like the
| singlespeed world championship).
| eru wrote:
| I'm not against rules.
|
| What irks me a bit is that they are supposed to be about
| bikes, but in reality they are only about bikes that look
| exactly like the ones they have in mind.
|
| Eg (if I remember right) they also specify a minimum
| wheel radius, because at some point people started doing
| well with those, and the people in charge didn't like
| that.
|
| And they might as well be right: they have an
| entertainment business to run. They don't care about
| finding the best or anything like that.
| angus-prune wrote:
| I disagree that the sport is about bikes. I think the
| sport is about cyclists. The olympics is particular is
| built around human athletic competition not technical
| competition.
|
| How do you find the best cyclist if the quality of the
| bikes is wildly different?
|
| In any experiment, you have to control for the factors
| other than the ones you're looking to test. I don't think
| its fair to say that they don't care about finding the
| best, they're just trying to find the best of a different
| category than you're interested in.
|
| As GP said. There is also space for different
| competitions about technology (in motorsport, formula 1
| has both a driver championship and a constructor
| championship which is about the technology).
| masklinn wrote:
| > There is also space for different competitions about
| technology (in motorsport, formula 1 has both a driver
| championship and a constructor championship which is
| about the technology).
|
| And even then the technology is _severely_ curtailed, it
| has to compete within a fairly restrictive design
| envelope.
| eru wrote:
| > How do you find the best cyclist if the quality of the
| bikes is wildly different?
|
| In that case, you should probably give everyone the same
| 'official' bike.
| russfink wrote:
| I agree, but sadly when officials start trusting, they
| stop looking, and this opens it up to more widespread
| cheating.
| eru wrote:
| I'm not sure what you mean by that?
|
| Just produce the same identical bikes, and assign them
| randomly at the start of the race?
| The_Colonel wrote:
| This would need to accommodate many different sizes,
| geometries, subjective preferences.
| eru wrote:
| Why? The whole point is to standardise, I thought? They
| are already _not_ accommodating preferences for eg
| recumbent bikes. So what measure are a few more
| preferences not accommodated?
|
| In any case, you can make a bunch of different official
| sizes.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| I genuinely see the point you're trying to make, but
| fitting a bicycle is like fitting an article of clothing.
| It's is laughable to suggest clothing be one-size-fits-
| all the same way it is for bicycle geometries. It doesn't
| compare.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Viewers are turned off if one of the competitors is seen
| to be winning simply due to having a better bike. The
| main characters in the show are the riders, not the bike
| builders.
| nradov wrote:
| Which viewers are those? Pro cycling fans are interested
| in bike manufacturers and technology, as well as in the
| riders. Gaining advantages through having better bikes
| (within reason) is a key part of the sport and part of
| what makes it fun to watch.
| masklinn wrote:
| > I'm not against rules.
|
| Of course you are. If you're against any rule you
| personally dislike or misunderstand you're not for rules.
|
| > What irks me a bit is that they are supposed to be
| about bikes
|
| See that's your problem: you _completely_ missed what the
| competition was about.
|
| The competition is no more about bicycles than an archery
| competitions is about bows and arrows.
|
| The competition is about the athletes, the gear is only
| the means through which it happens. That's why the name
| on the podium is that of the cyclist, not of the bike
| manufacturer.
| eru wrote:
| Just give everyone the same official bike then.
|
| > Of course you are. If you're against any rule you
| personally dislike or misunderstand you're not for rules.
|
| Haha.
| SkyBelow wrote:
| >The rules, written or not, are about trying to
| adjudicate a competition of people
|
| Wouldn't this be best done by having one group make a
| bunch of identical bikes that are randomly assigned?
| Anything more than this and it is allowing some
| technology innovations and customization, regardless of
| if the reason is deemed justifiable or not.
| ianferrel wrote:
| This wouldn't work because people aren't all the same
| size.
|
| Just like you couldn't make footraces fairer by making
| everyone wear the same shoes.
| MOARDONGZPLZ wrote:
| Even if recumbent bikes were not forbidden, no one would
| use them. Cycling is a sport of dignity. See also,
| underhanded free throws in basketball, which are strictly
| superior to the usual free throw style, but lack dignity
| and are embarrassing to perform so no one does them.
