Tour de France confronts a new threat: Are cyclists using tiny motors?

Yes, that's what people said about him when he was speaking against doping in the late 90s/early 2000s too.

Remember when he was forced to issue an apology to Lance Armstrong for calling out his relationship with Dr. Ferrari(doping connoisseur)?

Sometimes those folks just tell the truth. Now if you are OK with cheating and this just annoys you that's another story but lets be honest here - professional cycling became pathetic deplorable 'sport' full of jokes of sportsmen that should not be respected or admired in any way, in contrary. Half of Olympics is heading that way but for some reason cycling was and still is ahead of the curve for quite some time.

I'll never pour a single cent worth of money into that activity, nor a nanosecond of my attention to avoid anyhow supporting it even by accident, voting with my wallet and all that. It almost seems like if there is enough money in the sport it becomes cut throat business and stops being what it was intended to be, in fact exactly the opposite.

That's how I raise my kids, there are tons of sports on the bike and off it to enjoy and even watch and admire if one is in passive mode. But as always doing sports > watching them and I really don't have enough time to do both.

This is definitely not fringe conspiracy theorists. In fact I would argue that it's largely people familiar with the sport that are skeptical.

It was the same during the Amstrong times. I was racing as an amateur during those years, and lots of people were quite open about doping, i.e. everyone new someone who had been on training camp with people who were using, people asked others what they used... This particularly known for the top amateurs and continental pros. If you brought this up with regular cycling fans (particularly in the english speaking sphere), you would get accused of being a conspiracy theorist, that the top talent would not need to do this (only the talentless masses who could not make it otherwise...). Which is such a weird argument considering the gains we knew about. Well we know how history turned out.

Considering that it's the same people running the show (I encourage anyone to look into the history of Mauro Gianetti who believes that UAE would not do everything for a win), I believe everything we hear about is just the tip of the iceberg and reality is much worse. Cycling lost their right to benefit of the doubt a long time ago. As a side note, I don't believe they will every catch a high profile rider with those motor tests. Nobody actually wants to catch them, just imagine they find Pogacar was using a motor, that would be the death of cycling as a marketable sport. That would be swept under the carpet, just like Amstrongs positive EPO test was initially.

I think it was largely pushed by Phil Gaimon who was trying to get into the news to sell his new (at the time) book.

I don't think they've found anyone on the big tours, but iirc this was the first case of someone getting caught: https://www.bbc.com/sport/cycling/36142963

Even before that. 2010 or so they were saying - without evidence - Cancellara used motors in the spring classics.

It's just clickbait to co-incide with the end of the TdF.

> The Tour de France was originally intended to be so tough that only one person might finish it.

The difficulty has been toned down a lot since the early days though. (You'll never see a 466km long stage like the first of Tour de France 1903[1] ever again).

[1]: https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1re_%C3%A9tape_du_Tour_de_Fr...)

> drugs are not used much

they just switched to drugs you cant easily detect.

> endurance sport which is a natural target for doping

This makes a lot of sense to me. A very singular goal of "maximum output" without much need for fine motor skills and strategizing. I'd guess sprinting/marathons might have similar issues?

> It's the most tested sport by far.

Is it? I don't know how to ask this without it sounding argumentative, but how are you measuring this?

Just by the number of times an athlete is tested a year?

If so where are you getting the data for this to compare it to other sports drug testing regimes?

> it's also probably the most popular endurance sport

I believe long distance running takes that spot

The nfl testing regime is purely surprise testing based.

The bigger difference is that endurance sports have more options for doping than others.

Frankly, I think too many things are banned. Blood doping seems no worse than sleep chambers and hgh in correctly applied regimes would take some of the punishment out of football.

People want to see doped athletes in the NFL, NBA, etc. We don't know that we do but we want to see the biggest, strongest people doing the most exciting athletic fetes that they can. The pure punishment that athletes in the NFL take and then keep taking the field is mind blowing. The human body has a hard time dealing with that on its own. I would be surprised if the majority don't have a dosing regime. A 265lb man with low body fat running at the speeds they run is just not realistic for so many, they are the pinnacle of physicality and that doesn't come naturally for many.

Add on that most of them only play for a few years and there is every incentive under the sun to dope and maximize their earnings. I'm not endorsing it but if its essentially a widely accepted secret and you cant compete without it then you get what you incentivize.

Anyone who thinks cycling of all sports is clean is a total fool.

It is a sport literally built around doping. You can't take things to the Tour De France level and recover from those workouts without drugs. Beating the test is part of the sport.

In the NFL/NBA, drug testing is just a theatrical performance. I know in the NFL because careers are so short, the players basically have a gentleman's agreement that whatever you have to do to stay on the field is fair game.

Cycling though is just such a sport of watts per kilo there is no way around doping being a huge variable.

The stupidest thing to me is every player basically says they will do everything they can to win , no matter what the sport. Everything but the thing that will help them the most in PEDs. For some reason the public just wants to believe this bullshit.

