The Gruber Assist

Special Interest Areas transportation
1

Cancellara has been accused of ‘mechanical doping’:

by the using best named product in the world:

and here is the the alleged proof:

he’s off like a brides nightie (3.34), but wouldn’t the noise of this thing alert everyone around him that something isn’t right?

I think it is a sensational idea, except it would be a pain to install and service, plus the internal gears would wear out real fast.

I can’t see how he’d do this, unless bike swapping occurred at a strategic point. An extra 2000gr is two water bottles, more than do-able and the weight is down low so the effects on the handling of the bike would be minimal, but retrofitting into his Sworks carbon frame would cause all sorts of problems.

Surely cheating does not occur in professional bicycle races?

2

Hah, I was googeling around that story all day yesterday!

It sounds very plausible, however, the video ‘evidence’ isn’t too convincing. It’s so easy to over analyse extremely small gestures.
Should be pretty easy to switch the motor on at occasions where there’s either crowds, motorcycles or other noise.

From the nerdy point of view, it’s a lot more interesting kind of cheating than doping at least… But it couldn’t seriously be that hard to stop. X-ray, magnetic fields?

3

It occurs in professional motor racing (at every level), why not bicycle racing? The riders are already demonstrated as willing to cheat (via doping); I am 100% certain that someone would use something like this if they thought they could get away with it.