Motorgate
Motor Doping Explained and UPDATED
By now, if even a casual fan of the sport, you’ve probably heard of motor doping (motors embedded in bikes boosting performance like drugs). If not, at the Cyclocross World Championships, a motor was found inside a competitor’s bike. For water cooler questions about motor doping: it’s used for a short boost, say a 5% gain, to get a gap, as seen in the video above. Note how Femke rides away from her competitors and keeps right on going as they falter in the grassy section. We don’t have any more details on why the UCI targeted Femke, besides random checks, but that performance a week earlier may have tipped them off.
☞ UPDATE: Just after posting this article, PRI’s The World story dropped on their site with quotes from davidjschloss
“I’m not surprised someone put a motor in a bicycle,” says David Schloss, an editor at Bikehugger. “But I’m pretty saddened. I think that any doping really defeats the point of the competition. This just takes it to a whole new level.”
“My suspicions were tweaked the first moment when spectators and magazines and the TV shows all said that it wasn’t possible at all,” he says. “Because they all said the same thing about every type of biological doping.”
I got back from a ride on Saturday to the news in a series of tweets and at first thought it was some sort of a Rickroll, lame joke. After Googling the topic a bit and checking sources, I confirmed Femke van den Driessche was participating in the U23 Women’s Championship, and a favorite to win, but was forced to abandon with one lap left to go because of a mechanical (turns out the motor seized). Her bike was inspected by mechanics post-race, when the motor was found. The UCI’s sporting director told Sport Wereld
“The UCI has defined technological fraud and we can confirm that this is the bike of Femke van den Driessche,” said Smets.
When we first learned about motor doping the collective response from the racers, marketers, and managers strongly indicated to me that it was true. They protested too much, just like doping with drugs.
Because the racers have no union to protect themselves (like other Pro sports) and shut news like this down, it’s even worse for the fans, and the biggest thing the sport has to reckon with is the total loss of trust.
I was not surprised in the least with this discovery, and to anyone that denied motors in bikes existed, you shouldn’t have been either. The motor was confirmed by the UCI and considering they use fiber optic video to examine bikes, I don’t doubt the probable cause.
According to my sources, the UCI has been getting ready for this for two years. They even developed prototype illegal bikes to prove the concept. At Koppenberg cross shown in the video, Femke was 5% faster than all the other women, that may have been one the factors that got the UCI’s attention.
Last year, Greg Lemond demonstrated a motor in one of his bikes and says it provides a 230 watt boost for about 30 minutes. That’s enough to either escape on a climb or stay attached to the group. The UCI hasn’t shared with the media what motor was in Femke’s bike, but it’s most likely a version of the Vivax Assist. Because the bike doesn’t have a bottle with a battery like Lemond’s or a saddle bag, the power source is either in the top tube, or perhaps she’s using some newer, even higher tech like Gazzetta reported today.
Indicating the PR disaster and implications of motor doping, the supplier of Femke’s bike issued a statement denying any involvement and promised to sue her. From what I’m hearing too, this controversy is at gate suffix level, like Motorgate. In another indication of how serious this matter is, for decades, bike suppliers have looked the other way with regular old medical doping. It’s the cost of doing business in the sport, but when it comes to motors, out come the lawyers.
As a developing story, we’ll keep you posted as new details and discoveries emerge. We’ve shared many stories about doping on Medium and in our magazine. Most recently, how Froome Trended After the Tour.
