What to do with scammers

 

What can be done about scammers?  I read a poem about them being crucified? That would nail ‘em.

In our world, apparently, 10 years gaol is the maximum custodial sentence for fraud, which includes online scamming. In reality, scammers receive much lighter sentences. A recent television documentary told how one gentleman who fraudulently earned £millions conning “investors” with his fine art and fine wine scam was caught after a lengthy police investigation but got only three years. This was then reduced to two. Then he was allowed compassionate leave for a day and never came back.

He was caught again two years later, by which time he had amassed thousands more with fraudulent activities, but this time he faced charges in both the UK and USA.

Clearly, he was a career baddie who became very rich on his ill-gotten gains and was in need of more appropriate treatment.

Gaol is too good for them, in my opinion. They  con many people out of their life savings.

Why this particular beef about scammers?

Well, this is personal.  Computers in our house have recently been targeted by scammers. They explode into view on the screen with lookalike Microsoft and/or Apple graphics.

They call these sudden intrusions pop ups, and they arrive out the blue, with much noise and bluster for shock tactics, an attempt to sow confusion, cause panic.  A voice over warns us that they have detected a suspected Trojan virus… warning don’t switch off whatever you do. And “Just immediately run this scan or call this number”.  

Oh, yeah?

Of course we know better than to do either of those things, but in a panic that’s what the scammers are hoping you will do,  hoping to gain access.  Getting rid of the pop-up nightmare has proved a nightmare and while it remains it has rendered the Mac unusable.

In the past we’ve got rid of them.

But this one is lingering and has so far resisted being cleared out.

So, what is to be done with the scammer bastards if caught?

I recall in one work of fiction the author’s heroes dealt with the criminals by flying them to Antarctica, where the bad people were ushered out to their freedom in the depths of a freezing winter, wearing only light summer clothing. The plane then took off, leaving them to it. It was -60c, so they probably had about 30 minutes.

Marvellous story.

But how about magic? This idea borrowed from Harry Potter’s adventures at Hogwarts, that school for children with magical powers.

I have a Harry Potter wand in the house and do wonder sometimes if I dare to use it!

I recall one story when Harry was at home and had to endure the company of an aunt who he didn’t much like. The feelings were mutual.

On one occasion he decided he didn’t need to listen to her barbed comments anymore and so he cast a spell on her. Well, that was breaking the golden rule of Hogwarts, which was never ever to use your powers on ordinary people.

Harry’s father was furious when he released what his son had done. He knew as soon as aunt’s feet began to lift off the carpet. She gave an “oo” and and “ahh”, and her eyes grew wide in surprise, then fright as she swung up slowly to the ceiling where she bumped around next to the light fitting, arms and legs flailing about. Harry watched, bemused.

The door was open and she gradually glided out to the hall, crying out in bewilderment while Harry smiled. He and his horrified mum and angry dad looked on as she bumped along the hall ceiling and out of the front door, to disappear spiralling slowly upwards into the sky, her cries of alarm gradually fading away over the rooftops.

I am sure Harry, who was roundly scolded by his father for this wanton act, very soon afterwards cancelled the spell so that his aunt was returned to earth. But I’m not sure!

Would that I had Harry’s powers to deal with the scammers.

Prison is too good for them.

I would send the scammers aloft never to return, to be forever trapped in a floating void, fully conscious of their predicament, fearful, and wetting themselves, filling their pants, totally unable to do anything about their fate.

The idea would be for them to become so uncomfortable, so bewildered, they would eventually go mental, floating about up there in the sky for ever and ever, buzzed by gulls and swifts and perhaps scratched by the talons of hawks.

On the eve of the Grand Depart, a look back to Le Tour's longest stage of '84

 

In the previous blog I mentioned that Le Tour, which starts tomorrow in Lille,  is quite a bit shorter than some 40 years ago. In the 1980s the riders covered between 700 and in some editions, 1000 kilometres more.

For instance, this year’s three week marathon around France totals 3320 kilometres compared to 4020.9 in 1984, when Laurent Fignon won his second consecutive Tour.

It was inferred that shorter stages might reduce the temptation of those riders who might feel the need to take some “juice” to survive!  That hope went out of the window at the turn of the century, when EPO was the drug of choice, with Lance Armstrong and his team heading the cheats.

