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Mechanical doping: Forget concealed motors - electromagnetic powered wheels are now the weapon of choice in the motor doper's arsenal. Maybe

Gazzetta dello Sport reckons €200,000 electromagnetic rear wheels are now where it's at in mechanical doping, we're not so sure

Are cyclists using €200,000 electromagnetic rear wheels to provide 20 to 60 watts of extra power? 

Since the UCI revealed the finding of a hidden motor inside a bike at the cyclo-cross World Championships last weekend, the internet has gone into a frenzy of speculation. Italian newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport has reported claims that the concealed motor found at the weekend is already old hat with the advent of an electromagnetic rear wheel.

- Mechanical doping: All you need to know about concealed motors

As yet the UCI hasn’t released any details of the hidden motor found at the world champs, leaving us to speculate on what the hidden motor is. We’ve assumed, and it seems most likely, that they have found a system where the motor is hidden inside the frame (in the down tube or top tube) and powers the cranks via the bottom bracket axle. That seems a fair assumption given the reports that mention wires where they shouldn't have been and the difficulty of removing the bike's cranks.

You can even buy (for a decent wedge of money) an off-the-shelf system, such as the well known Vivax Assist, which you can pretty much plug into any compatible road bike. 

But is this sort of mechanical doping already old hat, and is there a new era of mechanical doping yet to be discovered? Gazzetta dello Sport claims a source that says this sort of technology is “old stuff” and “a doping of the poor”. Instead, what we're really looking at for the future (if there is one) of mechanical doping is electromagnetic wheels.

The article adds that such technology costs a whacking €200,000 and delivery times are six months. The system is encased in the rim and works best in a deep-section carbon fibre rim, according to the story. 

The Gazzetta dello Sport doesn’t go into much detail about how these electromagnetic wheels really work. It does provide an illustration (pictured top), which doesn't really help much either.

What we think Gazzetta is pointing towards is electromagnetic propulsion, the concept of propelling an object forward, in this case, a bicycle wheel, by using opposing magnetic fields created by electrical currents.

While in theory it might make some sense, and it works for Maglev trains, in reality it doesn't sound very plausible to us. For a start you'd need two sets of magnets, in the rim and also in the frame, to oppose each other, requiring modification of the frame, and that would be very visible. You'd need some fair sized magnets and a considerable power source to make it all work.

And where would the batteries be concealed and how long would the system last? And just how much weight would it add to a standard wheel? And how much power does such a system, if it worked, offer? Lots of questions, but few answers.

“The available power is much less, from 20 to 60 watts, but enough to turn a professional mid-level in a phenomenon,” says Gazzetta dello Sport’s Claudio Ghisalberti, citing an undisclosed source.

The article also suggests that there is a  division between the requirements of professionals and amateurs.

“In the first case, you don’t need too much power or too much torque: 50-60 watts are more than enough. In the second, however, you need a lot of torque and a lot of power. The performance of these motors is better with a high pedalling cadence.”

So amateur cyclists using the currently available mechanical motors? The article suggests there has been a lot of interest in Vivax Assist style devices that can be retrofitted to regular carbon fibre road bikes. 

“I alone have sold 1,200 of them in Italy. When I read results of Gran Fondos, I start laughing, I could rewrite almost all of them.”

Is Gazzetta dello Sport barking up the wrong tree, or is there any merit in the theory? 

David worked on the road.cc tech team from 2012-2020. Previously he was editor of Bikemagic.com and before that staff writer at RCUK. He's a seasoned cyclist of all disciplines, from road to mountain biking, touring to cyclo-cross, he only wishes he had time to ride them all. He's mildly competitive, though he'll never admit it, and is a frequent road racer but is too lazy to do really well. He currently resides in the Cotswolds, and you can now find him over on his own YouTube channel David Arthur - Just Ride Bikes

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11 comments

Avatar
Cyclespeed Tours | 8 years ago
0 likes

When I do the Etape this summer, I will be keeping a close eye on where other riders are placing their hands on the bars and what they are pressing......especially Italian ones.

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alexb | 8 years ago
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If this wheel isn't powered, then it's going to cause a fair bit of drag, unless the rotor/stator system move relative to each other.

Just turn over any motor by hand and you can feel the resistance in the motor. When you see the video that sparked all this off, the wheel of Hesjedal's bike just spinning as it freewheeled after he'd fallen off, you can see that if this type of wheel was fitted it would come to a stop pretty quickly.

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nortonpdj | 8 years ago
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When the mysterious person says “I alone have sold 1,200 of them in Italy", surely he means the  Vivax Assist type system, not the €200,000 electromagnetic rear wheels.

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Al__S | 8 years ago
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Beyond this Gazetta article is there evidence the wheel exists?

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ridein | 8 years ago
1 like

Is this April 1st or February 1st? I can't believe this for a few reasons.
1) How could this be sold to 1200 people if it is just being revealed now in the press?
2) Another problem I have is the 1200 people that can supposedly afford the 200,000 price.  I would guess there is less than 10 people in the whole world who MIGHT be a customer, much less than 1200 Italian riders. If going fast on a bike is their idea of fun, then why not just get a motorcycle for faster speeds and they can go for much longer at a fraction of 200K.
3) Technical information and details are just not provided.
4) I seriously doubt the system can work continously for the duration of a race of 4-6 hours.  
If not then the extra magnets or whatever in the rim cavity would have a negative impact when not operational.

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Skimpy1 | 8 years ago
1 like

Utter bo**ocks. Why would cadence be a factor if the wheel forms the rotor of an electric motor? 

As noted above, there needs to be a stator somewhere in the system, effectively a set of electromagnetic poles. Where is this located.....in the chain stays. Also as noted above, air gap is citical for efficiency. How close are the chainstays on the bike with the magic wheel. 

And finally, the cost...€200k. A working system could be cobbled together for a fraction of this. But it would produce bugger all power and would be easily detected. Maybe all that cost is swallowed up in the system for supercooling the electromagnets smiley.

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yagi | 8 years ago
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A motor is just a magnet in a moving magnetic field. In this case the wheel is part of the motor, but the problem is the large air gap between rotor and stator (perhaps coils inside the chain stays) which will reduce the efficiency. The same principle as a fork mounted contactless dynamo light. An alternative would be magnets on the crank axle and coils in the seat and downtubes. It would be nearly silent, but may be powerful enough to make a difference. Shouldn't be hard to detect though. Hopefully the UCI will make their findings public.

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Must be Mad | 8 years ago
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possible in theory, and might be quiter in operation, but it does sound like a very ineffecient system, and I don't see why this would be any more difficult to police that the 'standard' seat tube motor

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multifrag | 8 years ago
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I can't imagine the wheels being very efficent . Built couple of ebikes and those damn magnets are not only heavy, but at best only 60-80% efficent. So just by having it on your bike you will lower your time by a lot. I don't think that 20-60w for an hour or two will change anything. Might even worsen it. The previous model which was conseled in the frame was more efficent for it size, weight and most probably used the fram to disapate the heat produced. Not to mention the direct contact with the gears, so there was little to no loss in efficency.

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Al__S | 8 years ago
1 like

Wait, the source is claming to have sold €240million worth of stock on this? Really? Over how long? a company turning over €240million is a big deal. A really big one.

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adscrim replied to Al__S | 8 years ago
0 likes

Al__S wrote:

Wait, the source is claming to have sold €240million worth of stock on this? Really? Over how long? a company turning over €240million is a big deal. A really big one.

 

It looks like it's the Vivax assist style motors that have seen 1200 sales, not the €200k wheel.

 

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