| masklinn wrote:
| > Well that just says you need to build your regenerative
| braking system into the chainset.
|
| The chainset is a transmission device, it will store a
| minute amount of energy elastically, but anything beyond
| that will get you punished.
| endominus wrote:
| >Use of stored energy is obviously allowed or else you
| couldn't make use of gravity when on a hill.
|
| You've walked past gold in search of silver. A biking
| competition that disallowed the use of gravity would be
| wild. What would that even look like? How could it be
| run? Compressed air jets to maneuver bikes onto friction
| platforms? Entire courses built into the non-rotating
| sections of space stations? Racers suspended on bungee
| cords to counteract natural forces?
| jtbayly wrote:
| It would look like a perfectly flat track race. No hills.
| No use of gravity on hills. Solved.
| thrownblown wrote:
| so grass track racing? It was more popular worldwide but
| is still very popular in the Caribbean and Guyana.
| Mattwmaster58 wrote:
| A device could be affixed to each bike that measures
| wheel speed, as well as pressure cells for the pedals.
| Any energy that can't be accounted for from the pedals
| would result in the brakes being automatically applied.
|
| Advantages from wind would also be negated, but I believe
| that's in spirit of the rule. At first just a single
| wheel speed sensor could be used, but once the meta
| evolved to doing stoppies/wheelies on downhill sections
| both wheels would need to be fitted with one.
| sumo89 wrote:
| The UCI banned some handlebars that were regarded as too
| far forward, they've banned elbows being too high,
| they've banned handlebars pointing slightly inwards.
| They'll ban anything that's even slightly out the
| ordinary and with no reasons given.
| freejazz wrote:
| Most of those were banned for safety reasons, what are
| you talking about?
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Well with the gas turbine you're still in the same boat as
| having an inspectable device on the bike after the race though
| I guess it won't set off any magnetic field detectors.
| fizx wrote:
| No one will notice the bike's exhaust!
| charles_f wrote:
| Especially if they go with thr volcano experiment blend!
| genedan wrote:
| I'm thinking one way to easily do motor doping is via the bike
| changes. A rider swaps a doped bike brought in by the team that
| wasn't checked at the start during the easy portions and rides
| 100km saving watts along the way. They then change back to a
| regular bike before things get intense and meanwhile the team
| finds a way to discreetly get rid of the doped bike.
|
| After the stage the doping controls check the regular bike, but
| are unaware of the existence of the doped bike.
| w-ll wrote:
| why do all that when u can have a mechanic check your
| derailleur for a few km while you hold onto the team car
| prmoustache wrote:
| AFAIK it used to be common sight in the 90's but they are
| not allowed to do that anymore. Reasons riders just swap
| bike at any doubt of issue, then they draft the "team cars
| caravan".
| doikor wrote:
| They check all the riders bikes.
|
| The only time someone has been caught for motor doping was
| for a spare bike that they never used in that race.
| stdclass wrote:
| they in fact do not check every bike, especially if you are
| a domestique
| thrownblown wrote:
| I used to give cancellara the benefit of the doubt. But after
| discovering the very very sneaky second bike change I think
| its very unlikely he didnt do mechanical doping.
|
| Cancellara had a mechanical issue and did a first bike
| chance. The main mechanic jumps out of the car and gives him
| a new bike. A few km's later Breschel has a real issue and
| requests a new bike, but the main mechanic isnt in the car
| anymore resulting in Breschel getting the wrong bike, losing
| a lot of time and never returning to the front. A few km
| further the images show Cancellara suddenly sitting on his
| original bike.
|
| What happened, at the point where cancellara did his first
| bike change, the stage makes a loop. The mechanic had to walk
| 500 meter to get on the other part of the stage. What does
| amateur footage reveal. In a turn everybody where makes the
| short turn, Cancellara goes wide where the main mechanic is
| waiting with the original bike and you see Cancellara do a
| lightning bike swap.
|
| Its a sad thing but after all these years I am convinced
| Cancellara cheated.
