Hidden motors for road bikes(cyclingtips.com) |
Hidden motors for road bikes(cyclingtips.com) |
https://youtu.be/8Nd13ARuvVE?t=3m35s
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ideiS-6gBAc
I would love to hear smart people's thoughts!
I think it looks pretty similar in terms of terrain, style, and effort, and it was a win over a tough field. With all the concern about mechanical doping, they checked his bike and there was no motor in it.
Of course there's no way to know what happened in 2010 for sure, but he has shown he doesn't need a motor.
There's a large number of people who think it just wouldn't help that much. While 100 watts extra would be a game changer, the forced cadence, inability to manipulate the pedals, etc makes it potentially no help at all.
As for those two videos.. Cancellara has been attacking like this for years. It's his style. He's also the 4 time world time trial (solo racing against the clock) champion, so he's exceptionally good at sustained high output power.
Hesjedal and the spinning wheel.. Why wouldn't you turn off your motor on a descent is the only thing I'd say? I wouldn't put it past him, he was one of the Lance era EPO doping crew, I just don't buy it on that video. I've seen plenty of crashes in person where bikes did all kinds of weird things.
Actually 6 weeks ago Femke Van den Driessche was caught with a motor in the Cyclocross World Championships.
The UCI are pushing for a lifetime ban and a very hefty fine for Van den Driessche, so there is a significant disincentive: http://cyclingtips.com/2016/03/uci-seeking-lifetime-ban-and-...
If you only want to go that fast, then you don't have to crank the pedals, and it's awkward. However, you can crank the pedals to go even faster.
That's the point of using the motor. You + motor is faster than you alone or motor alone. Or: you + motor requires a lot less effort on your part to maintain a certain speed than you alone. Suppose that you can go 30 mph, but with great difficulty and not for very long. Suppose that a given motor by itself can go 20 mph. If you use that motor and your own muscles together, you can go 30 mph with a lot less effort, and sustain it a lot longer. The cranking of your pedals and cadence will be natural; you're cranking 50% faster than what the motor can do by itself. It will be like cycling in the slip-stream of a truck, or down a slight downgrade. To the spectators, you will just look like a strong cyclist.
About the 100W, almost any amount of cheat torque can make the difference between placing N-th and N+1st. Every second counts.
Even a 2.5W power boost could be a game changer. If your muscles put out 250W, 2.5W is 1% more, which is significant. It's about 36 seconds shaved off a one hour haul. The game has changed from a neck-and-neck race to the front runner having a 36 second lead.
A tiny, light-weight motor of just a few watts that would be useless in a commuting bike used by someone who is out of shape and cannot climb hills could nevertheless win trophies for a cheater.
One minute you're racing just beyond your lactate threshold. Flip a concealed switch, and a tiny power boost drops you within your threshold.
I think the Cancellara video looks odd, but he is super-human...
The Hesjedal video is just super weird. He could have knocked the motor on during the fall. He also gets up in a really suspicious manner IMO...
Cancellara is the greatest time triallist in the history of cycling. Putting out immense amounts of power from a seated position is his raison d'etre.
Regarding the second:
That section of road is steep and banked. After Hesjedal unclips his right foot, the only points of contact between the bicycle and the road are the rear tyre and the rubberised hood on his brake lever. The bicycle is pulled downhill by gravity, but rotates around the brake hood because the friction there is greater than the friction at the rear hub.
Not convinced. The bike is close to stationary after the fall, then turns a full 180 and hits the next cyclist with quite a bit of force. Notice also that the back while is in constant contact with the road as it makes that 180 degree turn. Doesn't look gravity driven to me at all...
He's attacking with ~50km left, which is far enough from the finish at a major one-day race (Paris-Roubaix here) that the chances of the main group reeling him back in are pretty high (he did go on to win that day). As another rider in that group, you have two options when you see someone attack: A) try to go with Cancellara's move and hope that you can beat him one on one (unlikely, Cancellara is one of the all time greats and 2010 was a year of peak form for him), or B) stay with the pack and hope that you can collectively haul him back later in the race (now you've saved your own energy and Cancellara has spent some of his).
