Tiny Motor Powers a New Threat to Cycling Races

Photo For its report on motordoping, Stade 2 positioned a thermal imaging camera along the route of this race, the Strade Bianche, in Italy in March.A grueling cycling race is somewhat less grueling if your bike is a motorcycle. Understanding this, some cunning cyclists may be turning the sport into Nascar on two wheels by surreptitiously giving their bikes a motorized boost.

The first confirmed case of mechanical doping surfaced this year when a tiny motor and battery were found inside a Belgian cyclist’s bike, but that involved cyclocross, a comparatively minor branch of the sport. The latest accusations emerged Sunday on Stade 2, a sports program on the French television network that is…