As head of the professional riders' association CPA (Cyclistes Professionnels Associés), retired professional Adam Hansen has been vocal in demanding more safety measures for riders during races.

He is now taking aim at the motos that accompany racing and has just tweeted (X-ed?) that he has purchased a laser distance sensor from a Czech website for about £100 with the aim of developing a device that will provide distance information to moto drivers and drive motos further ahead of their riders.

Complaints about motos affecting racing persist, and two events drew attention in the closing stages of the 2023 Tour de France.

First, Taddei Pogachar said he "wasted a bullet" after a failed attack on the Col de Joux plains on stage 14, interrupted by a moto stuck in the crowd. Next, his bike stalled on stage 17, the Col de la Rose, forcing Pogachar's main rivals, Jonas Vingegaard and Thibaut Pinot, to come to a full stop.

Further back in 2016, race leader Chris Froome ran up Mont Ventoux, but he, Richie Porte, and Bauca Morema crashed behind a moto that stopped suddenly, presumably hampered by congestion.

Elsewhere, Julien Alaphilippe broke his hand when he crashed with Moto while running in the lead trio at the 2020 Tour of Flanders.

However, motos were not always bad news for Alaphilippe, as he was accused by his rivals of helping out by drafting a camera bike on stage 8 of the 2019 Tour de France. It was noted that Moto's brake lights could help him judge turns on descents, if not slipstreams.

Motorcycles are not the only powered vehicles said to have influenced the race.

Just yesterday, on stage 5 of the Tour de France, SD Works' Demi Vollaring was penalized 20 seconds for drafting a team car on his return to the peloton after suffering mechanical problems, dropping him from third to seventh place overall.

In the Amstel Gold Race earlier this year, he was accused by Jonathan Vaughters, director of the EF Education-Easy Post team, of pulling away from his team's Ben Healy and winning the race alone after the lead car got too close to the front of Tadei Pogachar He was blamed.

Hansen has also been aggressive about machine-related incidents since becoming CPA president, tweeting a follow-up to the incident at Trobro Leon in which Lawrence Naessen was hit from behind by a team car.

This is a small start, but given Hansen's well-known proclivity for tinkering with technology, it could well blossom into something more concrete and useful. After all, the man has been known to make his own cycling shoes and modify racing radios to make them smaller and lighter.