Look at the lead rider in the pack (white jersey, blue shorts) at 3:46 as Cancellara goes past him. You can see him look back at the other riders in the group. He's checking to see if anyone else is deciding to do with Cancellara. No one else moves, so they maintain a steady pace, hoping to bring him back with option B.
In the other video, Hesjedal's bike spins because of the road gradient and momentum in his still spinning wheel hitting the road as he stands up. Hard to see the slope of the road from the camera angle but they are on a steep descent.
Mechanical doping is definitely a technological possibility and the UCI is starting to test bikes. That said, the "bike fans" who point to these videos out as evidence are conspiracy theorists. The explanations I wrote above are IMO pretty apparent to someone who has raced bikes before, but I can see how they look odd to a layman observer or a non-competitive cyclist (in the case of the Cancellara video especially).
Edit: the race I was referring to was actually Paris-Roubaix, not Flanders. This article has some pretty good post-race interview commentary from Boonen and Cancellara himself about how the effort to chase him down sputtered because of a lack of cooperation, not ability: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/cycling/7578607...
Granted, it would be much easier to get a motor to do the same thing.
After Hesjedal falls, you clearly see the kinetic energy stopped of the back part of the bicycle at one moment. This is because his pedal is still attached to his right foot. After he "clicks out", the back wheel seems to bring the back part of the bicycle in motion. This is unexpected; the back part of the bicycle does not posses any kinetic energy.
Two other options exist for the bicycle movement to occur. 1) the left pedal is fixed to the connecting surface area (road) while the cranks still move. 2) the rear wheel still has kinetic energy (still turning).
The first option simply does not occur, as the right pedal keeps its position relative to the frame of the bicycle (see later frames in the video). The second option would never transfer enough energy to the bicycle as to display the observed bicycle movement. Hesjedal is already lowering speed substantially since he needs to maneuver into the left sharp corner. His speed is 20KMPH max, I'd say probably around 15KMPH. That is by far and large not enough to make the whole bicycle want to spin around hile on the ground.
They are artificially holding back the state of the art in a way that promotes cheating (if you need to add weight to your bike to make the limit, why not a motor instead of dead weight.)
But even a cursory look at racing history explains why. Group B Rally springs to mind. More power & lighter weight aren't really going to make racing that much more interesting, just more deadly.
FIA has tried to shift innovation to other aspects, e.g. ruling that an engine has to last at least two race weekends (setting a floor on durability sacrifices).
C.f. the hour record. Until recently, the rules essentially stated "the hour record must be attempted on a replica of Eddy Merckx's bike circa 1972". Rules for the hour record banned streamlined helmets, aero bars, disk wheels and frames with non-round tubing. These rules were introduced directly as a reaction to the battle of engineering an ingenuity between Obree and Boardman.
http://oldsite.uci.ch/imgarchive/Road/Equipment/The%20Lugano...
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/a19366/heres-how-...
Sad sad world we live in
"During the 1995 World Rally Championship season, Toyota was caught using illegal turbo restrictors at the Rally Catalunya and were given a one-year ban by the FIA. FIA president Max Mosley called the illegal turbo restrictor "the most sophisticated device I've ever seen in 30 years of motor sports.""
It is quite brilliant. Think of it as a software backdoor. :)
No motors, please.
There is no TV money for the teams. The team sponsorships aren't even guaranteed for any serious time. It's all about individual results in what is really a team sport. And then the best years are during the college years for everything else, close to no pros actually have college degrees or anything. Worse, I can't think of a pro that came out of college and ever did anything other than domestic racing. I mean, the team bikes are technically supposed to go back to the sponsors according to most deals but everybody just sort of knows that a lot of riders sell them to supplement their income, there are even web stores that specialize in it.