>they rarely test and often inform their athletes when a test is coming. the big money basically assures that the incentive to dope is also big. but you'll never get caught if the testing process is a joke, so there is nothing to report.

This reminds me of compliance training when I worked at a trading firm.

>Canada is perceived to have the least corrupt stock exchange in the world.

>>Makes sense ... wait perceived?

>Yes.

>>So no one looks at the actual amount of fraud?

>No.

>>...

>...

When will the average person benefit from all the interesting performance enhancing drugs that have been secretly developed?

Running attracts a lot of doping, it's just less publicized. In particular a lot of Kenyan distance runners have been caught recently.

https://x.com/aiu_athletics

Soccer very much depends on fitness too.

I think the format plays a huge factor too but for different reasons. This format of racing is very dependent on aerodynamic advantages - to the point that even on the massive climbs the rider on the wheel still holds the edge to someone doing the work. On the flat stages the peloton is almost always going to catch a breakaway. Any marginal advantage is super useful in that context and the well funded teams push to optimize everything. I think it’s more likely than not there is cheating. Motors seem unlikely but with this kind of money and international attention marginal advantages like microdosing for example will be exploited. People cheat in everything and often get rewarded for it. It’s an infuriating fact of life.

"No one expects the comedy show from 25 years ago"

That weight comes obvious in components. All teams are required to use widely available components and it's quite easy to spot one that's not normal. For the bike builds that are 4kg or even less, it's quite obvious that all components are non-standard.

You can save at max a bidon before rousing suspicion, and the whole operation is just not feasible in terms of cost vs. benefit.

motor yes, battery no.

Think of the riders themselves as incredibly efficient batteries and motors - they can also recharge at 120g carb/hour. The motor itself is just deadweight over most of this process.

If I were responsible for a mechanical doping program, then I'd install the motors for the leadout and mountain domestique riders and leave the team leader clean. Who cares if they pay the weight penalty after peeling off if it means that they can provide extra support for those critical minutes?

It would be extremely beneficial, but nearly impossible to integrate. Motors used for cheating in cycling are usually in the seat tube or down tube, where they can invisibly interface with the bottom bracket (between the pedals) and connect to batteries elsewhere in the frame. Because bicycles have a freewheel in the rear hub (chain doesn't move while coasting/braking)*, a KERS would have to be located in the tiny rear wheel hub.

*You can of course get a non-race bike with a fixed chain, but UCI rules require use of a freewheel.

There is no way to do this unless the motor is inside the wheel hub and that would be instantly obvious - regular hubs are super thin and wouldn't fit a motor + capacitor inside them. And you'd need to tell it you want to brake somehow.

Only if the motor were in the hub of the wheel, which given the typical size of the hubs, seems even less likely. Remember that bicycle drivetrains are typically one-way due to the ratchet, so you can't apply braking force via the chain.

Broadly speaking electric bikes don't use regenerative braking. It's not possible with a road bike drive train.

In any case, the weight of the motor is overcome by the motor itself, using the power stored in the battery.

These guys are not using their brakes nearly enough to make up for the amount of power they would use on the climbs, even on the descents.

"Mechanical doping" what a nice way to say they're cheating

Not just at the elite level either. The whereabouts system has expanded to apply to tens of millions of people, completely outside of any serious national or international legal frameworl.

That seems like an issue with checking though. If you know people can switch bikes mid race, meaning it's allowed by rules then it is simply stupid to only "double check" the winning bikes that made it to the finish line. Obviously you would need to check every single bike someone used during the race. That's different from someone illegally changing bikes.

The first athlete to be sanctioned for mechanical doping did exactly that. Inspectors found a bicycle in her pit with a hidden motor. Her excuse was "the bicycle was owned by a friend and was taken to the pit in error". The bike looked exactly the same as the bike she was riding.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femke_Van_den_Driessche#Allega...

Not really for a small motor cooled by the frame. The bikes are IR reflective too.

They have minimum bike weights to counter this. Commercially available well built carbon fibre bikes are sometimes bellow the minimum weight right out of the factory so they have to add weights to them.

Thank you for your answer !

I'm trying not to pick sides but here are a few arguments they oppose to these key points :

- Technological advancement : Although it does play a role, they measure power in long climbs to limit that bias. Speeds are lower so aero plays less of a role. Bikes were already as light or even lighter in the 2000s. They also calibrate their power predictions against riders of the peloton who publish their power on strava.

- Nutrition has indeed changed, it helps producing near max power efforts at the end of long stages (aka durability) but doesn't play a direct role on pure max power (VO2 max related) which is what they are worried about.

- Regarding training, I'm not really sure, I think the pro peloton already had access to power meters in the 2000s.

- Regarding testing, it's indeed quite frequent but it's not bullet proof.

- I think the history of the sport is so bad it's hard to see the half full glass.