Since then it is claimed that the sport has cleaned up its act. I read that its 10 years since a rider last tested positive for doping on Le Tour, so good news.

But have the shorter stages made the race less arduous?  Not necessarily. The question was once put to Sean Kelly, four times the green jersey point’s winner in the 80s, and now a well-known TV pundit on Le Tour.

He considered that in some cases the race today had become harder, because the speed was now greater than it was for the longer stages back in his day.

One of the longest stages of the race in the 80s was during 1984 edition.

This was stage 9, from Nantes in the Loire to Bordeaux in the south, in the Gironde, 338 kilometres away! It was the longest stage of the modern era. Longer by between 60 and 100 kilometres from what was the norm.  back then.

There was an 8am start and the riders let the organisers know they were not happy with the distance. It would mean twice as long in the saddle compared to today’s stages. At least it was flat!

But it took close on 10 hours to complete!

They protested with a go-slow, and only cranked into the life in the last two hours.

But what a climatic finale!

A sunny but stiflingly hot boring day, every piece of shade on the route was taken by spectators.

Riders amused themselves by stealing spectator’s hats. Going back to the cars for bottles all day long and they only came to life in the last couple of hours.

The stage was won by classics Dutch star Jan Raas, who  stole ahead of the field in the final kilometres through the streets of Bordeaux.   I have this memory of Raas cheekilyleaving his effort to the very last in a risky stunt which almost didn’t pay off.

Having got a decent gap, he squandered his advantage with a delaying tactic which risked costing him the stage victory, looking ahead to the finish line in the distance, and then  twisting around to look behind again; taunting the main field surging in pursuit and closing fast. 

He waited, waited. He was saving all his energy before making one last burst with seconds to spare.  The Dutch journalists – in fact everyone - were open mouthed.

It was like watching a surfer defying a huge wave unfolding in all its fury which would surely engulf the pair.  Yet somehow it didn’t.

Raas surged ahead acrosss the line with an expression which said no bother.  

Leali was second in the same time, Mark Madiot was fourth at 3 seconds with Kelly outsprinting the main field breathing down their necks a further two seconds adrift.

It was a classic finish to enliven a long boring day. Raas stood there surrounded by press and with a confident grin - more of a smirk.  “Well…what did you expect?” it seemed to say.

Here was the star at the top of his game,  a one-day rider at heart, as this list his famous victories testifies:

World road championship 1; Amstel Gold 5;  Tour of Flanders 2; Paris-tours 2; Milan-San Remo ; Ghent Wevelgem ; Paris-Roubaix ; E3 – Prijs Harelbeke 3; Tour of Netherlands : Paris – Brussells ; Omloop Hetvolk .

Looking forward to the start of Le Tour

 

Have you bought your guide to the Tour de France 2025 which kicks off on July 5 in Lille Nord, just across the Channel?

It’s an excellent magazine, with in depth features on the riders, full route, detailed maps of each stage and much more. It also includes a supplement about the stages which have featured the feared climb of Mount Ventoux, scene of triumph and tragedy over the years and which features again this time. One page is devoted to Britain’s Tom Simpson who in 1967 collapsed on the cruel slopes of the Ventoux under the hot sun and died. The sport was shocked to the core.

That terrible occasion will for ever remain as a sobering reminder of the brutality of the Tour.

Curiously, though, this guide contains only a passing mention to Lille which is hosting the Grand Depart for the third time. Lille has a long relationship with Le Tour, having  hosted over 30 stages since 1906, including two Grand Departs before this one, in 1960 and in 1994.

Clearly, this is an oversight.

To find out more check out  this link: www.tourdelille.com

This is provided by Andy Sutcliffe, former editor of Cycling Weekly, who now lives in the Lille area. The lucky beggar will have the Tour passing his front door twice, or is it three times?

The Guide I have makes only a passing mention to Lille when it refers to  Chris Boardman winning the prologue there in 1994, in record time, to wear -  briefly - the famous yellow jersey.

This  year Lille Nord is graced with  hosting the first three stages in the region.