Cheating is cheating, be it chemical or mechanical or whatever, but cycling (like skiing, track and field, etc) is a perfect storm for it. If you do it and don't get caught, you can get rich, like life changing rich. If you wash out, not just did you lose what little paying gig you had, but you've probably got limited options outside of cycling. I'd argue that other than the love of the sport and sportsmanship, there are a lot of cyclists in a certain age range that have no reason not to cheat one way or another.
1. http://www.businessinsider.com/bike-investigated-technologic...
Would be trivial to detect either by weight or looking down seat tube.
But yeah, they are doing inspections these days.
Getting the exact same position is easy: just use a Sharpie marker on the inner tube to show where it fits in the outer tube. Draw a second, vertical line across both tubes to make sure the orientation is the same.
But, pulling the seatpost or crankset/bottom bracket should make it pretty obvious if a bike has a motor hidden inside the frame.
And it appears the UCI has started using some sort of x-ray device for quick tests in the paddock area.
Hmm... moment of inertia and CG measurements indicate that dude's crank is a couple kilos heavier than everyone else crank.
If carbon fiber is RF transparent enough then low level microwave radiation tends to react interestingly with semiconductor junctions.
After EMP sensitive gear (if any) were removed from the bike, old fashioned microwave RF zorching or fancier "real EMP" could make the issue moot. Once the electronics and wiring are blown, a motor is just an expensive piece of ballast.
The last technological way I can think of is a careful magnetic analysis of the bike.
I would imagine a very permanent long term solution would be a careful stress analysis and small holes drilled into all frames for a COTS borehole camera.
bikes have minimum weight and can be made lighter than that so weight can be masked
I used to race (never made it out of CAT 5 cause I suck on hills, though I’m a very strong sprinter but I hate crits). Even a few watts can make a difference. Its the difference between being dropped when someone attacks on a climb and being able to hang on and recover. Biking is the ‘Cold Equations’ (old Sci-fi story that illiustrates the cruel implacability of science) of sports. The standard unit of currency in cycling is Watts per Kilo, essentially, now many watts per kilo you can maintain at your FTP (Functional Power Threshold). If you look at a chart of cyclists from CAT-5 (the lowest racing category, all the way up to Grand Tour Contender (realistic chance of winning one of the big 3 races, Giro, TDF or Vuelta), it ranges from about 1.8- 2.0 for an untrained casual cyclist, 2.5 Watts/Kg for a CAT 5 to 6.7 Watts/Kg for Grand tour contenders (The Lance Armstrong’s, Alberto Contador, Cadel Evans). 6.7 is the magic number. http://www.americanroadcycling.org/articles/PSL/WiddersHump/...
It is really hard to explain just how much different from you and I GC contenders are. I weight 70-75 Kg. At my fittest (down to 65 kg), I was probably putting out 3.5 watts per kilo (wasn’t racing at the time yet). You have 2 variables to play with, power, and weight. This is why pro cyclists are thin, and GC contenders cadaverously thin, especially before the big races. These guys weight 138 lbs (62 kilos) with an FTP of 420+. I’ve met Alberto Contador, I’m not a big guy (I’m 5,11), but next to him I seemed like a giant. I cannot even explain how insane their power figures are. When you’re riding at the pro level, especially at the Grand Tours, everyone you are riding with is a genetic freak (this is why EPO will not turn Joe six pack into the next Lance Armstrong).
At my fittest, I once rode with a woman who’d come 3rd in the U.S Nationals. And she totally shredded me. She was out for an easy/medium ride, I was hanging on, seeing dots in my peripheral vision and feeling like I was about to puke my heart out. And this was the easy part of the ride on a flat. Once we got to a hill I was dropped like a hot potato. This is also why you don’t accept invitations from strangers at parties that start ‘Hey, your wife tells me you ride. My friends and i are going on a ride tomorrow. Wanna join us?'
Someone else posted about riding with a cyclist who rode the TDF and who never finished because he absolutely sucked at riding (this is true of a lot of cyclists whose goals is to support their GC contender at all costs even if it means destroying themselves and their chances). It was a hilly competitive ride with the local fast guys. And he dropped them on the first long climb, and he wasn’t even going hard. Being a TDF rider who sucks in the climbs > 99.9995 of cyclists. It’s all relative.
