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I visited the pits at Milton Keynes during the World Cup race to get an idea of the lay of the land ahead of the National Trophy race the following day where I was on duty for Mrs. TSK. There wasn't really a lot of control of who was going in and with what. I certainly wasn't challenged. Quite often wrist bands will be handed out at prestige events but they aren't enforced to rigourously. Unless the pits are getting really busy, commissaires will just let people get on with it. So yes, a punter could get their non-sanctioned into the pits. But I find that hard to imagine.
Pits aren't a place you casually wonder into with your bike. They're chaotic, mucky, swampy places that are rarely easy to get into from the outside of the course. I doubt a team mate who needs a motor to keep up is going to have been out on the course during the practice sessions. I'm fairly certain the UCI have rules against non competitors on international courses. Even if they did, the team DS isn't going to want the extra risk out there. Accidents in practice have ended races before they start and if a non-competitor did that to a competitor then there would and should be hell to pay. This is the least plausible of any "plausible" explanations.
That leaves us with two realistic alternatives. Either FvdD knew about the bike, or she didn't. On a hard, trudgy, mucky course, you could hand up a slightly heavier bike to a competitor and it would be hard for them to spot the difference in the heat of racing, particularly if they aren't feeling any slower because of it. So either could be equally plausible, it wouldn't be the first time a DS has tried to give their rider a bump without telling them about it.
However, the rider pointing the finger at a "team mate" who happens to own a motorised bike makes it very likely that she did know. If you didn't know about the bike, you wouldn't make up something to excuse it because you would have nothing to hide. I could construct scenarios that explain the not knowing and the finger pointing, but the increasing convolution of those scenarios contradicts Occam's Razor.
As usual, I refuse to condemn someone without first seeing evidence of a proper investigation so I await further information. However, the balance of probabilities suggest that optimism won't be rewarded this time.
The_Seldom_Killer-
In the interview with her in Sporza, she doesn't blame a team mate - she says it belongs to a friend who had bought it off her at the end of the last season, that said friend was riding with her brother, the bikes were stored in the same truck and the team mechanics, presumably when they were picking up her bike, thought it was one of hers and cleaned it up for the race.
I mean, I still don't know if I believe her, but that's what she seems to me to be saying.
h2o
Is the 'it's not my bike, m8' excuse as ridiculous as it sounds? Could a punter get their non-sanctioned bike in to the pits at a world champs?
Basically looking forward to seeing some photos of this thing.