When you can see it!
It seems pro bicycle racers may be installing small, invisible by appearance motors, hidden inside their bikes to get that racer’s edge.
I’d heard of the in-frame motors, the induction one using magnets in the rear wheel was new to me. Racing = cheating, I guess.
I think we take this stuff much too seriously. It should be fun. When I was a kid most kids had the balloon tired bikes but I had a 3 speed with narrow tires. I could smoke everyone so guess that was an illegal advantage. Plus I could go up hills sitting down when everyone else was huffing and puffing standing up. Sorry but you wouldn’t get me into the spandex multi-colored uniforms with the crash helmets and sour looking riders. Riding should be fun.
Big money means it’s serious.
Champion bicycle racers can become millionaires. Lance Armstrong’s net worth is estimated at $125 million. It would be a lot higher had he not… well, you know. When there’s a lot of money involved, some people cheat. When there’s millions involved, they come up with ingenious ways to do so. People kill for large amounts of money. Cheating is relatively low on the immorality scale.
I wouldn’t cheat for a measly $125 million.
WC Fields I think, “Anything worth winning is worth cheating for”
Local circle track car racers will spend $5000 on engine parts to win a $250 prize. Imagine what a pro bike racer would spend to win. 50,000 Euros doesn’t all that high.
Mustangman, to further illustrate your great example, local car show enthusiasts will spend $25k to win a plastic medallion or trophy and get bent out of shape if they don’t win 
Ab-SO-lutely, @TwinTurbo ! Great example!
When I was an amateur race car driver, non racers would ask how much money I get when I win. I told them just a trophy. They asked “Why no prize money?” My answer was always - because then the cost to go racing would double or triple what I was already spending.
I use to drag race for the plastic and pot metal trophies in years past. I wish I had half the money back that I spent to win them. I let my wife sell them at a yard sale many years ago.
Did she know how much you spent to earn those trophies? That old lament “my biggest fear is that when I die my wife will sell my tools for what she thinks I paid for them”.
When is a moter too big? one example a buddy put a 350 into an mg, totally wiped out the suspension due to the weight of the engine, Now I saw a guy putting in a 454? into a 69 chev nova the other day. worked ok for him!
Carrol Shelby did okay putting V8s into AC Cobras…
Bugattti has a new V12 Chiron to replace the Veyron… 1500 HP. The car is almost all engine… as was the Veyron.
And John Hennessey makes this beast with a 7.0L V8.
http://www.venomgt.com/
I don’t know about cars but I think motorcycles are too big when they start to miss the whole point of a motorcycle.
Yes, if your motorcycle goes down, you shouldn’t need a wrecker to pick it up.
I went from a ZRX1200R, a 1200cc motorcycle that weighs nearly 600 lbs wet and can go zero to 60 in about 3 seconds in first gear, to a 370 lb Ninja 300 and haven’t looked back. I guess I need to get 70 mpg a lot worse than I need to double the speed limit. Not to mention how nimble that little bike is and what a joy it is to ride. On FM2222 with all its turns, twists, and curves, there is no other bike I would rather be on.
It doesn’t miss the whole point of a motorcycle.
More than one experienced rider bought one of these bikes for his wife to learn on and ended up riding it all over the place himself because it’s so much fun to ride.
Many years ago, and I don’t remember exactly who it was, but there was a pro motocross rider who was disqualified and stripped of his season points after he was caught competing in the 500 cc “open” class with a 250 cc motorcycle.
It seems that the 250 class was actually running faster lap times than the open class on most tracks. The weight of the bigger engine was hurting the riders more than the extra power was helping them.
I guess that engine development had reach a point where the 250’s were at a power saturation point, where more power just meant more wheelspin.
Simply goes to show that sometimes less is more.
In my experience the satisfaction of riding has more to do with position than size. It’s far more rewarding and easy to ride a bike you sit IN versus ON. Wrestling the weight from up top versus being part of it and requiring only subtle shifts to effect changes in the bikes’ attitude. I run around on a 1400cc bike that is quite heavy but the seating position is low and you feel part of the bike not sitting on top of it. I also like an engine that is a low rumble versus sounding like an angry insect 
