Hunting accident. Severe car accident. Leukemia. Always bounced back. I guess he appreciates just being alife. And I guess a fighter/competitive character with a postive attitude can’t harm either.
And I guess there is another factor: his wife. Bitterness would not be an option with her.
Greg said some new things in that interview.
His cadence/doping theory was new to me. Anyone ever hear that before?
Motor doping - I still find that one hard to believe. Yes, I’ve watched the videos. The whole team - DSes, mechanics, and riders would have to be in on it for it to work. The bike would be heavy with at least a water bottle sized battery onboard. If it did happen, it’s hard to believe that nobody was every caught - except for the one cyclocrosser.
I didn’t know that Lemond did L’Etape du Tour in his 40s.
That would be cool to get a copy of Koechli’s training manual. I googled and couldn’t find anything.
Whole teams were in on doping and it worked pretty damn well.
Not saying it happened, just that the culture of silence exists in the sport.
I also don’t believe the motors and batteries were at the level he claims it.
I always see quotes or clips of him saying he’s seen them, but I’ve never seen any footage or images of anything similar. It would have been available in the market for consumers.
I agree but a rider can get a transfusion with just a doctor present. A rider can inject EPO by himself. Lower wage team employees would never see it.
With a heavy bike containing a motor, the guys in the team car would have to know about it if there were bike changes. Someone would have to build it, etc. I’m just saying that a lot of people would have to know about it.
100% agree.
The culture of silence exists in every sport I’ve ever touched. Someone pays your wage. Someone pays theirs. It pays to be silent, all the way on up the chain.
Culture of openness has to be built top down. It’s rare. (I haven’t seen it in sport especially at the NGB or pro sports team level)
Here is where they say Cancellara motor doped Boonen:
What I see is that Boonen got bogged down with his tiny corn cob cassette and lack of appropriate gears for that climb. Cancellara out cadenced him.
Also, there is no 2nd bottle on the bike to hold a battery. Fully internal battery in a relatively thin tube Tarmac? Cut the frame apart to install a motor? I just don’t buy this one.
Yeah, as much as anything, he broke the spirit of Boonen in the first few pedal strokes.
I very much hope Cancellara was clean, but there’s obviously some doubt, I don’t think the motor thing holds a lot of water though.
Mechanical doping - about 10 years ago, or even more, a major German newpaper ran a story on e-bikes in general. They presented an overview of the developments. “Top notch category” were custom motors developed from space ship motors (something with motors for shutters) and multiple slim battery packs hidden in the frame tubes. Cost was something >€50,000. I still remember this quite well because there was a lot of Cancellara talk at that time. And they showed a nice picture of the system.
Not saying that this was used in the pro peloton but the technology was already there. And even if the power supply did not last for very long, it could already help with the decisive move.
Köchli:
Tempo is “Leicht” (=easy) . As already alluded to in the Pro thread, in his book LeMond defines (base) endurance pace with a very wide range. And stresses that one should not ride too easy as he considers it as useless. The (sort of) successor of Köchli’s manual leans quite heavy on intense endurance as well. Or at least when compared to the “current trend”. Interestingly, they present pol and pyr/threshold models of training but dismiss both. They follow and “individualized model”. They say they don’t have any scientific proof but it has been working for 30 years 
. The sample plan is quite intense endurance heavy.
BTW - Vuelta 2015, a less discreete version of motor doping. Extreme version of a “sticky bottle”. A classic
The main reason I’m skeptical about claims of motor doping is that riders in the peloton would consider it cheating in a way they don’t with various PEDs.
Evidence for what?
You can “listen” to YT videos just in a browser on your phone. Definitely works in Safari on iOS. Steps are:
Steps 4-6 should be done in about 1-2 seconds. Then it just plays nicely in the background and you can lock the screen, or do other stuff on your phone.
Absolutely no doubt it existed. There was a documentary with very obvious examples . I cannot find it now but i will try again when i have more time and i’m on my computer.
Just this quick example of Hesjedal’s bike moving by itself after a crash. It can only be explained by the rear wheel having a motor. Hesjedal motor bike? (Doped bike with engine) / Bici a motore? Vuelta 2014 - YouTube
It was at the same era as Cancellara.
That was debunked.
I just don’t believe in “space ship motors” and some $100k invisible, small battery, technology.
So, Femke Van Den Driessche (Belgian cyclocrosser) was the only one that was ever caught with a motor in a bike - not in a race as I recall. The bike was in the pits. Was her bike ever confiscated? Pictures ever released? I can’t find anything with google.
I found the documentary about the motors. It was made by the French television, sorry, I did not find it with english subtitles. They made a couple more documentaries about how the scanner tablets the UCI use are useless, other types of motors…
Quick summary: motors in the bottom bracket, in the rear axle, and electromagnetic motors in the deep rim wheels.
They gave a few examples of wheels spinning up by themselves after a crash, bike changes, bike hiding, Froome playing a lot with his headset unit in important moments…
Rewatching this today I was just remembering the same comments in this year TdF: riders using a lot their headset units in climbs, deep rim wheels in mountain stages…
Remco was fiddling with his head unit quite a bit during today’s San Sebastian. Hmmmmm
I remember this one. Is it even theoretically possible?
I’m not really convinced by the debunking video. It’s heavily edited and it doesn’t make the demonstration clear. During Hesjedal crash, the rear wheel appears to be on the ground which should stop it and then the bike continue spinning, but ok…
Femke Van Den Driessche was caught during the under-23 cyclocross world championship. She was one of the favorites for this race.