At that level, the gap between the winner and the also runs can come down to the smallest difference. Tyler Hamilton lost the Giro because he bonked on the final climb. He had an energy gel in his pocket, but forgot to eat, and by the time he did, it was too late. All it takes is a few watts so a motor that can even give a cyclist an extra 5-10 watts is huge. This is why cyclists wear skin suits and even go to ridiculous lengths (apparently, on a flat 40K TT, shaving your legs vs not can gain you 1-2 seconds). Bike innovations, especially for aerodynamic frames are measured in watts saved. This is also why there is a lower limit on the weight of bike frames in UCI races (about 15 lbs), because frame makers would be tempted to make even lighter bikes to the point of danger cause a few lbs when you are already at 3% body fat can make a difference (an aside, for most cyclists, weight frame is overrated. Saving 3 lbs on the frame is much more expensive than shaving 3 lbs off your weight, or even 20 lbs). My road bike weighs 16.5 lbs, I’d be better served by losing 40 lbs off my body.
Also, no one is going to use this motors for flashy efforts that are obvious. All you need is to save 20-30 watts on a long stage, and arrive at the base of a climb fresher than your competitors, and then use it again when needed on the climb.
But, an extra 100 watts for even a few seconds can make a significant difference. In cycling, staying in the draft is a major factor. If that short burst of assistance helps a racer keep the wheel of the guy in front, it conserves a lot of energy for later in the race.
(Though not a record of power for a single hour, just distance ridden on a track in one hour. But it ends up measuring more or less the same.)
Saying it is in the human nature is laughable. I see no one cheating at being poor sick, handicapped or being lazy.
People only cheat because they don't care about winning for themselves. They have no personalities and are lost in the recognition of a mindless crowd as a substitute to self esteem.
We have to focus society on individual realization to fight efficiently against hidden motors. Technical means of cheating are just a side problem.
Maybe we should forbid professional competition to remove the incentive of cheating.
Is it because education make people lack of confidence in themselves or do people adapt a rigged games?
My opinion is some kids especially introverted one lacking of self confidence are put in a stressful competition early and education/society advocate early results on strong competition. The race for the elite schools being at kindergarden.
The culture of results coupled with a rigged system (the system enable institutional cheats for some) result in the conviction of being right to fight the system back by compensating for the one considering themselves unlucky.
Our education is clearly creating the cheaters at my opinion. Corrupting the expectations of kids about progress, merit, hard work and replacing it by saying only the result matters.
The funny part is all these kids having paying loans for studies that enslave them not only in debt but also breaking their mind. No educated kids have been suing universities/banks for having scammed them by giving them false information to engage them in life long debts.
Smart kids are not smart. Education has broken bright spirits.
Yeah. Kickstarter has had a lot of interesting bikes in the last year. One YC company, Vanhawks (http://vanhawks.com/), came up through Kickstarter, and they've been shipping smart bikes in the last couple months.
Still, prices among electrically assisted bikes remain high. For example, the Faraday electric bike: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/faradaybikes/faraday-co... starts at $2,700. It seems like they should be less expensive, but for whatever reason few electric bikes have appeared in the U.S. for under $2K.
It seems like price is holding back electric bikes more than anything else. The system discussed in the original article appears to be much more expensive than an entire electric bike.
Pre-order phase, still.
It had its ups and downs. I certainly wasn't fresh as a daisy upon arriving at work, even with the e-bike's help.
The model I chose was rather longer and heavier than a regular bike, and that was a definite inconvenience. Going up stairs, storage, etc. And that's not getting into the mechanical reliability issues I had (Chinese off-brand import).
It was an interesting experiment, but I wouldn't do it again. You'll need to carefully consider all the factors before choosing something like this.
