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‘Mechanical doping’ may hit cycling

MONACO — Something feels very wrong. I am cruising past Baden Cooke, a former green-jersey winner at the Tour de France, on a climb called Mortola, near Monaco. It is as if he is standing still. The Australian — though recently retired, the 36-year-old is still lean and muscular — is up on his pedals, giving it everything, while I am in the saddle turning a biggish gear. And I gave him a 100m start.

The peloton riding down the Champs Elysees in Paris at last year’s Tour de France. To this day, no one has been caught with a motor on his bicycle. But it is increasingly obvious that the technology exists, if a rider or team were that way inclined. Photo: Getty Images

The peloton riding down the Champs Elysees in Paris at last year’s Tour de France. To this day, no one has been caught with a motor on his bicycle. But it is increasingly obvious that the technology exists, if a rider or team were that way inclined. Photo: Getty Images

MONACO — Something feels very wrong. I am cruising past Baden Cooke, a former green-jersey winner at the Tour de France, on a climb called Mortola, near Monaco. It is as if he is standing still. The Australian — though recently retired, the 36-year-old is still lean and muscular — is up on his pedals, giving it everything, while I am in the saddle turning a biggish gear. And I gave him a 100m start.

What I do have going for me is that concealed within the bottle on my down tube is a battery, which is running a motor, which, in turn, is helping to turn the bicycle’s crank. It is giving me around 250W of power, an astonishing amount in a sport where riders would sell their grannies for an extra 20W.

But the experience is making me rather queasy. With this year’s Tour beginning in Utrecht on Saturday, it is forcing me to ask a question that, until now, I had dismissed as absurd: Could mechanical doping really be taking place in the peloton?

The UCI, the cycling’s world governing body, thinks it is a possibility. After being explicitly warned in March in the Cycling Independent Reform Commission report that WorldTour teams might be using motors hidden inside frames, it will conduct unannounced bicycle checks over the next three weeks.

“We know we must be vigilant,” a spokesperson told The Daily Telegraph, adding that the UCI was taking the threat “extremely seriously”.

He added: “Most recently, we carried out unannounced bike checks at Paris-Nice, Milan-San Remo and on the Giro of bikes used on the race and those in teams’ trucks. We plan further unannounced controls throughout the season.”

Most people within cycling are firmly of the opinion that these checks are an expensive waste of time.

Rumours of motors in bicycles have been bubbling away for years, and they have never gained much traction.

There was the famous YouTube video featuring former Italian professional Davide Cassani — now seen by nearly four million people — which purported to show how Fabian Cancellara won the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix in 2010 by using an illegal motor. Cancellara dismissed the allegations as “sad and outrageous”.

More recently, Garmin-Sharp’s Ryder Hesjedal was forced to defend himself against “ridiculous” claims that his bicycle had a motor in it, after he crashed in last year’s Vuelta a Espana and the rear wheel carried on spinning furiously.

To this day, no one has been caught with a motor on his bicycle. But it is increasingly obvious that the technology exists, if a rider or team were that way inclined.

Most major manufacturers are thought to be looking seriously at motor-assisted bicycles. Speaking to The Telegraph this week, Belgian rider Eddy Merckx said: “As long as it’s not for racing, why not?”.

Typhoon — the bicycle I am riding — is hoping to get in there first. Run by the Monaco-based Harry Gibbings, Oakley’s former European marketing director, who has worked in both Formula 1 and cycling, its prototype looks, to the naked eye, like a high-end racing bicycle, with custom-made carbon Sarto frames, Shimano Dura Ace or Campagnolo Record groupsets, Black Inc aero wheels.

The technology is the brainchild of an “eccentric” Eastern European inventor whose name Gibbings is unwilling to disclose, a former amateur rider with a long client order list.

Typhoon has bought the rights to the technology and taken out a patent, and Gibbings is working with Gary Anderson, the former Jordan F1 designer, to help find a more ergonomic solution to the packaging.

Gibbings and Anderson were put together by Eddie Jordan himself, another Monaco resident and a supporter of the project. Other high-profile supporters include Monaco’s Prince Albert and former F1 driver David Coulthard.

The company plans to build around 50 prototypes, each costing between €12,000 (S$18,000) and €15,000, with the intention then to bring these to the mass market.

“There are so many applications; sporting, leisure, even medical,” said Gibbings. “What if your doctor has told you that your heart rate must not rise above 180bpm? The motor can be linked to our bespoke trip computer, which can then kick in automatically.

“Old people needing help with a hill? Amateur riders who want to go out with pros? You wouldn’t be the one holding everyone up any more ... Remember, this is not an electric bike. It is a motor-assisted bike. It works only when you are pedalling. You still have to work. It’s just that you have a guardian angel helping you up the hill if you choose to use it.”

If that sounds worryingly like a description of performance-enhancing drugs, Gibbings is at pains to stress that his bicycle is not aimed at professionals; the intention is not to facilitate cheating. He does admit, though, that the technology has attracted unwelcome interest.

“I was approached by one rider manager recently asking if it could be incorporated into his client’s bike. I don’t want to be asked again. Next time, I might go public with who it is. It’s important to stress that.”

It does beg the question, though: If Gibbings is already being approached by one inquisitive manager, then would others within the pro scene not be just as curious?

The project certainly has riders based in Monaco a little jumpy.

“When Harry first showed me, honestly, I was like, ‘f*** me’,” admitted Adam Blythe, a British rider with ORICA-GreenEDGE who joined us on our ride. “I mean, you hear all these rumours. You feel a bit sick. For me, if anyone is using this ... it would be an absolute disgrace. As bad as (Lance) Armstrong. There is no grey area.”

Another Monaco-based WorldTour rider, speaking under condition of anonymity, is less convinced.

“Absolutely no f****** way,” he said. “It would require too many people to be complicit — mechanics, DSs, agents. It would get out.” As I wait for Cooke and Gibbings at the top of Mortola, I hope he is right.

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH

Tom Cary is the cycling correspondent at The Daily Telegraph.

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