I was in Lille when reporting the 1982 Tour, when Dutchman Jan Raas won stage 6 there, a 221- kilometre loop.  They were longer stages back then.

That year’s race started from Basle in Switzerland and Bernard Hinault would win his fourth Tour out of five after an absorbing battle. That year also saw history made when non-European riders dominated for the first time, making HInault work to take time bonuses in intermediate sprints. Ireland’s Sean Kelly won the green points jersey, and Aussie Phil Anderson held the yellow jersey for eight stages before finishing fifth overall.

After the Lille stage the race had a day off to make one of its famously long transfers by road, this one over 400 miles to Brittany for Stage 7, a team time trial starting from Cancale.

Of course, the riders flew.

There was slight problem when  one of the two planes charted by Le Tour was taken out of service at the last moment! We picked up this story when we arrived at the press centre after a long drive from Lille.

Well,  you can’t simply hold up tired riders on Le Tour!  In fact, the riders barely noticed the delay, for another aircraft was conjured up to get them off the ground.

There was speculation as to where they got this plane from at such short notice.  The story goes that passengers about to board another flight were suddenly told of a hold up and must wait for another aircraft. Yes,  you guessed it. Le Tour nicked it, allegedly. No one stops Le Tour.

Well, demonstrations used to do so, workers wanting to bring their grievances to the notice of the press.

The Tour guide includes lots of good photographs, including of course, several of the defending champion, the wonder boy, world champion  and three times Tour winner Tadje Pogacar. His dominance these past few years – with one exception -  as exciting as it has been, is now  beginning to tire for some followers. 

Such is the fate that awaits all sports champions who so completely stifle the opposition year after year. We admire them of course, but then become impatient to see them beaten.

Having said that I shall eagerly await his attacks, for he lights the race up like no other, and from so far out.  He seems to have so m much more power than anyone else, often leaving riders like Remco Evenepoel and Jonas Vingegaard struggling. But equally, I hope to see Pog seriously challenged this time, and for race to go down to the wire.

Last year Pogacar famously won the Triple: Giro d’Italia, Tour de France and World Road Championship. A rare feat.

We’ve got used to his seemingly effortless style, holding 50kph with that serene expression, almost a  smile.

Yet in one photo of this Tour guide,  Pogacar is barely recognisable. No smile. His face instead is wrought with pain and suffering. We don’t ever see that!  That shot was taken in the 2023 Tour on the Col de La Loze, when he famously cracked.  It cost him the Tour, and Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard went on to win his second consecutive edition.

The very same Alpine brute features again this year.

Could that be an omen?

Spookily. In typing the word “omen” the word count reached 666.

I have no wish to put spell on Pog, so I have added a few more words!

 

 

Anger as UCI ban "narrow" handlebars

 

THE Union Cyclists International (UC I) has caused a furore with their new rules to “improve safety” effective from next January.

Handlebars, in their view, are becoming too narrow.  So the width of handlebars is to be restricted to no less than 44 centre metres.

Also, because of the much higher speeds being attained which the UCI considers are unsafe (presumably in sprint finishes); gearing is to be restricted to a maximum of top gear of 54-tooth chainring and 11-tooth sprocket (giving 10.46 metres per crank revolution.) This in the hope riders won’t be able to go quite so fast!

 The UCI is also to limit fork widths and ban the use of helmets used in time trials from being used in road racing.

Leaving the matter of forks and helmets for the moment, it is the handlebar issue which is stirring up the angst.

The counter argument from those challenging the ruling makes the point that one size cannot fit all; riders of smaller stature have handlebars tailored to suit, which may be narrower than the 44 cm being proposed. 

This is especially relevant for women whose machines are generally of smaller proportions to those ridden by men.

As for higher gearing leading to unsafe speeds, what is the evidence for this?  Have I missed it?

What about junior racing on restricted gears? I can recall some hair-raising moments in 3/j events restricted to 86-inch gears (old calculation). I recall my own personal experiences and one event in particular with the tightly packed bunch gutter to gutter, elbows out, lunging for the finish line.

 I was placed third, driven by the fear that if I sat up I’d be run down!

OK, so it’s a much lower level of racing, but it’s all relevant.

