Wout Van Aert’s Motorized World Cup Bike?

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I saw the video below on Facebook.  It was a from a corner at the World Cup today in Italy of Wout Van Aert running a technical section of the race.  The video is short and it initially looks like the his rear wheel accelerates on its own when it leaves the ground.

Obviously, the left pedal hits the ground and the crank rotates 1/4 of a revolution.  Is that enough to accelerate the wheel so quickly?

There have been something like 70000 views at the Facebook page.  Lots of the comments are in Spanish, but there are over 400 of them.  Plus, 530 people have shared the post.

To me, it doesn’t look like it is an issue, but if you don’t pay attention, or don’t watch the video more than once, it is easy to think the bike has a motor.  The way the dude rides many times, you’d think he has a motor.

You decide for yourself.

 

43 thoughts on “Wout Van Aert’s Motorized World Cup Bike?

  1. Emil Gercke

    I think you are right Steve, you can see his left pedal hit the ground as the wheel accelerates.

     
  2. Steve Tilford Post author

    Emil – I saw that, but was noticing one of the comments on Facebook, in Spanish, that translated into something like, watch the video is slow motion and the rear wheel accelerates before his pedal hit the rock/ground. I don’t really know how you watch it slow motion, but he would have a point if that was true.

     
  3. Joe

    Usually when you go downhill, you have just gone uphill. What gear did he use to ride uphill that would give you 3-4 rotation of a rear wheel with 1/2 of a crank turn?
    That’s some boss sauce there.

     
  4. Bolas Azules

    Bike looks juiced to me….and it looks like he is doing everything he can to hold it firm to the ground

     
  5. Franz

    I can’t make a wheel accelerate that fast when I am standing over the pedals. I don’t see how it could do that from a pedal strike in the mud while running at such a slow speed.

     
  6. Jerry Spaulding

    If the rear wheel was being driven as he held the bike down it could lose traction when the pedal hits the ground and spin the rear tire??

     
  7. Dude Ron

    That wheel is spinning like he just hopped off a 60×15!! VDP must be looking at this in super slow mo!

     
  8. Mike crum

    Maybe these guys are deciding to cheat this way instead of taking the drugs. After all, drugs are bad in the long run on your body. On the other hand, this is the highest level of this sport. And we all know to be at the highest level in ANY sport , you cheat. Sad, but true.

     
  9. Mike Rodose

    I’ve never seen any wheel action like that!

    If that’s not a motor, perhaps a shift into a lighter gear with a simultneous quick pedal push?

     
  10. Bill K

    All bikes in the pit should be tagged before the race, with a upc tag that is destroyed when you remove it, and then inspected after.

     
  11. wheelman61

    No way that the back wheel would spin up like that from a pedal strike…..unless there’s help from a motor.

     
  12. Greg

    The wheel looks like it is still spinning when it is on ground. Looks like it is kicking up dust and skidding on the ground. No doubt its a motor.

     
  13. Done with your lies ...

    Yeah, U R such “a poser” jerk off … I use to admire you. I use to admire cycling. I use to admire the group of people you “hung with!” I guess you have to metaphorically “kill your heroes,” to finally know that cycling is filled with bullshit drug addicts, liars and hypocrites … Everybody is on the juice except for you, (right?) Maybe we should ask about Greg Lemonds La Vie Claire’s teem doctors “vitamin injections?” Get yourself down from that cross you constructed for yourself. Your “father” isn’t coming to save you! Recover soon from your traumatic head injury. Maybe you’ll “wake-up” and find some common sense! All the best!

     
  14. Bill Hall

    I don’t believe the pedal strike would cause that kind of acceleration. It goes around to many times in that short span.

     
  15. Steve Bobusch

    I say no motor, the crank gets caught and really light wheels and tires accelerate quickly. In CX it’s too risky and you’d be far more likely to get caught that in road racing. Nearly every inch of these courses are lined with fans and likely video as well. You simply pick up your bike and/or crash too many times to not have a suspicious video or allegations brought against you within the first couple races. No way anyone is hiding that for a full season, between the UCI bike checks and all the prying eyes, and Wout has too much at risk when we can win without it.

     
  16. hubcap diamondstar

    Not only does his left pedal catch on something, you can see his arm carrying the bike momentarily get stretched out and create tension. This tension is released when the pedal starts to rotate and spin the wheel. Pedal got a good little kick. If there was a motor producing 50 or 100 watts, he would have to be restraining it with his arm a bit more, it looks to me like he’s got a pretty casual hold on it and isn’t really pushing it into the ground. I don’t believe there’s a motor there at all.

     
  17. Ken

    That’s a motor. Watch the end of the video. As he turns the corner it does it again, but the video is cut off too soon to see it completely.

     
  18. KrakatoaEastofJava

    Yet the one confirmed case of motorized cheating took place at cyclocross world’s last year… when everyone’s eyes were upon her.

     
  19. Steve Bobusch

    I wouldn’t put it past the UCI and Crookson, but I still think that your peers would notice and you’d get caught. I watch that full race last night and it didn’t really look as suspicious as this little clip did, not sure if the speed of the video was altered slightly.

     
  20. KrakatoaEastofJava

    No man. The pedal strike is what caused the bike wheel to lift off the ground, but not what caused the wheel to rotate disproportionately to the available gearing. That wheel had to have already been under some considerable power to be able to respond and rotate that much, that quickly.

     
  21. Stephen

    If any of you watched the race you’d realize that the corner where this happened and the approach to it is the last place a motor would be useful- it was a steep muddy descent leading up to the series of slick off-camber corners. Why would you have a motor turned on for this? It would only cause a crash. Everyone was braking coming down the hill and into the corner, and there was a running section after. In fact, this course was so slick that I am guessing there were few places the extra ~200 watts would actually translate to speed and not a crash, and the weight would hurt you on the many running sections.

    I don’t doubt motors have been used in the pro peloton, and clearly they have already in elite cyclocross. But I don’t know how informative staring at seconds of video clips is

     
  22. Dumbed with your tires ...

    “Bury motors in your carbon rims ….” Click link to CBS news for more information. … https://youtu.be/lf6vCjtaV1k I’d love to see their “in-depth article,” on the use of HGH, in “natural,” pubescent black, “middle-school,” basketball players with NCAA hoop, hopes … Or the use of androgens in High School football … Well, I guess we’ll have to wait till John Oliver does that one (we know Greg Oliver never will.) Professional cycling can die a painfully horrible death, by a million public relations paper cuts, while all our children grow fat and lethargic playing video games. Thanks Tyler, you’ve always been a sort of self centred, narcissistic, prick … “Those bicycles shouldn’t be on the road, they might hurt somebody, even themselves.” Well back to Milton’s “Paradise Lost!” OMG professional cycling, is just like professional football!!!

     
  23. Dumbed with your tires ...

    Remember Oriana Zill de Granados? She is the producer of both the CBS 60 minutes Lance Armstrong pieces/Tyler piece …. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/usada-report-slams-lance-armstrong/ She also is the producer of the “Electric race bicycles” 60 Minutes piece. Go figure? The executive producer. She is a young “dynamic” woman. Of medium height. Very intelligent . That weights close to 300 lbs …. Something tells me that even with a Gruber assist, she isn’t get’n “up any of those hills!”

     

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