8 cyclists are drug tested at the Tour de France every day - here's what happens

ARCALIS, Andorra, July 10 - Each day here at the Tour de France a handful of the world's fittest athletes climb into a small office on wheels to pee into a plastic cup. For the riders it is part of the job, as routine as riding their bikes, but for a sport not long ago plagued by doping scandals the testing is critical to its integrity and survival.

There has not been a doping positive in this Tour so far. In last year's race there was one positive, for cocaine, and in the 2014 Tour there was no positive test reported. (Here's a list of doping cases in cycling.)

At least on the surface, pro cycling today appears much cleaner than it did a decade or so ago.

How does the world's biggest bike race detect if a rider is doping? Welcome to "antidoping control," where officials try to ensure that cyclists are racing clean by testing their urine and blood, usually with little notice. If a rider fails to report to antidoping, for whatever reason, he is considered to be positive and immediately kicked out of the race.

This week at the Tour, the International Cycling Union and the Cycling Anti-Doping Foundation (CADF) granted Business Insider access into their mobile antidoping-control facility. Here's what we saw: