Interbike Coverage Continues; Another Motor Found in Cat 3 Race

Editor’s Notes:

1) Our 2017 Interbike coverage continues today, with both Jim Langley and I providing our “best of the rest” rundown of products, trends and notes from North America’s premier cycling showcase. (See those articles below.) We started our coverage last week with our Top 10 Products from the show.

2) Owing to a short week dictated by a family issue, I’m delaying our latest Premium Member giveaway drawing for another week. If you haven’t had a chance to join or renew as a Premium, or let me know that you’re interested in the special drawing for the “bigfoot” pair of gorgeous Fizik cycling shoes, now you’ve got another week to be entered. Here’s a reminder of the prizes for this drawing:

• 1 free USA Cycling RIDE PLUS Membership (value: $150; click the link to read about this great new cycling roadside assistance program from USA Cycling) 
• 5 20% Off Coupons for a MELD Body-Customized Road Bike Saddle (value: $50 – $65 each; click the link to read my recent review of the MELD Custom Saddle)

All current Premium Members as of Oct. 8, 2017, are eligible for the drawing for these terrific prizes; drawing will take place Oct. 9, and winners will be announced in the Oct. 12 issue of RBR Newsletter.

And A Bonus “Bigfoot” Prize

This one is open ONLY to Premium Members who wear at least a 45.5 shoe. Here’s why: We have a brand new pair of gorgeous white Fizik R1B Uomo Road Shoes (click the link to read our review). But they’re huge: size 45. As these shoes run about .5 to a full size bigger than normal, only those of you who wear a 45.5 need apply. But if you are a bigfoot – and a current Premium Member – please use the Contact Us form to let me know you’d like to be included in this drawing. We want these beautiful shoes to go to a good home!

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43-Year-Old French CAT 3 Racer Busted for Motor

For the second time this year, a European amateur bike racer (first, an Italian, now a French) has been busted for using a motor on his bike during a race.

The 43-year-old French Cat 3 cyclist had come under suspicion after some recent eye-opening climbing efforts in races. This time, authorities were lying in wait for him after a race in Saint-Michel-de-Double, in the Dordogne region near Bordeaux.

They had been tipped off about his recent suspect performances. In this race, after dueling at the front with a much younger rider, then flatting, the “mechanical doper” decided to exit the race, perhaps in the vain hope that he could once again avoid detection.

Instead, authorities asked to inspect his bike and discovered a motor in the down tube at the bottom bracket, and exposed electrical wires behind the seat tube bottle cage.

Now, with a professional cyclocross racer and two amateur races having been exposed for “mechanical doping” – I prefer motorized cheating – in the past year, I couldn’t blame anyone, at any level of racing, for wondering if all their fellow competitors are racing clean.

For heaven’s sake, this guy was a CAT 3! He was still two full rungs below being good enough to really have a reason to think about cheating.

This also points up the fact that, with commercially available e-road bikes perhaps less than a year away (see my Interbike coverage from last week about Focus’s e-road bike prototype), it could become easier and easier to employ motorized cheating at all levels of racing.

Heaven help us!

Here’s a Cycling News article about the French “mechanical doping” bust.

—John Marsh