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Comment by kelseyfrog | Hacker News Reader

What's the trainer-athlete conversation like that leads up to installing such devices?

I cannot strongly recommend enough the documentary Icarus, which starts out with the premise of "how hard is it to ask for steroids" and spirals into completely insane territory from there.

It's one of the best (and surprising!) documentaries ever.

Specifically about how Russia (Putin) wanted to look good by making their athletes stronger for their Sochi olympics. The soviet union was also known for doping their athletes for propaganda purposes.

And when does Mephistopheles chime in? I’m fascinated by the idea of doping in general, and there seems to be two distinct kinds: 1) something that everyone is doing (e.g. EPO at the Tour de France or AAS in bodybuilding) and 2) something that will give you an actual edge. “Motor doping” seems to be an example of the latter.

It really boggles my mind that there are people who are capable enough to be in the competition and still decide to cheat in order to win. Not because it’s immoral or dishonourable or anything like that, but just because it’s so fucking lame.

> It really boggles my mind that there are people who are capable enough to be in the competition and still decide to cheat in order to win. Not because it’s immoral or dishonourable or anything like that, but just because it’s so fucking lame.

If your competition is cheating you are going to lose if you don't cheat. It has nothing to do with honor - it's just about winning. Cheating may be lame but it's a reality. It's not just limited to sports either. In fact I can't think of anywhere I studied/worked where cheaters/liars didn't get ahead (I know multiple cheating students who got into MIT for grad school, and I know multiple abusive liars who were consistently promoted at unicorn startups or FAANG while simultaneously working to get their honest coworkers fired).

Such is life.

> If your competition is cheating you are going to lose if you don't cheat.

I put that in category #1, which isn't exactly cheating because it doesn't buy you an advantage. Cheating at school or at work is an interesting example. Perhaps by the time cyclists are considering motorizing it's just like... a job? And you have to win to eat?

If you have devoted your entire life to a particular sport enough to compete and make a living in it, there inevitably will come a time when your ability to compete is not enough, whether that's due to declining ability or increased competition. When faced with the decision of ending a career or cheating, it is not too surprising that people could choose the latter.

Of course there are many other reasons for cheating, but I imagine that to be a common motivator.

> When faced with the decision of ending a career or cheating, it is not too surprising that people could choose the latter.

I do find it a bit surprising, myself.

> I do find it a bit surprising, myself.

Ok let me phrase it perhaps in a more relatable way -

Your employer asks you to do an unethical or illegal thing. Not doing so will result in you losing your livelihood. Doing so presents a small but measurable risk to you, but you keep your livelihood unless caught, in which case you lose your livelihood anyway. Do you think there is a significant subset of people that take the first choice?

I find it surprising that athletes would choose to make a drastic departure from their prior intentions of fair competition in order to attempt to avoid the inevitability of retirement. I don’t find it nearly as surprising that someone would make a bite-sized compromise in order to preserve their livelihood, even though it seems unwise to me.

Sport qua job has a different feel than sport qua sport, as a sibling commenter illuminated.

I imagine that the temptation is more to cheat in order to attain what you ‘ought’ to be able to achieve, given perfect conditions. Considered in that way, it’s no longer about seeking something you don’t deserve by deception and more like trying to avoid random fluctuations that seem like they ‘shouldn’t be part of the competition’.

‘If only I hadn’t torn that ligament a few years ago, I’d probably be very slightly faster. I deserve to win this because I’m naturally better. In a perfect world I’d win. By taking this drug, I can negate the unfortunate circumstances and ensure I live up to my true potential.’, etc.

In reality, of course, it’s still plain old cheating. But I imagine it’s fairly easy to rationalise it in your head by thinking along these sort of lines. It’s probably not the same sort of feeling as robbing someone in the street — your morals can remain genuinely intact.

Their rationalizations don’t really matter though, only their incentives/motivation, and there are plenty of rational incentives to cheat, so people do - I simply don’t find this surprising. You see it everywhere else this is the case.

What's boggling about it?

Cycling is a really good example because it is so stark: 1) If you win you make more money, probably a lot more money. I don't know the current numbers, but during the Armstrong years there were plenty of Tour de France level riders that worked wrenching bikes to make ends meet and lived with their parents in the off season. You had Lance on private jets, and then guys on the team making under $30k supporting him. 2) Genetics is huge, you can do everything possible and simply not be good enough, if you've dedicated a big chunk of your life to this dream, you've won at every level, you live a completely monastic lifestyle and constantly diet and you reach your limit the desire to get just a little bit better is strong. The drugs work. 3) If enough people believe that "everyone is doing it" then the psychology of cheating disappears. 4) There is no external pressure or risk; the teams and sponsors don't get burned. When Lance won on a Trek they went from being something like a $200m company to a $2.5B company. They may very well have played a part in it, perhaps unbeknownst to them, but they never had any jeopardy.

They're talking about what is physiologically possible after this year's Tour, it was a complete ass kicking. If your competition is doing things that are believed impossible, do you hang it up? accept defeat? Or rationalize that a few watts isn't really cheating since he's doing something impossible?

Doping as table stakes is understandable. Money too, after a while. But I genuinely wonder how an athlete who put a motor in their bike and then accepted the resulting victory would feel about themselves as a competitor and a person. If they were stoked then by all means go for it, but in that case they must have a different psyche than I do.

Mechanical cheating is pretty common in sports where it’s viable. NASCAR crews were always finding ways to cheat so much that the saying “if you’re not cheating you’re not trying” was said without irony.

Baseball has a history of guys corking their bats and when caught the excuse is always that the practice bat got mixed in.

I seem to recall that the most common type of doping is actually to increase recovery, both to make it easier to train hard again the next day and to recover from injuries faster. Apparently it's pretty common in football (soccer) to get injured players back in action, and that's not a sport that most people would think benefits a lot from the classic doping types that increase muscle mass or endurance. Sure they run and have some physical contact, but not that much.

There are people who cheat in fucking tetris competitions.

What do you mean your mind is boggled that pro cyclists cheat? Some people will literally sell their grandmothers if it brings them an inch closer to worldwide fame and fortune.

Both parties want to win. There's no such conversation, they're all in it to win it. Do whatever it takes.

Just show up one day and your bike has an unexplained button on it that makes you go fast?

Sure, for training purposes. You know, on a long ride, you don’t want to overdo it. Of course, the actual race bike needs the button for verisimilitude, and it would be a big mistake if a batter was left in, and…

Surely there are certain logistics, like making sure it's charged before the race, or asking, "wouldn't I perform better by losing the extra weight?" being brought up before, no?

There's a UCI minimum weight for competition bikes at 6.8kg. We can't remove the button, as that would put us under the weight limit.

That's funny. Thank you for explaining it

Even as far back as 2005-2006 there were stories of riders taping wrenches to bikes to get to the requisite weight, it's not even a new thing per se.

I've heard stories of freezing ice inside the seatpost. It will stay frozen long enough to pass the pre-race weigh-in, but melt away before the start of the big climb.

Another reason for those thermal cameras.

The same as the conversation that leads to athletes doping their bodies.

Somebody in the athlete’s inner circle suggests “hey, you’d be faster/stronger if you did X…” and it goes from there.

Motor doping is somewhat different imho. It's a ballsy move to propose something like "hey, you'd be a faster cyclist if you rode a motorbike". After all with conventional doping it was still your body, sweat and pain.

It’s pretty rational really. You can linger in mediocrity always at risk of being replaced or you could take PEDs and either become competitive and important or get caught and be replaced, the same outcome as not using. Especially if you came from dirt.

It’s all upside if you can’t compete without.

Well, unless you value honesty and integrity.

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