The Issues Of Fraud In Professional Cycling Groups

The issues of fraud surrounding cycling center on a problems that have occurred during professional cycling races. The most current act of fraud in cycling that is receiving attention is known as mechanical doping. Mechanical doping occurs when a cyclist uses a secret, hidden motor to make a racing bike move faster [1]. In 2016, a professional cyclist was the first cyclist to be caught using an illegal motor on a bike during a race. The cyclist, Femke Van den Driesschee was banned from racing six years [2].

Before mechanical doping became a problem in professional cycling, Lance Armstrong, a seven time winner of the Tour de France admitted that he had been using drugs to enhance his cycling performance. After many years of being investigated, and many years of denying it, Armstrong admitted to drug use in

World-wide, over 300 professional cyclists have been accused of using drugs or have been proven to have used drugs since the 1930s [5].

Luckily, mechanical doping and taking illegal drugs are not a problem for non-professional cyclists. The fraud issue likely to be encountered by a casual cyclist is accidentally buying a used bike that was stolen. There are websites to register bikes so that, in the event of it being stolen, the owner of a bike has proof of ownership. A woman in England recently made headlines when she saw her stolen bike advertised for sale on Facebook and went cleverly stole it back from the thief [6].

The organization known as the Bike Index has a checklist for used bike buyers to follow. This checklist was written to help bike buyers avoid buying stolen bikes. When buying a used bike, the Bike Index says to look for red flags such as scratches on the bike frame, mismatched parts, and filed off serial numbers when buying a used bike [7]. These things, plus bike sellers who act strangely, are good indicators that a bike has been