How you COULD Motor Dope In The Tour De France | GCN Tech Show Ep.343

Is it possible to really motor dope at the Tour de France?! Ollie and Alex go on a deep dive on how this notion is plausible.

New Orbea city bikes, the launch of the Zwift Academy, and a new Strava plan are discussed as well!

00:00 Welcome to the GCN Tech Show
00:38 Is motor doping happening at the Tour de France?
10:30 Hot tech
11:35 #AD Launch of Zwift Academy
16:16 #AD Orbea Kemen city bike launch
18:42 #AD Strava Family Plan
19:34 Comments of the week
23:05 Bike vault

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What do you make of the motor doping plausibility? 👀

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📸 Photos - © Velo Collection (TDW) / Getty Images & © Sprint Cycling Agency

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[gcntech]

What do you make of the motor doping plausibility? 👀

[socopower]

There’s a much easier solution to this: make power recording and sharing with UCI compulsory in races. Power at crank can’t be cheated by a motor, and the discrepancy between power and speed can be flagged very easily if they were sampling the whole of the peloton

[jstogdill]

I don’t know if anyone is doping (motor or otherwise), however, a version of every one of these arguments was used during the Armstrong years. If forced to take a bet, I would take the “there has never been a time in professional cycling that didn’t have some kind or another of doping in use” side of the bet.

[nickporter]

Dear Ollie and Alex, I would like to thank you and GCN for costing me a small fortune over the last few years from 1st showing me how to save myself some cash and change a BB about 12 years or so ago. I have recently finished my 10th bike build. I finally caved and got a proper road bike (a Ritchey Road Logic) and then thought “hmm? Perhaps Olly and Alex are right? Do I get some 50mm deep carbon wheels for my new steed?”…. Ok so they were over 3 minutes faster on my 13 mile test loop this morning. Looking forward to ever more new content and keep up the good work!

[jeffreylee]

Ollie, brushless motors have magnets. What they do not have are brushes that wear away.

[tertiaryeel]

Week 71 of asking for a "The UCI has no jurisdiction here" t-shirt

[johnyoung]

Can't dismiss motor doping because of the number of people involved, see Lance Armstrong and US Postal. Everyone knew except the sponsors who gave them money (they say) and money talks. Large bags of cash can easily buy silence, plus things like NDA's for employees etc. I'd argue it's way easier than you'd think and it's naive to think no one is cheating.

[mikeghanley]

Let’s remember that while the uci and the tour claim to test and be against doping, most doping scandals involving the big names have broken because of police investigations, intrepid journalism or disgruntled team mates. The money must flow and everyone has a stake in keeping the circus going: sponsors, media, organisers and riders.
I thought it was interesting that Lance spoke about the politics of the peloton and keeping teams happy, it didn’t sound like he was just talking about letting teams contest breakaways, but also not exposing them to extra scrutiny with superhuman performances.

7 w/kg with 23% efficiency and sustaining 90% of vo2max…wouldn’t that require a vo2max of over 100?? At some point you reach a physiological limit and the answer to these questions has to be mechanical assistance.

But of course the circus are now on a campaign to distract. So we get the Eurosport team tasting ketones, constant reminders about tech improvements and even articles saying that really 2x tour winning pog was on an amateur team with schoolboy training and now he’s fulfilling his real potential.

Give me a break!

[neilrushworth]

People doing Garmin/Strava etc segments on electric bikes needs tackling, for we mortals sakes.

[nigelonelly]

You can’t really dismiss it by saying it’d be too big and complicated to happen after the whole sport had pervasive blood doping for many years at the top levels

[benp]

I feel that now they are independent, GCN can say what they think a little more, which can only be a good thing!

[grumbleguff]

I remember back in the day being told that Lance Armstrong, Jan Ulrich, Marco Pantani, Bjarne Riis et al just had better training techniques.

There is no way Pogacar has improved his power output that much for so long even with new interval training techniques, slightly lighter bike than 20yrs ago and magic tyres 😂

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

[ThePixelize]

Cool episode. To be fair, I think the following are true: Motor doping ...
- absolutely has been used, and I believe more so in the past. There is absolutely no reason to swap a perfectly working bike at Flanderen 5x.
- is still being used
- though I believe is more widespread at second tier events, but not in a very wide-spread way and probably not largely at something like the TdF.

Always thought that the motor and battery required, would need to be big and proivde high power output, but that's probably where they're least effective in pro sport and most likely to be found. Never realized until your video that even a tiny battery and a 'modest' amount of power will make a big difference, for example:
- To win a sprint. 50 Extra watts for 10min? Bring it on!
- Winning a monument. Change bike often (less conspicuous ... well, eh, Cancellara?), unleash the power to get away.

You'll still need to be a bloody good cyclist (esp. if you ride long stages), but could it be the difference between coming 10th and first? Totally.
The battery for this would only need ~10Wh. That's 1/50th of what current e bikes have; basically three 18650 cells suffice.

This is especially compelling because with current tech, it's easy to bring a bike under the weight limit (actually, was easy 15 years ago). Thus, regulations actually set perverse incentives and make the use of a motor-operated bike MORE compelling, so long as battery and motor can be small (see above), since riders no longer have to carry dead weight with them.

[gren]

I'd need a Kawasaki 750 motor to keep up with these guys - would that be detected ;-)

[smithandshortdogs]

Love that Dr. Bridgewood is flexing his IGCSE level French and getting googly eyes from his coworkers regardless of gender. Chapeau Monsignor. Tu est vraiment magnifique.

[Realist-mc]

The speed that Poggie climbs should leave him dying for air after the stage. He NEVER looks exhausted!!

[ejessica]

We’re gonna need more visuals for all these products you guys are talking about. “We have a super cool cassette to talk about!” No pics. 😢

[LCBJedi]

A few comments:
1. The amount of people involved. Does it have to be more people than were involved in medical doing? They had the UCI running around for a couple of decades.
2. Inspection. Is it given that a motor is hidden in the seat tube? If so, it would take a few minutes to check for a motor with the seat post removed and an inspection camera.
3. To avoid the “doped” bike being detected after a swap - just check the swapped bike rather than the one the rider passes the finish line on.
Disclaimer: I don’t believe motor doping is a problem in pro cycling.

[graysonrichards]

I really thought this was going to be the promised video where the guy's build their own motor-doped superbike. Hope that's still in the works

[rcrider]

Backscatter has been used by Customs authorities to detect concealments for decades.