The local newspaper s tory for that junior race was headlined it as “The Charge of the Light Brigade!

Dangerous! Well………………

Sprinting in road racing has always been dangerous and is best left to those with no fear and with big shoulders – I was once shouldered off my line  at an Eastway finish.

Whatever next? 

Should the UCI also look at high speed descents in the mountains?  Should that be cause for worry?

Well, we can put a stop to that. Take the Pyrenees and Alps out for a start.

Or, once the riders have reached the top, bus them to the bottom. Joking!

In Britain we could lose the Welsh mountains, the Yorkshire Moors, Lancashire Fells, the  Scottish Highlands and more.

In fact, let’s stop bike racing and take up dominoes – that’s a lot safer than the risk of all falling off

like dominoes!

Where have these UCI safety experts come from?  The International Federation of Knitting?  

Shit happens!

 

 

 

 

 

 

THREE GRAND TOUR WINNERS HEAD STRONG BRITISH PRESENCE IN TOUR DE SUISSE

 

The Tour of Suisse (June 15-22) starting just as the Criterium du Dauphine finished in Franceboasts three British Grand Tour winners Geriant Thomas (INEOS), Chris Froome (Israel Premier) and Tao Geoghegan Hart (Lidl), and 11 British riders in all.

The other eight home riders on the start list provide further evidence of the burgeoning home talent mixing it with the best on the Continent. And none more so than Jake Stewart who landed his first Pro Tour win in a bunch sprint on stage five of last week’s Criterium du Dauphine. And there is also Lewis Askey stage winner in the recent Dunkirk four-day in May.

The overall winner of the Dauphine of course was world road champion Tadj Pogaca from Jonas Vingegaard with Florian Lipowitz third, and Remco Evenpoel fourth.

So, now the Tour de Suisse is in focus in the build up for the Tour de France next month, and also starting this week, the Tour of Belgium.

The11 Britisg riders selected for the Swiss tour are Finlay Pickering (Bahrain Victorious); Max Walker (Education First); Lewis Askey (Groupama); Geraint Thomas (INEOS); Tao Geoghegan Hart (Lidl); James Knox (Soudal); Sean Flynn (Team Picnic); Oscar Onley (Team Visma); Chris Froome (Israel Premier); Josepth Blackmore (Israel Premier).

Don’t expect they will have much time to admire the scenery.

It does beg the question, did someone win a design award for those sublime unblemished oh so Swiss views, the manicured grass slopes, the beautifully painted houses dotted among the green hills, the small trees with their oval canopies fringing the gardens.  And beyond the houses,  the lakes, and further away in the far distance,  forests lining the ridges on the lower slopes of the near mountains, framed by towering dark craggy peaks in the far distance.

It all looks so pristine, like an architects scale model unveiled that day.

Almost as if the view has been composed for a canvas. It just needs a model train threading the valley. Instead, the Tour de Suisse peloton is snaking through the valley.

Such a contrast to the Italian alps across the border, where I recall houses with more time worn look, in need of a lick of paint.

I am reminded – if I may go off on a tangent - of the remarkable scenes created by German landscape painter Casper David Friedrich (1774 -1840), whose beautiful, albeit gloomy, scenes so beautifully conveyed a sense of the mystery of nature. And yet many of these scenes were his creation.

That lake, the mountains, the forest, would be from different parts of Germany, assembled in Friedrich’s mind and committed to canvas, to convey his vision.

But hey, I’m getting carried away again.  I’m not actually in the landscape, I'm in my armchair,  having to make do with seeing it on the tele - minus  the commentary! I have my reasons!

 

 

SMARTPHONES - THE END OF LIFE AS WE KNOW IT

 

The new Information Technology - IT to you and me - is so advanced it has to be other worldly.

This is the internet, launched in 1983, same year as the first mobile phone.  Desk top computers arrived in the 1970s and the first of the ubiquitous smartphones in 1994.

We know, don’t we, that the inspiration for all of these gizmos  came from the planet Zob  in the constellation of Zing, courtesy of the Intergalactic Federation of Planets  (IFP) which reckoned we needed a leg up on the technology front.

It came with conditions of course.  In exchange for sharing this new tech with us they wanted permission to secretly abduct and/or tag people and animals, and for experiments.  

