3 Competitors Removed from World Championships eMTB Start List After Bikes Fail UCI Checks
Three Hungarian riders have been removed from the eMTB XC World Championships start list after it was found that their motors did not comply with UCI regulations.
Gabor Cser, Andras Szatmary and Regina Schmidel were all using bikes with motors from EPowers and it's these motors that have caused their disqualification.
The UCI said: "Following the E-MTB bike checks that took place today in accordance with section 13.2 of the 2020 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships Competition Guide, the President of the Commissaires’ Panel found that the "EPowers" bicycles did not comply with the requirements of the UCI Regulations."
The section 13.2 regulation states that bikes must comply with the EN15194-2017 norm that ensures e-MTB motors provide pedal assistance up to 25 km/h and a maximum continuous rated power of 250W. To check that the bikes are compliant, every competitor's bike was tested this morning using engine diagnostics, a tuning kit search and a rear wheel rollout measurement. The UCI allows a 5% tolerance is allowed either way on the EU standard but it seems the EPowers motors fell outside this.
The regulations also provide a list of approved manufacturers and EPowers was one of these until the ruling today, when the UCI removed them from the list. We spoke to Regina Schmidel today and she told us that the motor they were using had previously been approved by the UCI and travelled to the World Championships expecting to be able to race without any issue.
EPowers' founder, Stefano Varjas, was the inventor of a hidden motor and magnetic wheels that were suspected to have been used in major professional races. He claims he has never knowingly sold his technology to a professional rider, but acknowledges his motor may have been purchased through intermediaries. That motor is not a pedelec motor, which provides differing power output based on the input of the rider, but a regular motor that is connected to the cranks and provides a constant power of up to 240 Watts. EPowers currently sells a range of carbon road bikes for non-competitive riders that come with the motor fitted but no mountain bikes. Varjas developed a version of this system specifically for the World Championships this year and believed it had been cleared by the UCI for racing but it was rejected by the Comissaire's Panel on the eve of the race.
The EPowers bike Schmidel was supposed to use for the World Championships. She says she hadn't seen the bike until she arrived in Leogang.
Every other bike passed the pre-race checks and the UCI will now perform random engine diagnostic checks on the start line in tomorrow's race and the top 5 riders of each category as well as some random bikes will be taken directly to the testing control after the finish.
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Let them just go hog wild on the e-bike thing, why limit it? We have XC which is based on the most athletic and race savey. If you have a sport that is inherently assisted then just go out there and see how far you can push the bike. I may limit weight, say one battery per race, and provide some horrendously rough tracks just to test the machines but that is for selfish reasons. When I get injured or are too old for analog I want to benefit from these e-bikes.
The interest in this motor by (and sales to) non-racing my-motor-is-bigger-than-yours bros will surely go up a lot.
Is it only cheating because UCI say it is?
If you could cover your chain to keep it clean & be more efficient, would that be cheating too??????????
But I agree there will always be unfairness, unless everyone would ride exactly the same bike in exactly the same outfit. But that would take the fun out of nerding around for the perfect set ups for the circumstances and it would cause bike companies to not care about constantly improving their bikes anymore.
And like you said, in the end cheating is indeed defined by the rules of the competition.
If I would organize a fixed gear race, then riding a geared road bike with brakes would indeed be cheating.
Still really interesting they are trying. I had no idea e-mtb racing was even a thing!
Username checks out!
Till my knowledge most common cheat is in the speed sensor,the bike never reach 25,it is hilarious how fast you can ride. Not very useful in real life,maybe if you ride alone in the shadows. They people always want something more.
Cheating in this case is ridiculous,like the hole race series. You can´t measure anything serious to have a winner there...
This is literally one step away from Moto Cross.
You dont see alot of fighters getting DQs at weigh ins for being too light. Experience will tell you no competitor is going to come in handicapping themselves.
If someone can build a powerful/ fast/ long lasting 45# e-bike this should be encouraged.
Else it will become a moped / motorcycle by law, meaning you will need a drivers license, registration, license plate, insurance, helmet (not mandatory here on bicycles) and in Amsterdam it means you are not allowed to ride on bike lanes, only on the road between cars.
So the moment they start pushing the boundaries, it might not be a bicycle race by law anymore.
It makes sense to have consistency in terms of motor output for the general market but it doesn't really work for a racing stand point. Let the manufacturers come up with new solutions!
Maybe borrow from road cycling and do a blood swap in the rider too! If we can provide assist to the tool, why not the rider?!
Let's see how fast we can man and machine to crush that course!
With a weight limit it's super easy to monitor compliance.
eBike racers are all subject to the same dishonesty as in all other form of bicycle racing and sport so what's the difference?Everybody accepts these terms. Carry on. Nothing to see here.
"No. It's Electric Danger Powers. Danger is my.............................middle name..."
(Deep breath)
........HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Giving the racers the benefit of the doubt, they are the ones that got burned. Go buy a bike, or accept one with a component that is listed as approved (assuming it meets certain criteria) and get DQ’d because the manufacturer is doing shady things - that’s brutal no matter how you feel about the sport.
The manufacturer got DQ’d. The riders got f*cked.
Without auditing every bike and making sure they are all using the same firmware, there is just too many ways to go over these power restrictions, it's much easier in real mechanical sports because there is still physical considerations thru a prepared 450 is way more powerfull than a stock one even while they share a similar package/volume.
I think we need to have restricitions based on weight with no assistance on track and let people go wild. I think we would see some pretty wild e-rocket, these bikes would probably look more like ultra light dirtbikes...
There would also be a benefit for the society in engineers grinding to stuff as much power in a small package to develop the future of e-mobility.
I'm an older guy on a hardtail eBike and trail ride mostly with younger riders on FS bikes. I still can't keep up with them on the dh's but catch back up on the uphills and it helps ride flow and they all like kicking an eBikes ass. Not as much the case with my eRoad bike. On pavement and gravel e is faster in both modes with the right setup.
Yeeeeeeeeeehhhhaaaaawwwwwwwww !!
Does anyone know or care who won the previous races?
Unless there was a problem with the 25km/h cut-off, the power rating would not have been the reason for the Commissaire's rejection; the 5% difference tolerance isn't "either way" as this article suggests - only over, according to the regs. If anything, a continuous fixed-240W motor is more 'honest' than any of the others allowed to race on the list, some of which can put out peak power around 800W.
This Hungarian team won the GC in last year's Giro E - yes, it's a thing - where eBike teams race the last 75-105km of each Giro d'Italia stage. Perhaps there was a quiet word to the UCI (having pre-approved the EPowers unit) from the big motor companies possibly worried about being shown up again?
So ebike development would become faster and cleaner
If you haven't see this, watch it. www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-investigates-hidden-motors-and-pro-cycling
Something for those stuck in the past and poor people to enter I guess?
Let's see how fast these bikes can go.
The unofficial de restricted ebike world champs please.