Mechanical Doping

Isn't she European u23 champion? That's pretty good for a 19 year old. Mvdp and wva are both freaks of nature and look forward to seening them do a 'sagan'

Yup, I was just looking at elite results. If you've been racing cross since the age of 5 you've got plenty of experience by the age of 19 or 20. Cross is different from road racing, and requires a different kind of fitness which I think can come a bit earlier, with less hours spent training.

De Jong is 21 and the World Champion, and chose to race the Elite race at the European Championships instead of the U23s, as I'd guess would have a few other riders eligible for it.

Then I guess by 19 you already know how good the field will be, and have realised that cheating is the only way to win. :-(

The field would probably have been quite muddy.

Not to mention the utter folly of leaving the road in the first place.

Er oops, wrong thread. :)

That's comical. She has the same cadence as everyone else, just opens up a 10-15 metre gap like that.

Her cadence is remarkably consistent through the climbing, isn't it?

OK, but this is veering calling correlation causation. Save a short bit at the top, Wyman's cadence is consistent, as is Simpson's. It looks like a fairly consistent gradient and at the start of a race I would expect that from the leaders.

As for the time gaps mentioned by Jon, that evidence falls down as soon as the riders are coming off that road section because gap has fallen very quickly. That single podium position is as easily chalked up to a perfect wave of form, course, weather and a spot of luck as it is to a motor. It's the kind of single podium position that has littered palmares around the world and only been followed up with a smattering of top tens and little else.

You can't really burn a witch based on performance shown in less than a minute of video from the start of the race. It's not even close to substantial evidence.

What's the motor that's been found? How is it actuated? What it the loading capacity? What does that mean for a course of the profile of the Kopperberg and has that been reflected for all of the times we know she was on that bike. i.e., did she ride that hill worse when we know she was on a different bike? That's the kind of information that will indicate that she used a motor, not this biased guesswork.

Circumstantial evidence at best.

If indeed these motors have been used in competition they must be pretty sophisticated to remain undetected whilst dealing with the peaks and troughs of power output, as well as the hopping on and off the bike that you get in cyclocross. It's not climbing a mountain for an hour with a steady power output, that's for sure.

I'm looking forward to seeing photos of it. Should it actually exist.

Found a brief interview with 'President of Equipment Commission' at UCI, a Mr. Tiedeman Hansen.

Supposedly this event was the first time they tried out a new procedure specifically aimed at detecting motorised bikes. And then they caught someone at their first attempt.

Also, the interwebz claims that her brother is currently banned due to EPO. No idea if this is true.

It's the 'save a short bit at the top' that caught my eye, most of the other riders seemed to slow slightly at the crest whereas she just kept her cadence going.
But on the other hand because she was at the front, she didn't have a bunch ahead of her to worry about. And yes, this is veering too much into speculation. I don't know if she is guilty or not.
As for the potential motor design - the Vivax/Gruber seat tube motor basically has an optimum cadence for a particular power output. You turn it on, maintain the cadence and it will give you x many watts. The rest come from you. If you freewheel, it turns itself off. Seems like a pretty effective way to have mechanical assistance under race conditions, should one want to.

Yeah I mean I'm interested in seeing photos of something like that in a team bike

Here's a chap looking for one:

He's looking for the motor (at the last Worlds TT Championship event) that features at 6:02 in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqhX8-dazOo

Shocker, she's definitely complicit, her feet can't even catch up with herself. Career ender.

Interview with Femke van den Driessche in tears:

http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws.francais/sport/1.2560427

"Cet ami s’entraîne parfois avec moi ou avec mon frère mais j'ignorais totalement qu'il avait placé un petit moteur. Il ne me l’a jamais dit. Tout cela est une erreur je suis très choquée. Je me sens très mal," a encore déclaré Femke Van den Driessche.

La jeune cycliste de 19 ans se rend compte que les faits ne jouent pas en sa faveur. "Ce n’est pas agréable d’être accusée de la sorte. Mais je n’aurais jamais triché. J’aime le vélo, j’aime mon sport mais j’ai conscience que je suis face à un problème très grave".

Le sélectionneur national Rudy De Bie a eu des mots très durs samedi pour Femke Van den Driessche. "Ma relation avec elle est terminée" a-t-il déclaré.

Femke Van den Driessche regrette d’avoir été jugée sans avoir pu se défendre. "C’est très dur. Je me donne à fonds pour mon sport. J’ai tout misé sur les championnats du monde. Je pense à présent que ma carrière est finie, même si j’espère bénéficier d’une deuxième chance. Je n’ai pas peur d’une enquête".

She maintains that it was a friend's bike that was 'identical' to hers (by which, presumably, she means apart from the motor), that this friend had reconnoitred the course earlier and then leant her bike against a van (don't lean). FvdD didn't know that there was a motor in it and that she was told when she went to the pits because of a broken chain that there was something wrong. She says she's not afraid of an inquiry.

I can't remember if we had this conspiracy theory at the time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwXzUwTFMxc

The boik keeps spinning!

Ooooooh, I remember watching that replay at the time but didn't believe it. That's another career ender right there, blates.

It's because he's Can-Aid-ian, they'll stop at nothing. Have you never wondered about how horatio was able to get across a polo court so quickly? And then his suspicious early retirement. Something wasn't right.

Nothing is right about Mrak. This whole episode is going to evolve into a big deal I think.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/electromagnetic-wheels-are-the-new-frontier-of-mechanical-doping-claims-gazzetta-dello-sport/

Looks like motors are old hat, wonder if that might explain Ryder's mysterious spinning wheel

How do they work?

Magnets.

It doesn't look like the pedals are turning after he's on the floor though, so if there is a motor it's working directly on the back wheel.

Srsly considering putting brushless LiPo in ma HHSTTB. The aerocovers should allow at least 3S or 80mph equivalent worth of batteries . Get me a donor hoverboard cheap srylez Yo. If I catch fire I will be able to put the flames out with speed alone.