Tour de France confronts a new threat: Are cyclists using tiny motors?

MUR-DE-BRETAGNE, France — After the world’s best cyclists charged up the final climb in Stage 7 of the Tour de France, passing a roaring crowd at the finish line, a group of officials in black polo shirts darted toward their bikes. The officials put red bracelets on the carbon frames. Their job was to conduct a little-known check in one of the world’s most scandal-stained sports: The bikes were being inspected for tiny motors. Eight bikes were wheeled to a black tent a few feet from the podium, the handlebar tape still wet with riders’ sweat. One belonged to the winner of the stage, Tadej Pogacar. The other bikes belonged to riders whom cycling officials had targeted based on questionable performances or tips. Twenty years after a doping scandal upended the sport, professional cycling is pursuing dual challenges of keeping the world’s most famous cycling race honest and convincing a skeptical audience of the Tour’s legitimacy. That’s why Nicholas Raudenski, a former U.S. Department of Homeland Security investigator, was standing next to the finish line as officials escorted the bikes to an X-ray machine. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Raudenski was hired last year as the head of the global cycling federation’s unit against technological fraud, a form of cheating known colloquially as “mechanical doping.” If he caught anyone, it would send a shock through a sport in which athletes routinely do the superhuman. What if the reason cyclists were able to glide up the Pyrenees mountains was because they weren’t pedaling unassisted? Raudenski knew that only one professional cyclist had been caught competing with a hidden motor — a Belgian rider at the 2016 cyclo-cross world championships under-23 race. But the technology had improved dramatically since then. If he wasn’t vigilant, Raudenski believed, the Tour could be consumed by riders propelled by tiny motors. The cycling federation, known by its name in French, Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), was also trying to send a message to its fans. Many had followed the growing online discourse suggesting that cycling was once again turning a blind eye to cheaters. Fans posted videos about how easy it had become to sneak miniature motors into bike frames; they analyzed race footage that allegedly showed superhuman performances; they quoted former cyclists who swore the sport was still corrupt. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement “If people are watching the Tour at home, or they’re out here braving the heat, they need to be confident that what they see is legitimate, that it’s credible,” said Raudenski. “Without controls, it turns into a circus. … It turns into motorized bike races.” Some fans have found an additional reason for skepticism in the performance of Tadej Pogacar, the Slovenian cyclist who, at 26, is competing for his fourth Tour de France victory. By some measures, he is a stronger rider than even Lance Armstrong during his drug-aided peak. Armstrong, who now has a popular podcast, perhaps unhelpfully called Pogacar the greatest cyclist of all time and said he’s glad they never raced head-to-head. Pogacar has repeatedly denied both mechanical and conventional doping allegations, calling cycling “a victim of its past.” “There was no trust, and it was up to us, the cyclists, to regain the trust. But there’s nothing we can do,” he said at a news conference last year. In another sport, the rise of a generational talent might prompt an outpouring of admiration and a renewed interest in top competitions, like what Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps did for their disciplines. But the shadow of the doping scandals of the late 1990s and early 2000s, in which Armstrong and other top riders were retroactively found to be taking performance-enhancing drugs, continues to undermine cycling. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement “When someone is that good, that much better than everyone else, it’s not surprising that people ask the same questions that they were asking a generation ago,” said Brian Cookson, a former head of the global cycling federation. The way the sport drug-tests its athletes has changed. Cycling now spends far more money on anti-doping programs than any other sport, and its tests have become more sensitive. Athletes present daily whereabouts to authorities during the offseason, so they can be available for unscheduled drug tests. The kind of “blood doping” that Armstrong utilized, which was difficult to detect in the early 2000s, is now easily flagged. “There’s been a clear shift in the way that doping has been tackled in the sport,” said Olivier Banuls, the head of testing at the International Testing Agency, which runs the anti-doping program for professional cycling. Relatively few well-known professional cyclists have tested positive for drugs in the last decade, which Banuls says is proof of a strong testing regime and a changed culture. But some fans of the sport saw in that void the likelihood of foul play. Advertisement And then, amid suspicions about conventional doping, rumors about small motors emerged. The threats were concerning enough that the French prosecutor’s office took up the case. Cycling officials saw another existential threat to the sport, potentially more corrosive than drugs. Advertisement Advertisement As electronic bikes — with motors that provide up to 1,000 watts of power — have become available for recreational cyclists, hobbyists began building lighter road bikes with more discreet motors. Some of those are about 50 watts, hidden near the rear hub. It’s theoretically enough power to change the outcome of a race. There’s no proof that professional cyclists are using those systems (the French prosecutor dropped its case), but enough rumors have surfaced to encourage skepticism. In 2021, the Swiss newspaper Le Temps reported that three riders claimed they heard “strange noises” coming from the rear wheels of their competitors in the Tour de France. A Hungarian engineer said he had been commissioned to make bikes with hidden motors as far back as 1998 to be used by professionals. No cyclists were formally linked to those allegations. Raudenski’s unit is trying to close gaps that would have allowed cyclists to avoid detection. During the Tour de France, bikes are now taken directly to be tested instead of returning first to team mechanics, as they once were. The bikes in question are weighed and then scanned with a handheld X-ray machine and tested with a magnetometer. In some cases, the bikes are almost completely disassembled. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement UCI announced last year that it would pay informants and whistleblowers who have information about mechanical doping. Raudenski wouldn’t disclose what information those sources have offered but said, “We have people reaching out all the time.” After leaving the U.S. government, Raudenski worked as an internal investigator at FIFA, the world soccer association, where he looked into match fixing and corruption. He’s aware that his work is both about catching possible cheaters — “I ask myself, ‘If I wanted to use a motor at a race, how I would do it?’” — as well as signaling to cycling fans that the sport has regained its integrity. The day before the Mur-de-Bretagne finish, Raudenski’s unit inspected a bike that belonged to the Tudor Pro team. That team’s coach, Sebastian Deckert, said he too was frustrated by the distrust still attached to cycling. He said he didn’t understand the mechanics of inserting a motor into a bike frame but was supportive of officials testing one of his riders’ bikes.