Well, you go ahead, US President Eisenhower who allegedly met these exotic tech savvy visitors to our planet in 1950s, said. But confine yourselves to lifting people out of South America. They are a very religious and superstitious and if word did get out no one would believe them.

Well, these activities have since become more widespread.

No evidence to support this, of course.

However, in 2023, 4,432,880 people worldwide were reported missing.

But hey, so many more of us have also been abducted, taken in, our lives blessed by this new tech, which  in recent decades has extended to smart phones  - a blessed nuisance if you ask me.

This past decade has seen many innovative tricks offered to those using this technology, while those who choose not to find themselves increasingly marginalised, left out of the loop, excluded. Some of them won’t mind. But many do.

The plus factor in this new technology is the lightning speed we can access facts and figures, news and obtain and share information previously accessible only after research at a library which may have necessitated taking a bus ride and packed lunch.  

But this new tech can also be a pain the arse. This is not the fault of the gizmo; rather it is the nerds who design the software who have created this form of madness.

In the old days a letter would arrive in the post. You open it and read the information – maybe it’s an appointment; an invoice; your credit balance; your energy bill.

Information received and understood. 

Today, you get a text on y our phone or an email. It says, here is your appointment details/balance/bill.  Whatever.

Except the information can only be accessed by clicking on a link, and so begins the game devised by the Nerd. So it's click this, click that, swipe, swipe, swipe....

You need to enter your password – which you cannot remember from the 100s of passwords already accumulated, some OF SOME LENGTH and complicated.  So, with luck, you find the password in your password notebook. Enter it. If you are lucky this is accepted. Or it may say it doesn’t recognise it when it plainly should, which leads to an infuriating dance on the keyboard before it goes through.

And you move on to the next blasted step.  You are asked to confirm your age; your email address; your postcode; inside leg measurement; what you had for breakfast.

I am sorry, say the words on the screen, you need to fill in all the required zones; highlighted with a red asterisk.

You do it all again.

Then you may need a verification number, which it says will be emailed to you directly.

So you then must go out of that file, into your email. Or it’s a text to your phone which you have left in another room. You hurry to retrieve it.

 And yes, there is the verification number with the added warning, you have 10 minutes to enter this or you are knackered. You hurry back to the thing.

You hastily write down the number using the old art form of pen and paper.

And then maybe you lose the link in which case the whole shit show must be started again. But you may just be accepted, to continue this tiresome business.

The system may yet reject you, of course, for it seems entirely random, or it may allow you to see the information you so desperately want to read.

Hey ho. We’re through.

And the message is no secret formula. It is simply the date, time and location of the appointment; or whatever information they wish to impart.

A letter would be so much easier!

Or you want to download Wordfued. Some sort of game. Password to begin with, then comes the verification code and the keyboard dance to retrieve it and then enter it, then it wants ID number which you didn’t even  know you needed and don’t have.

So you invent one, and as soon as you enter this, Microsoft take issues with it take over the screen to ask, are you sure you want to do this?

Or if it doesn’t ask for ID, it calls for all sorts of other pieces of information and after providing all of this the screen blinks and goes back to the start. And it remains in this infuriating loop. Please provide password, and so you begin again: until CRASH SMASH.  That’s your laptop being thrown into the wall.

What a load of faff!

One can understand the need for security in bank transactions for example. But even so, if the information had come in the post it you simply could read it by opening the envelope.

More infuriating doings on the internet. You have located a cycling club, stamp club, bakery club, dance club, whatever, and you may wish to join or to glean more information.

But nowhere on the website is there a telephone number. This is because the people you are trying to contact wish to avoid human contact if at all possible. You may interrupt them at some other nefarious activity. So that is understandable from their point of view. But not mine.

 

 This new way of communicating is being abused to keep potential customers at arm’s length by requiring them to make contact by filling out forms and pressing send when all along all you have wanted to do is speak to a live person.

And then you must wait for a reply which may or may not come.

Then there is the automated voice, the robot and the several options which may or may not

answer your needs.

All the time you are required to  press buttons, and finally, finally, you may be put through t o a human who may, if you are lucky, speak clearly and in a dialect you understand but  probably won’t.

