Is this an electric bike or not? what do you think?

oigoi

Esteemed Pedelecer
Apr 14, 2011
467
7
Hi,
Just thought I would share with you this link, it is a video about the idea that the racing cyclist Fabian Cancellara rides with an electric motor hidden in the frame.

YouTube - ‪Bike with engine (doped bike) and Cancellara (Roubaix - Vlaanderen)‬‏

In the videao at 3:43 he appears to accelerate considerably but not appearing to put any more effort in, what do you think?

Or would the weight of the battery over a race of this length (about 200km) outweight any advantage gained by a hidden motor?
 

carpetbagger

Esteemed Pedelecer
Nov 20, 2007
744
18
blackburn
i have seen this before,suspicious yes,speed increase seems quite significant.But all the bikes would be scrutineered and would have thought that would include weight which would definetly seem very strange that his bike is signifiantly heavier when they try to knock grams of and i am sure any strange buttons would be found.But i might be wrong ........
 
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flecc

Member
Oct 25, 2006
53,559
30,848
It's a nonsense. Motors that would fit into frame tubes will of necessity be fairly noisy for any appreciable output. The one motor of this type in existence that has probably given rise to this story has around 120 watts of gross output which though a right angle crank drive would result in under 100 watts of net gain which is peanuts to a rider like Cancellara, especially as the inclusion of the weight of that and a battery would cancel out much of that.

Compared with Cancellara's own very short term output ability of probably well over 800 watts, the less than 12% addition such a motor would give is hardly likely to result in a visibly dramatic surge in acceleration or speed.
 

steveindenmark

Esteemed Pedelecer
Apr 10, 2011
406
2
I have seen this before with other cyclists and you will see it in this years tour.

That is providing the mobile camera crews do not kill all of the riders.

Steve
 

Scimitar

Esteemed Pedelecer
Jul 31, 2010
1,772
40
Ireland
Hi,
Just thought I would share with you this link, it is a video about the idea that the racing cyclist Fabian Cancellara rides with an electric motor hidden in the frame.

YouTube - ‪Bike with engine (doped bike) and Cancellara (Roubaix - Vlaanderen)‬‏

In the videao at 3:43 he appears to accelerate considerably but not appearing to put any more effort in, what do you think?

Or would the weight of the battery over a race of this length (about 200km) outweight any advantage gained by a hidden motor?
Oh, for gawd's sake - this old crap again.