|
| (Stolen from a comment on
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6z7uUe0tVA)
| Aperocky wrote:
| > rides 100km saving watts along the way.
|
| You vastly overestimates that tiny battery and motor vs. the
| athlete's legs.
|
| The only time it make sense is in sprints where it can
| contribute a significant torque increase for a short while.
| Over 100 km you might as well be better off without that
| weight.
|
| There's a reason why all electric vehicles are heavy and
| burly looking electric bikes only have range of 20mi, and
| those batteries are not constrained by weight or shape to fit
| in a road bike tube.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| Great idea. I'd love to see how you'd inject a usable amount of
| PSI of compressed gas into a frame without some kind of
| permanently affixed nipple.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Hide it under one of the screws? Though surely one could
| develop a nozzle apparatus that would fill the pipe with gas
| and then weld the hole shut.
|
| Anyway, GP is onto something interesting here. I'd watch the
| hell out of a sport based on creative attempts to overcome
| the rules and hide it from the judges.
| gregoryl wrote:
| Look at motorsports, especially semi-pro motorbike teams.
| The creativity is astounding.
| zikduruqe wrote:
| > I'd watch the hell out of a sport based on creative
| attempts to overcome the rules and hide it from the judges.
|
| NASCAR. This sport is all about bending the rules, gray
| areas and just plain trying to cheat. Back in the old days
| they would fill the roll cages will ball bearings during
| inspections, then pull a plug and drain them out before the
| race. The jack men, used to strategically dent the side of
| the car to strategically steer the air to get better
| downforce.
|
| Larry McReynolds has a video series on such things.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-o44EmtRDE it's a fun
| watch.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtuEBl4iUDg antenna
| placement
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxJOiDsgxl4 "accidentally"
| denting the sheet metal
| rtkwe wrote:
| There was a version of denting the side recently where
| they were pulling out a corner near the outside back
| wheel for an aero advantage. I think they banned that
| pretty quickly because it was tearing up tires way more
| often.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| Matthew Carter (ex-team principal of the latter-day Lotus
| F1 team) has an anecdote that the team had a wing
| component that held the wing in a legal configuration,
| but was designed to break under racing forces. When it
| (inevitably) broke, it allowed the wing to flex into an
| illegal (but more performant) configuration. Since F1 has
| a rule that allows exceptions to illegal car
| configurations if they are due to damage, they were able
| to pass inspections by saying that the illegal
| configuration was due to the (intentional) damage.
| 1-more wrote:
| there was a recent thing where Joey Logano was penalized
| for driving with a webbed glove. He'd hold it over a gap
| in the window (open but with a safety net over it) to
| reduce drag. Lots of drivers use their hand to do that,
| but the gloves can't have extra webbing. It's kind of
| shocking how much that matters for drag.
|
| https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a46973038/nascar-
| driver-gl...
| zikduruqe wrote:
| Indeed. Today's advantages are all about steering air
| around the car, since most teams have access to wind
| tunnels now.
| sklargh wrote:
| This is essentially F1. Every highly-specific rules
| question is one team torpedoing another team's rule-bending
| innovation. Fascinating stuff.
| trhway wrote:
| why not bypass the bike completely? Thin flexible solar panel -
| disguised as some hologram-like corporate sponsor logo or even
| under the shirt with the shirt somewhat transparent or the
| panel weaved into the shirt - on the back of the cyclist as a
| source of energy which is fed as electric impulses straight
| into the cyclist muscles, pacemaker on steroids so to say. This
| can also be done in the other sports - like long distance
| runners for example. Another use of the energy, instead of into
| the muscles, is to generate some wave like vibrations of the
| shirt and the pants, like dolphin skin does, to decrease the
| air friction.
| elzbardico wrote:
| Electric impulses are, roughly speaking, used as the
| signalling mechanism for muscles, not as the source of energy
| for their contraction.
| trhway wrote:
| Like a pacemaker the external impulse is to help jerk the
| muscle as the tiredness sets in, not to directly provide
| energy. For direct energy consumption one can for example
| implant into legs small - just for several Newtons of force
| - electrically contracting kind of artificial
| tendon/muscle.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Is biking uniquely attractive to cheaters?
