As teams attempt to make marks in the first stages of the Giro d’Italia, the first Grand Tour of the season, cycling’s governing body is also focused on sending a message to the peloton: Mechanical doping will not fly here.

The UCI tested nearly 600 bicycles Friday before the opening prologue of the Giro d'Italia—every bike at the race, including each rider’s spare bicycles, according to UCI technical manager Mark Barfield. Although testing each bike won’t be an everyday occurrence, there will be multiple checks at each of the Grand Tours and other major races.

Testing at the Giro comes in the wake of an announcement earlier this week that the UCI plans to test 10,000 bikes for mechanical doping at pro races this season; it also demonstrated the testing methods it plans to use.

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Testing for each bike takes less than a minute. Officials armed with iPad minis and specially designed software scan each bicycle for a structured magnetic field; disruptions within the field could indicate a motor of some kind. It takes officials only a couple of hours to be trained in use of the equipment and interpreting its readings, such as distinguishing between an electronic groupset (like SRAM eTap) and a potential motor. Raw data is collected and saved for future reference.

The UCI will offer the testing tools and software to national federations in the near future, allowing them to test bikes at non-UCI races, but there currently aren’t plans to provide equipment to race organizers themselves.

Officials are trying to vary testing to avoid predictability, Barfield says. A similar top-down check occurred at the Tour de Romandie earlier this season, but at the Four Days of Dunkirk race, officials randomly chose only 11 of the competing teams to test. Race commissars are authorized to flag particular riders if they notice a potentially fishy performance, although Barfield admits that hasn’t happened yet.

The new testing procedures follow recent European media reports suggesting the previous testing protocols weren’t doing enough. Using thermal-imaging cameras, French TV’s Stade 2 and Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera captured several images that they claimed proved riders were using motors during races. Barfield was quick to find fault with their conclusions.

“The cameras picked up a lot of ‘messy heat’ that could easily come from the riders’ legs or mechanical functions (on the bike),” he says. “That’s one of the reasons why we chose not to use thermal-imaging cameras. You can only use the cameras during an actual race; before or after, they’d detect nothing. In order to use them, we’d have to put additional motorcycles in the middle of the peloton to scan the bikes, and that was not acceptable,” especially in light of multiple accidents caused by motorcycles at races in recent years.

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Concerns have arisen that the new iPad testing methods only work with the larger down tube-based motors, not smaller motors and electromagnetic motors in wheels.

“We’re keeping our eyes open and looking at other methods,” Barfield says. “If we find a better solution, we’ll consider using it.”

Barfield is even less enthused about videos popping up on YouTube and social media, with digital sleuths noticing odd wheel movements during or after races and alleging possible motor doping.

“Generally, these people are not well informed about how wheels work,” Barfield says.

Officials are trying to balance their testing with the riders’ need to prepare before the race; so far, it’s worked out well, and teams are cooperating fully.

“They want to prove to their sponsors and fans that they aren’t breaking the rules,” Barfield says. “We’ve done more than 3,000 tests in less than a year, and so far we’ve found one case of mechanical doping [Femke Van den Driessche at the 2016 Cyclocross World Championships]. There’s no evidence that motors are being used in the WorldTour today. The type and amount of testing we’re doing is a clear deterrent.”

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