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TECH NEWS
cookson press onf 2.jpgUCI boss: Mechanical dopers will pay
Head of the UCI (Union Cycliste Internationale) Brian Cookson has this morning made a strong statement warning mechanical dopers that they will be caught and dealt with in the light of the suspected motor found inside Femke Van den Driessche’s bike at the Cyclo-cross World Championships.
Last night we reported that a bike belonging to the Belgian riding in the women’s U23 race had been detained for further investigation, the UCI looking into the possibility of technological fraud.
Since then it has become clear that the suspicion is that the bike was equipped with some form of motor.
Brian Cookson has this morning Tweeted, “Technological fraud is unacceptable. We want the minority who may consider cheating to know that, increasingly, there is no place to hide, and sooner or later they will pay for the damage they’re causing to our sport.”
As if it was ever in doubt, the UCI's technical regulations state, "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.”
Obviously!
Cookson also said, "Throughout the 2015 season, we carried out unannounced bike checks at major road events and we will conduct similar controls throughout the 2016 season.
"We have introduced in 2015 a set of Regulations that enables us to take action.
"We’ve been trialling new methods of detection but you’ll understand why I don’t want to go into details of those methods."
Many people were perplexed when the UCI began checking bike frames for means of mechanical assistance, but it now looks like that approach has been vindicated.
If suspicions prove to be true, does this mark a new low in a long, long history of cheating in cycling? Let us know what you think below.
Mat has been in cycling media since 1996, on titles including BikeRadar, Total Bike, Total Mountain Bike, What Mountain Bike and Mountain Biking UK, and he has been editor of 220 Triathlon and Cycling Plus. Mat has been road.cc technical editor for over a decade, testing bikes, fettling the latest kit, and trying out the most up-to-the-minute clothing. He has won his category in Ironman UK 70.3 and finished on the podium in both marathons he has run. Mat is a Cambridge graduate who did a post-grad in magazine journalism, and he is a winner of the Cycling Media Award for Specialist Online Writer. Now over 50, he's riding road and gravel bikes most days for fun and fitness rather than training for competitions.
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19 comments
Detection method needs to be very quick to enable a lot of bikes to be checked. Although it might only take a couple of minutes to remove a crankest, that still limits the number of bikes that can be checked. If it's simply a case of wheeling a bike in to a mobile x-ray unit, one snap and out, that can be done in seconds. Anybody who's been to the dentist lately knows how quick and easy it is.
Magnets might be a very good and easy check too. Maybe the first point of call before the x-ray.
Radio frequency not so much. I doubt that any motors would be switched on before or after the start and there are so many radio signals during a race that it wouldn't be that effective.
Any road team that tried to do this would surely ensure that the relevant bikes were switched out before the end of each stage, so all frames on team cars would need to be checked.
Lifetime bans can start now. The athlete in question is now saying the bike wasn't even one of her race bikes, yet it was found in her race pit area.
Can you give a link please? I've read her father saying that but wasn't aware she had spoken about all this mess yet (Sunday 5pm) Thanks
you don't need an X-Ray machine or any other fancy techno gadgets
simply ask the UCI certified scrutineer / mechanic to remove the crankset and you'd soon see if there was any "assistance"
takes 1 minute to remove most modern crankset
These motors can be retro fitted down the seat tube. They produce useful amounts of power for seriously useful durations.
http://cyclingtips.com/2015/04/hidden-motors-for-road-bikes-exist-heres-...
I reckon the detection method is heat sensing cameras. Easy and unobtrusive to use, affordable, portable and non-invasive.
Portable X-Ray machine at the start of the race ..Problem solved
I think you could detect a motor concealed in the down or seat tube of a carbon frame using nothing more than a magnet. Or one of these things, unless someone has found a way to make motors without copper.
https://www.bosch-do-it.com/gb/en/diy/tools/detectors-199930.jsp
well no doubt the tinfoil hat brigade would claim you could just lead line the tubes as its only ballast
but I think you can use even a simple AM radio to pick up electromagnetic fields (EMF) of the sort that would be generated by a dirty [1] motor chucking out that many watts,and there are apps on Itunes you can turn your iphone or even then iPAD (hint hint) into a basic EMF detector and use the inbuilt magnetometer.
[1] not dirty as in muddy, dirty as in a noisy power signal not damped out by capacitor filters as that would be extra circuitry
Absolutely, motors by their nature are big EMF emitters. I imagine the UCI are quite surprised they've caught someone stupid enough to try this. It's going to catch a lot of headlines and will probably hang around as a rumour for years.
But the reality is, it's very simple to detect and the realistic potential for this to be an effective form of cheating that could harm the sports reputation is roughly zero.
So deploy undercover UCI staff on strategic climbs equiped with radios tuned into radio CHEAT
Weight is not a problem because it's easy to build a bike under the weight limit. The battery and motor are just handy ballast to bring the bike up to legal weight. I think the UCI need to invest in some xray machines!
Lets see the full case investigated before handing out the bans.
for a motor and battery to be hidden inside a frame*, this would need to be done when the frame was manufactured no? So who supplied this frame? Again the chain of supply should be easier to determin than for PEDs
* I understand the rider in question did not actually finish the race - so there must have been a reasonable level of suspicion for the check to have been carried out.
The UCI have to hand down draconian sentances on early offenders.
Lifetime bans for 3-4 riders will dissuade others.
I may be over-simplifying this but surely this will be easier to detect than pharma doping given the level of physical evidence that has to be present for it to happen, i.e. a motor/battery?
Couldn't they just have a policy of testing, say, the top ten bikes after a race? And for stage races use do the top 10 plus the top 10 overall standings and jersey winners?
Cant imagine this would be much of a task? Drop the bike off after the race to be checked by UCI appointed mechanics..
If the domestiques in a road race can save energy early on and protect or pace their leader for longer their team would gain a big advantage.
If I was DS considering mechanical doping I'd keep my big names out of it by using domestiques.
Checking the top riders only would be ineffective.
Good point. Knew I was over simplifying
Maybe someone with a science background could help but surely you couldn't produce that much power in such a small motor that it would be an advantage? I'm presuming the motor would be in the B/B and the power source in the seat tube.
these are world class athletes, we're not talking about making normal people able to compete at the highest level. If you can add an extra 50W for five minutes somewhere during an hour of 'cross that might be enough to make a break and take the win.
the system that most people offer as a possible culprit is the Vivax Assist, that can give you 200W of extra boost.
Hey, thanks for the explanation and I see how it works now, there's a gear in the b/b but the actual motor is in the seat tube. But it's a pretty big power source (relatively speaking), the weight must be one of the give aways (even if it's a smaller system to give just an extra 50w).