| robjan wrote:
| You can either enhance the athlete or the equipment, it just so
| happens that cycling involves more complex equipment attached
| to the athlete than most sports. I imagine this is even more of
| a concern in the Paralympics where various prosthetics,
| mobility equipment and other assistive technologies could give
| certain athletes unfair advantages.
| rurban wrote:
| Yes. The big tours had big cheating and the omerta going on for
| almost a hundred of years. And the never caught ex-dopers are
| now TV commentators or race managers.
|
| Without illegal methods you wouldn't be able to perform at this
| level. Go watch "Icarus"
| timeon wrote:
| The thing with Lance Armstrong popularized idea (especially in
| US) that cycling is exceptionally infested with cheating.
|
| But there is doping even in curling.
| omginternets wrote:
| Next logical step after doping: turning your sport into a
| motorsport.
| somat wrote:
| I know it's probably just for the headline but "Motor Doping" is
| the stupidest term I have heard since "kamikaze drone"
| 4ggr0 wrote:
| what's the problem with "kamikaze drone"?
| somat wrote:
| 2 things
|
| The most important, kamikaze is a term used specifically for
| a human terminaly guiding themself along with their bomb onto
| the target. This is what made it so horrifying, If you are
| doing it remotely, it is not kamikaze, if a computer is
| guiding, it is not kamikazi.
|
| Secondly, Why invent a new term? If I asked "what do you call
| a device that is launched, autonomously guides itself to a
| destination, then explodes" the answer would be a "guided
| missile", this term has served this role well for many years,
| drones were unmanned aircraft used mainly for reconnaissance
| or training/target duty. When you strapped a bomb to it, the
| term for this sort of unmanned aircraft was "cruise missile"
|
| This is also my problem with the term "motor doping". doping
| makes absolutely no sense here in any previously used form of
| the word. When the magic low friction swimsuit was developed
| then banned, nobody called it cloth doping. the banned brush
| spike for running shoes, nobody called it shoe doping. Just
| because you are cheating does not make it doping.
| robertclaus wrote:
| I wonder if an energy capture device would be allowed to balance
| out uphill and downhill effort.
| hondo77 wrote:
| These are races they're discussing. Not recreational cyclists.
| Racers are only coasting downhill if they're going so fast they
| can't pedal faster than their speed. Any energy capture
| downhill would slow a rider down in a race.
| jnsaff2 wrote:
| The mockumentary Tour de Pharmacy is a fun watch about this and
| doping.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tour_de_Pharmacy
| thenthenthen wrote:
| Video with example of electric motor build into bike frame[1]
| (Dutch /Flemish language). I love the 'water bottle'.
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/loP9IA6ozjA?feature=shared
| Simon_ORourke wrote:
| Great to see Lance Armstrong's name (he of the legal threats
| regarding doping) getting rolled out and given a thorough going
| over again.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Formula 1 should revert to 1968 technology. No electronics, no
| radio, no airfoils, pump gas. Improvements only for safety
| equipment.
|
| I hath spaketh.
| amelius wrote:
| Just give them all the same bike at the start.
| wruza wrote:
| I'm not even remotely a pro cyclist, but even for me there's no
| such thing as "the same bike". Speaking from my experience with
| repairing my bike in the '90s and feeling different modes the
| exact same "hardware" can operate in due to the slightest
| changes.
| amelius wrote:
| Well, it will even out over entire careers.
| hoseja wrote:
| Race cycling is such a degenerated sport.
| mFixman wrote:
| I wonder how the motor detection deals with groupsets with
| electronic shifting like Di2, which I assume are allowed in the
| competitions.
| tokai wrote:
| It has no impact on motor detection.
| flerchin wrote:
| The original Olympics were competed in the nude. I'm not saying
| we need to go that far, but the Olympic committee has a standard
| pool for all the swimmers, and they could provide standard bikes
| for all the cyclists.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| There are too many variables in bike fit, user preference,
| etc., for this to be viable.
| Gravityloss wrote:
| Yeah the different frame geometries make it hard.