TLDR: in F1 you're not allowed to have a variable rear spoiler (i.e. high downforce in corners but low drag on straights). But the rules only specified hydraulic or mechanical devices were banned. McLaren engineers came up with the idea to stall the rear spoiler on the straights using a flexible tube which led air from the front spoiler to the rear. The driver would use his knee inside the cockpit to block or open the flow in the hose, so no mechanical or hydraulic mechanism was used.
"If you don't cheat, you look like an idiot. If you do it and you don't get caught, you look like a hero. If you do it and get caught, you look like a dope. Put me in the category where I belong," -- Darrel Waltrip, 1976
Electronic shifting (Other than SRAM's newest) is however wired, but again it's a very low power protocol. It also uses two motors to perform the shifts, but they are very small and external.
I would imagine you could tell the difference and find what you're looking for with something as simple as this: http://www.amazon.com/Fluke-LVD1-Volt-Light/dp/B000B64ZDG
I used to use one for electrical work, and it worked very well.
Now what if instead of taping weights to the bike...
Exactly.
In the first clip you posted, at the end in the tour of flanders when Cancellara attacks before the finish, neither his cadence nor his body position change as he accelerates. Further, the rider behind him who is undoubtedly an incredible athlete has to stand up just to keep his current pace.
At the very least it's not hard to see why this looks suspicious.
[0] Conclusion based on watching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynLMfzLTc8M at 0.25 speed.
I'm not arguing whether this may or may not be an assisted bike, but what you're saying about a wheel is patently wrong.
I think you are (forgive me if I'm wrong), but that doesn't matter. That is not an example of the wheel "doing work". That wheel in the video looked stopped at the end of the crash, and even if it wasn't stopped, the video looks really awkward. Sure, his crash started at 30mph, but ended at 0, and his wheel looks to be firmly placed on the ground, immobile. For sake of understanding though, it'd be interesting to know what power could be stored in a theoretical wheel that could stand in for Ryder's.
Eg. a pair of Mavic Cosmic Carbone Ultimate[0] apparently weight 1185g. The rear will weight a bit more (because hub/drive/gears), although that weight will be at the center of the spin, so I _guess_ not contribute significantly to the velocity of the wheel (angular momentum). So, how many watts are stored in a ~700g wheel that was moving at 30mph? That will determine the ability to do work (like spin a bicycle on the pavement).
[0] http://www.bikyle.com/MavicRoadWheels.asp
edit: expand point, suggest exercise
If you think about it there was probably under 1 kg of force between the side of the wheel which has minimal grip and the road surface while he was attached for what 2-5 seconds?. Spin a wheel and try and slow it down from lightly touching the sides like that and it's going to spin for a while.
Further, while on the side the contact point of the wheel had a ~5 feet of leverage to the pivot point of the handlebars and the other contact point was a wheel. So, it would take very little force to get the bike rotating.
PS: I don't have a bike right now, but it should be easy to test if you do.
It's a 250W rated bunch of Chinese-sourced parts on a $50 eBay steel framed budget mountain bike.
It's _so_ hilarious to ride, a friend says "it make you feel like Lance Armstrong!". It just makes everything too easy. I barely ever take it out of top gear - I just lazily pedal up hills, zoom along the flat, and have to brake to stop feeling suicidal down hills. I'm an almost 50 year old overweight and out of shape guy, and I commute to work on it keeping up easily with the lycra-clad mamils on what look like $10K+ carbon-everything bikes - I've been doing it for a few years and it's _still_ so much fun passing them going up hills.
I can _easily_ believe even a fraction of the power I've got there would turn a midfield racer into a winner.
(For the record, I've got a 7 cell LiPo battery powering mine, and off a full charge I see 470W or so coming out of the battery accelerating up a medium incline. It tops out at 25kmh, and pulls barely 100W to do that on the flat, but it's _so_ noticeable accelerating away form stationary or up hills. It's _ really_ fun :-)
I do have a non-cheater bike as well, I ride it more when it's cooler (but I'm still lazy, so...) More exercise is the plan. Executing on that plan isn't always successful.
