Electric "Racing" Bikes!

Like most-every cyclist, I've been following this Mechanical Doping issue with interest. These things have been showing up quite a bit recently. I was thinking this might be a great business opportunity for non-race applications such as when Mr. Weekend Racer wants to go out for a ride with his wife and still get some training effect (unless you're married to Lauren Hall, in which case you would ride the electric bike). Or for the Ragbraii dude who only wants to train for 10 days and then sit on a bike and drink beer across Iowa.

Then I came across a website for the manufacturer of the Vivax - one such device. Here's their marketing video:

The thing that I find astonishing is that Vivax calls this bike a "Race Bike". I would have thought they would make some very strong disclaimer that their bike is "ONLY FOR RECREATIONAL PURPOSES" and illegal, immoral and banned for competition. Maybe by "racing" they are thinking of starting a league of overweight old guys like the one demonstrating the Vivax?

It doesn't matter what the sport - there are cheaters. In martial arts, competitive categories are defined by belt color. The darker the color, the more experience. So, for example a yellow belt has less experience than a black belt. But in martial arts, this is purely self-regulated. Back in the day some guys would remain at brown belt for years so that they could go to tournaments and slaughter other guys with less experience and collect trophy's and medals.

I've seen this a ton. I remember fighting a guy when I was a brown belt and then 10 years later having one of my students facing the same guy still a brown belt. I just suggested  "that will make beating him that much sweeter". My guy won. Then I spoke to his instructor, of course it went of deaf ears.

In martial arts, it's almost impossible to get to the elite level and also have low morals. This doesn't seem to be the case in cycling where we are finding this on a fairly routine basis at the highest levels.

The entire cycling community needs to boycott this company and ridicule anyone who buys one of these POS's.