|
| Another alternative would be if the transmission was provided
| by the officials and would be fitted to the bike and sealed
| before start but that could also spell problems.
|
| In javelin and pole vaulting the athletes bring their own
| equipment. Has anyone ever cheated there? Interesting
| possibilities...
| moralestapia wrote:
| Huh? But that's a solved problem. Bikes for all those needs
| exist.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| "User preference" does not need to be a part of the sport.
|
| I'm sure some athletes would prefer a more ergonomic discus
| or shorter hurdles in track and field, maybe the gymnasts
| would like a slightly different geometry or spring
| characteristic for the bars or vault, but they don't get that
| choice.
|
| I understand that people need differently sized bikes because
| they have different heights and slightly different ratios of
| leg/torso/arm lengths, but I can easily imagine having three
| or four standardized frames with adjustable seatposts, seat
| rails, and stem length, with a selection of various length
| stems and cranks. Just put the same wheels, the same mech,
| the same bars, and everything on every bike and see which
| rider is fastest. Call it an "Olympic bike".
| ubermonkey wrote:
| I don't think you understand cycling. Gear preference in
| cycling isn't the same as wanting to change the rules of
| track and field or gymnastics.
|
| The Olympics are a one-off that happens infrequently, but
| still draws from the same set of world-class riders as the
| rest of the racing season (a season that happens ever year,
| and contains far more important events).
|
| There's zero chance what you suggest will ever take root.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| Not just that, but a lot of the money in cycling comes
| from bicycle (+bike component) manufacturers in the form
| of sponsorship and endorsements. Outside of a NASCAR-like
| pseudo-standardization, going to a standardized bike from
| one manufacturer for the highest-visibility events would
| throw that money out the window (and cause conflicts
| where the biggest riders are riding bikes from a
| different manufacturer than the one that funds the rest
| of their activities).
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| I understand that's the way it is, and I understand the
| power/money systems are set up in a way that no one
| realistically has the ability to make the change happen,
| but that's not intrinsic to the sport, it's just
| something that's grown up organically around it.
| freejazz wrote:
| Tell us what is intrinsic to the sport, as you apparently
| seem to know.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| > There's zero chance what you suggest will ever take
| root.
|
| I've always wanted to represent my country in the
| olympics, and maybe one day I will on a standard Olympics
| bicycle!
| burningChrome wrote:
| >> Gear preference in cycling isn't the same as wanting
| to change the rules of track and field or gymnastics.
|
| Anectdotal evidence to support this.
|
| Specialized had pretty high end helemets for cyclists,
| but for some reason, the Italian riders would also
| complain about them. They finally got some of the Tour
| riders together to try and figure out what they could to
| do solve this issue.
|
| To me, it was pretty funny. They complained that the
| straps that came down on both sides would lay on their
| face and cause tan lines. I'm not kidding, this was a
| major issue and Specialized changed the straps so they
| were embedded in a way that hung off the riders face so
| it wouldn't cause tan lines.
|
| You had to show people how cool it was, it was such a
| minor thing, but to these guys, it was a big enough
| problem they actually solved and then put into their high
| end helmets.
| yuppiepuppie wrote:
| Not sure when this story took place but now you have
| riders who WANT the tan lines.
| TheTon wrote:
| This idea was already tried with the hour record. Between
| 1972 and 2014 a standard bike was used to match what Eddy
| Merckx used.
|
| What happened was cyclists lost interest in the hour record
| because the bike became too dissimilar to the bikes they
| were riding professionally.
|
| After a new rules for modern bikes were introduced for the
| hour record, interest was renewed in the discipline.
|
| For something like the Olympics which is a one day road
| race or individual time trial, I think the current UCI
| rules for those bikes are fine. Everyone is on roughly
| competitive bikes. Marketing aside, I don't think anyone
| really thinks the top Specialized bike is better than
| Canyon or Cervelo or Trek or whatever.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| Not really. Cycling teams all use the same bicycle. You could
| adapt to 99% of desired customizations with a menu of
| saddles, handlebars, and tires.
| cfn wrote:
| Olympic sailing classes such as the Laser have been doing that
| for years, they could do that for cycling as long as they
| provided an array of sizes.