Of course, several years ago after I decided to get in shape, I tried cycle commuting and really enjoyed it (about 15 miles each way). But I could only pull it off about once a week or so (in order to make good time, it left me mostly worthless at work all day). Coming up, after I move in a month I'll be about 23 miles from work. Adding a hub motor will allow me to not only make the commute in just over an hour, but it will leave me less exhausted (I plan on still putting in some human power, but I won't have to over do it). The good thing though, is by adding electric power to a bicycle, it will get me on it much more often so I'll end up getting even more exercise than without power.
Maybe someday I will be in good enough shape to make the 20 mile commute in around 1:15 without the assistance, but if it's between pedal assist and driving, pedal assist seems like the far better choice!
FWIW, I used to bike-commute to school when it was 8-10 miles, and that was great. But 20mi each way is just too much time for me when I need to get home to get kids to practice, or help with homework, etc.
However I have to nitpick on one point:
"Even a 2.5W power boost could be a game changer. If your muscles put out 250W, 2.5W is 1% more, which is significant. It's about 36 seconds shaved off a one hour haul."
Air resistance is one the most significant factor affecting riders at race speeds, and its force increases at a much greater than linear rate. You'd need about 3% more power in your example to save 36 seconds. In a flat time trial over one hour, 1% extra power would actually save you closer to 12 seconds. That said, the Tour de France has been won by less.
The ratio of power output to speed follows a square law, so if you're going 20 mph and flip on a motor that doubles your power output, you won't even hit 30 mph, let alone 40mph (4x power = 2x speed). But this is an endurance sport and a huge part of your strategy involves dealing with wind resistance (by drafting) so even a little boost means that you might be able to pull off or prevent a breakaway at a critical moment of a race. For much of the race your goal isn't to go faster than the other guys, but merely to match speed without wearing yourself out.
Firstly, in a race, it is psychologically challenging to be the leader of the pack. Are you really faster than those behind you? Or are there opportunists nipping at your heels, wearing you down, who will surge by you when the goal is in sight? With a secret boost, you can overcome some of this uncertainty.
Likewise, you can use the boost to surge by opponents after tailing them for extended distances without the boost. When you surge by someone, it has a mentally devastating effect on them. You show that you have untapped reserves that they don't, which creates the belief that you cannot be beaten. In the absence of cheating, that belief is just a belief. The playing field is level: by trying to create the belief that you are stronger and faster, you're taking a risk (because it's not a given that you actually are; you're faking that out with a little surge that you could well pay for later.)
I believe that with a hidden motor, you can not only reduce your own race time, but make someone else's race time worse. You wear them down with an unrealistic pace, either as a leader or follower (pressure from the back) which you can then maintain yourself thanks to the motor, while they blow their race.
And then, here is the thing. If you win by tactics, that doesn't have to involve coming anywhere near the best time for that course or a world record etc. You get everyone to screw up, and then cross the finish first, but in some credible time that doesn't draw attention to your performance, seconds or minutes behind the best time that was ever observed on that course. That reduces the suspicion of any cheating, unless your splits over the course are scrutinized.
Millimeter waves won't penetrate metal, so they probably wouldn't work on bikes.
Radiation has cumulative effects, so that's a reason against it. You're right that they'd just dismount, though.
outside circumference of wheel ~2200mm (700c wheel w/ tire) 30 mph == 0.5 mpm (Miles per minute). 0.5 mile == 804500mm a 2200mm circumference will need to roll ~365.68 times to cover that distance. If that distance is covered in 1 minute, that means 365.68 rotations per minute.
This: Ef = 1/2 I ω2
wants I and ω.
