Motor doping: pro riders enhancing not their own performance but instead adding watts directly to the back wheel – what do you reckon? Are you shrugging your shoulders, or shouting about a hidden conspiracy that cycling continues to wilfully ignore? One year ago, my response was somewhere in between those two extremes. I’d heard rumours, of course, but I had no firm opinion either way. I’d seen the viral videos that many keyboard warriors cite as ‘proof’ of motor doping – Fabian Cancellara’s 2010 Tour of Flanders win and Chris Froome’s Mont Ventoux attack at the 2013 Tour de France – but I wasn’t convinced. Then something very strange and unexpected happened.
In 2022, I chanced upon a YouTube video that reminded me of the story of Femke Van den Driessche, a Belgian cyclo-cross rider who was caught with a concealed motor inside her spare bike at the 2016 Cyclo-cross World Championships U23 race. She was the first – and to date only – rider to be sanctioned for motor
