Dear Kid,

The Tour de France begins soon and (obviously) so do the allegations.

Actually, the allegations have already begun (does that make them pre-allegations? Prallegations?). And this year, we have New and Improved Prallegations.

There are the standard allegations about cyclists doping (old news). And New-This-Year, we’ve introduced Motorized Doping Allegations.

When I first heard about Motorized Doping I thought it was a speedier way to ingest banned substances (it’s not). Then I thought it was a different kind of drug cyclists were taking (it’s not). Then I stopped guessing.

Turns out Motorized Doping is about doping the bikes!

Yes, someone has taught the bicycles to take steroids!

No, that’s not it. Someone has figured out how to get the bicycles to swallow small but powerful motors.

Yes, the point is that somehow elite cyclists have found a new way to cheat in the Tour. They have little motors (I am not making this up) hidden in the bikes that are somehow connected through buttons and/or blue tooth to make the bikes go faster/stronger (We can rebuild him! [Extra points if you get the reference]).

This is such a big deal thing that even NPR did a story on motorized doping.

Le Tour officials were going to scan bikes to check for motors or batteries, but then they were shamed into taking this much more seriously. They’ve decided to set up heat scan sensors along the route at random and unannounced places to check bikes for hidden mechanical assistance.

Or maybe mechanical assistants if there are mini robots involved.

In any case, we now have a new scandal to worry about.

Love, Mom