I = m r squared.
m == 700g (this isn't properly distributed here, but it's a start)
r (at 2200mm circumference) == 350.14
0.7kg * ((350.14mm)(0.001m/mm))^2 == 0.7 * .122598019 == 0.085818613 kg/m2
1 rad/s = 9.55 r/min (rpm) 365rpm == 38.29 rad/s
so if this is at all correct:
Ef = 0.5 * 0.085818613 * 38.29^2 == 0.5 * 0.085818613 * 1466.1241 == 62.910368373 Joules
1J/s == 1watt. So with this fudgey math above (assuming it's even correct) we're working w/ ~60 watts(max, for an instance, then decreasing). I don't even know if that's enough to spin a bicycle around like was shown. I hope somebody that actually understands this field can chime in and fix my bad assumptions (which I think err to supporting this was strictly the spinning wheel (not a motor)) and what this means. I'll do practical tests later when I have my bike.
[0] http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/flywheel-energy-d_945.html
I saw that earlier too, and forgot about it. So the question is less about whether its even possible, but whether or not it was likely in Ryder Hesjedal's circumstance. And the stakes, circumstances, etc aren't exceptional enough to warrant a commission.
> During the race, the UCI checked the bicycles of Van den Driessche and found a motor in the bicycle she was riding.
And:
> “After one lap of the world championships, UCI took Femke’s bike in the pit area and tested it with some sort of tablet,” said Sporza journalist Maarten Vangramberen. “The bike was immediately sealed and taken. The UCI then called in the Belgian federation. When the saddle was removed, there were electrical cables in the seat tube. When they wanted to remove the bottom bracket, which is normally not difficult, they could not because the crank was stuck. Inside there was a motor.”
Several people in this thread are repeating the claim that it was a pit bike, the UCI seems to think otherwise. I am siding with the UCI on this one.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femke_Van_den_Driessche#Allega... [1] http://velonews.competitor.com/2016/01/news/uci_detains_bike...
That doesn't make it right of course. The whole incident stinks. But the UCI did not, and to date has not, caught someone racing with a motor.
He discussed that: she was not caught using one.
The presence, within or on the margins of a cycling competition, of a bicycle
that does not comply with the provisions of article 1.3.010. The use by a
rider, within or on the margins of a cycling competition, of a bicycle
that does not comply with the provisions of article 1.3.010. All teams must
ensure that all their bicycles are in compliance with the provisions of article
1.3.010. Any presence of a bicycle that does not comply with the provisions of
article 1.3.010, within or on the margins of a cycling competition, constitutes
a technological fraud by the team and the rider.
I firmly believe the tech WILL catch up that can do just that but it's not there, or if it is, it's being developed in relative secrecy. That just doesn't make any sense to me. Who is investing R&D money into this? For what return? They aren't getting prize money, sponsorship kickbacks.. the whole sport of pro cycling is dying financially without help from any external source. It's a very dated sponsorship model and races are drying up all over the world.
I think it means "they took Femke's bike [that was] in the pit area", and not "they took Femke's bike in[to] the pit area". As your first quote says, this was done during the race. Unless they stopped the race to do the check, they couldn't be referring to the bike she was riding at the time. And since this was during the first lap, she had not yet ridden the bike that was in the pit.
Here's the original quote in Dutch: "Na één ronde op het WK heeft de UCI de fiets van Femke in de materiaalpost gecontroleerd met een soort van tablet. De fiets werd meteen verzegeld en werd meegenomen." I don't speak Dutch, but I think "de UCI de fiets van Femke in de materiaalpost gecontroleerd" doesn't say they took the bike to the pit, rather that her bike "in de materiaalpost" was "gecontroleerd".
"After one lap on the WC, the UCI checked the bike of Femke at the pit area with a kind of tablet. The bike was immediately sealed and taken away"
While that source doesn't specifically say who took the bike into the pit area, other sources state that it was taken into the pit area by mistake (probably her entourage) and that it wasn't the UCI who took the bike into the ICU.
http://www.nieuwsblad.be/cnt/dmf20160130_02100012 [dutch]
So in short, it _isn't known_ if she used the bike in the WC, but the UCI _alleges_ that she did.
The UCI never made any claim that she rode it, and I don't think they will do so either. My interpretation is that they find that a moot point and simply find the uncovering of a motorized bike to be unacceptable.