| Aperocky wrote:
| > standard pool for all the swimmers
|
| That's the same as standard course for all cyclist, which
| happens today.
|
| The equivalence in swimming for organizer provided bikes is
| providing standard swim suits to all swimmers, that has not
| happened.
| havblue wrote:
| Standardized bikes would certainly drive away sponsors and I
| don't think we could see that happening.
| a123b456c wrote:
| What if sponsors competed to provide the standardized bikes?
| major505 wrote:
| Its my impression, or cyclists are more competitive to the point
| of cheating more than most sports?
| stefs wrote:
| I'm not sure - there are other disciplines where PEDs are as
| much of a problem as in cycling, and the possibility of other
| forms of cheating, like motor doping, isn't really feasible
| elsewhere.
| wiether wrote:
| It's the impression given by the medias because cheating is
| actually taken seriously in cycling.
|
| In other sports its so common that its considered normal.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2op5XG7LGkI
| ubermonkey wrote:
| I remember the hullabaloo about the Femke Van den Driessche case;
| I'm shocked that the IEEE article's contention that the motor
| used there could produce 200W of power.
|
| 200W is a LOT in cycling. See
|
| https://www.cyclinganalytics.com/blog/2018/06/how-does-your-...
|
| We talk about one's Functional Threshold Power, which is the
| amount of power you could produce for a solid hour and then be
| completely spent. There are a variety of ways to arrive at this
| number (ie, other than trying to do exactly that, which is
| fraught with peril b/c of pacing issues), but the metric is well
| respected and is used as the foundation of most cycling training
| plans.
|
| So the wattage is one thing, but your weight is the other. Watts
| per kilo is the magic number, because obviously it takes more
| power to move 6'3" Wout Van Aert than it does to move 5'9" Tadej
| Pogacar. Big men make more power, but it takes more power to move
| them, so usually the winners look more like Pogi (or, in the case
| of this year's Tour de France, they look EXACTLY like Pogi, ha
| ha).
|
| Anyway: 200W is a BIG number. A LOT has been made of Pogacar's
| performance this year, and it may be his output was the highest
| ever seen in the sport. Estimates places his FTP in the 7w/kg
| range, which is bananas.
|
| Pogi weighs 66kg, that implies power of about 462W. He may well
| be the most elite, powerful guy to ever race, and a 200W motor
| would add 40% for HIM. Van den Driessche is not in his league;
| it's likely 200W would come close to doubling her FTP.
|
| If you're going to cheat, you need to be subtle. 200W isn't
| subtle. 200W output also implies one HECK of a battery, which
| would be obvious when lifting the bike. Given that the bike in
| question was for cyclocross -- where competitors carry their
| bikes often as they cross obstacles -- I'm thinking that must be
| a mistake.
|
| The article ALSO note that while the maker of the motor in
| question is out of business, you can also experience a 200W push
| with a bike from Lotus. However, if you click through, you find
| that Lotus is claiming the motor in the bike they're selling
| "weighs just 300 grams but packs a powerful 125W per kilogram."
| IOW, the assist motor puts out only 37W.
| NwtnsMthd wrote:
| 200W at 300g is realistic for a modern BLDC motor. The article
| states that Maxon was the motor supplier so they likely used
| the EC-4pole series, I'm guessing it's one of these.
|
| https://www.maxongroup.us/medias/sys_master/root/88825569607...
|
| It's 30mm diameter to fit in a down-tube, 200W, and 300g. But
| just because it's 200W doesn't mean you have to run it at
| maximum capacity, there's no reason you couldn't run it at
| 5-50W.
| londons_explore wrote:
| > just 20 or 30 watts of extra power is enough to tilt the field
| and clinch a race
|
| Any battery and motor which can deliver that for any appreciable
| amount of time should be plenty big and heavy enough to easily
| locate. 30 watts for a 2 hour race = 60 watt hours, over 200
| grams of battery. Thats gonna be hard to hide on a bicycle made
| to be super lightweight.
|
| Looks like the real cheaters are switching bikes between the
| inspection and the race.
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