The few companies I have had no such issues with have been Sky, or Domestic and General, who quickly assign you a human being who speaks clearly and sets about sorting your query.

But mostly, connections lead to confusion with the added option of your mental breakdown.

SLAVES TO THE SMARTPHONE

And one other thing; smartphones. These gizmos, again as good as they are, are also robbing us of the last vestiges of humanity with their seductive on screen powers which means a lot of people now walk everywhere holding the thing in an outstretched hand, crossing the road, eyes glues to the screen, without looking for traffic or me – who is not on the phone - walking towards them. |I will shout at the last second (MOVE IT!)

And there is using a phone while driving; another obsession. They don’t care they could kill people, which happens because their response time, because their minds are taken by the gizmo, is worse than if drunk.

And so it goes on and on and on.

People in what ordinarily used to be moments of necessary idleness seated somewhere are now scrolling aimlessly gazing at the fleeting passage of words and images with blank expressions of joylessness .

Oh, yes, and then there are the people using their smartphones at the supermarket checkout.

And most times I am in line behind these arseholes; they are faffing about swiping the screen to bring up the bar code scanner making several attempts before succeeding with a smug expression. Or not. And I’m muttering, use you’re bleeding card. It takes a second!!!

And worst of all, communication via smartphones is fast becoming the way to access hotels, and other services to do business, to park the car. That doesn’t bother me as we happily are carless.  In 2019 it was estimated that 55 million people in the UK had a smartphone.

Which means smartphones are becoming divisive, for all those without are denied services accessible on QR codes and from using any links to information provided in messages.

Finally, the satnav.

There I was in a lovely hotel on the edge of Exmoor many years ago now. In the morning, at breakfast, I was moved to say to a couple who were gazing out of the window in wonder. “Isn’t this a beautiful location?”

And he replied: “I’ve no idea where we are. We just followed he satnav!” And he laughed. Imbecile.

If anyone was a candidate for alien abduction, he was.

 

 

………………

 

 

 

 

TWO BIG STORIES - one good one bad

 

The good story.

BRITAIN’S Simon Yates’s stunning breakaway to snatch the lead and overall victory in the 2025 Giro d’Italia made headlines in the newspapers.

Yates had played his cards right for three weeks racing up through Italy from the Albania start, lying low but smartly remaining close to all the main contenders before blasting into decisive action at the last.

Who will forget his fantastic escape on the monstrously long Finestre mountain on the penultimate day – the very climb he had capitulated on in 2018 when Chris Froome destroyed the field in a much longer lone break to win the Giro?

From lying third overall at 1-21 to race leader Del Toro – who was trailed by  second placed Carapaz - Yates catapulted ahead of both to leave them several minutes adrift with a series of brilliant attacks to set off on a stunning 38km escape.

What a ride! What a tactical triumph for Yates’s Visma-Lease-a-bike team who prudently had sent their ace in the pack, Wout van Aert ahead in an earlier move – to assist Yates if he got clear!

And what a failure for the teams of Toro and Carapaz not to react to the fact that one of the world’s best classics riders, Van Aert, had been sent ahead for this purpose.

For when Yates joined the waiting Van Aert, himself a Giro stage winner earlier in the race, the Belgian took off at a searing pace towing Yates well clear.  The Giro was both won…and lost.

Love it, when bike racing produces such dynamic racing: love it, love it, love it!

That was the good story.

Here is the bad.

How ironic and unfortunate that the
The Observer, which ran a graphic report of the Yates’s epic, also chose that same edition to run a double page feature entitled: “The doping that could kill cycling.”

Hate it, hate it, hate it.

Because that certainly wiped the smile off my face.

Both were penned by Jeremy Whittle and I bet he cursed under his breath when he saw that the motor doping story should be run in the same issue celebrating Yates’s epic!

The feature was all about “mechanical doping”, and the “persistent rumours” that hidden motors have been used to win some of the biggest races.

And yet, it is 10 years since a rider was detected using an e-bike, Belgium’s Femke van den Driessche at the 2016 women’s world cyclo-cross championships.

Oh, well.

That’s cycle sport’s legacy! No getting away from it.

But hey, what a relief that the last big sports doping story to break last September was wholly owned by athletics. This concerned the women’s 1500 metres at the London 2012 Olympic Games, when samples taken from the athletes were stored for future analysis by improved detection methods.

The event was described as the dirtiest in history, by the BBC, “with six of the first nine finishers falling foul of anti-doping regulations, the latest being Russia’s silver-medallist Tatyana Tomashova.”

She was banned for 10 years.

I suppose it is too much to expect that doping has been completely eradicated in cycling! Are we due one?

So what exactly did this latest “motor doping” story say?

Here is some of the detail.

The article was dominated by an illustration of a racing bike, showing how a motor could be concealed, with details of electro-magnetic devices in the rims spinning the wheels faster.

Small motors can be hidden in the bottom of the downtube, activated by a hidden trigger on the handlebars!

But the view from within the sport is that using a motor to win would be the greatest betrayal, worse than the conventional doping with medicines and pills - because with an e-bike the machine is doing the work, not the rider!

There is cheating and cheating!

So are e-bikes being used?

It has been claimed that in the 2015 Tour de France a dozen riders were using hidden motors!

The article refers to the extraordinary performances of Tadej Pogocar, Froome, Alberto Contador and Fabian Cancellera which have fuelled conspiracy theorists.

All have denied wrongdoing.

So now there are post-race checks….with no advance warning of the UCI tech fraud squad approaching with scanners to examine machinery.

But it’s not easy for them.

Riders can and do change bikes during a race, usually for a mechanical!

Maybe they only use the e-bike for a particularly difficult stretch of the course before changing to a clean bike!

Which means they may finish on a different bike, so the one they started out remains undetected.

It all seems far-fetched to me! But then again I was one of those taken in by smooth-talking EPO fuelled Armstrong 20 years ago, right until the last!

But if the UCI squad cannot discover e-bikes it means one of two things. They’re aren’t any! Or if they are in use, then the team(s) doing it, are quick to spirit the bike away at the finish.

But how on earth can they hide it during a race. Do they conceal it somewhere in one of several team vehicles - cars, buses or trucks? It sounds farcical.

Unless someone is turning a blind eye – as they used to do in the bad old days.

Who hasn’t read Willy Voet’s book “Breaking the Chain - Drugs and Cycling – The True Story”, published in 2001? This is shocking account of organised doping in cycling. It provides an ugly perspective of the sport back then.

It may puncture any romantic notions you have of suffering for the cause. It has always been about suffering.  Ripping your tripe out was an expression I used to hear.  Our club training captain would study the route of that Sunday’s  hilly road race, grit his teeth in mock horror  at the severity of what was in store and call out, “Agh, der pain!” in expectation of the suffering to come.

But we loved it!

But we knew it was our choice, to conquer the pain and try for a placing, that was all we asked of ourselves. Of course, we also knew we didn’t have to do it.

Professionals have no choice.

Use of drugs has been common in sport from the earliest races in the 1800s.

One such pain killer reported to be in common use before it was added to the banned list a few years ago, is Tramadol. I recall a Sky team member referring to its frequent use. It’s a prescription drug not available over the counter.

Clearly it is a given that athletes need to take pain killers, but they cannot cross the line and take banned stuff.

The Voet story dealt with the use of far more powerful banned drugs, not just for racing but also in training. There is a passage where he describes giving amphetamines to ease rider’s discomfort on a long training ride in cold wet weather!

The rider later reported he had had a very enjoyable day, thank you very much.

The book was written by Voet to make a clean breast of his central part in

the Festina Drugs scandal uncovered at the start of the 1998 Tour de France.

It told of how he and others over the years had administered their “preparations” for selected top riders.

That really rocked the sport. Then when everyone thought the sport was squeaky clean, along came Armstrong in 1999, the cancer survivor, the hero, doped to win his seven consecutive Tours “because everyone was on it.”

That also rocked the sport. Nothing big since then.

The most telling thing about the publication of Voet’s book was the reaction from the rest of the sport. There was none – at least not publicly that I was aware of.  A telling silence.

But motor doping?  At least it will be safer than taking stimulants which are reckoned to have killed many athletes over the years.

 

Nah!