The Argyle Armada Sails for France

Getting an invite to the Tour de France might seem to be the culmination of a dream, but Vaughters has a larger vision: he wants to nurture the next generation of great American cyclists, while also ushering in a new era of pro cycling free from the specter of doping. “It’s great to see the project going forward,” Vaughters reflects of the team’s evolution into a top-level Tour team. “But until cycling is out of its hole and cycling is more established in the US, I’m not going to really feel satisfied. It’s not time to celebrate yet.”

The hole Vaughters refers to is the nightmare of the 2006 and 2007 Tours of France, along with Operation Puerto, a Madrid-based blood doping investigation that implicated 58 riders and sent sponsors scurrying. In 2006 race favorites Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso were thrown out of the Tour for doping even before the race started. And race winner Floyd Landis was stripped of his yellow jersey after the race for testing positive for testosterone. In 2007, things got worse. In May of that year perennial sprint winner Erik Zabel admitted to using EPO in the 1997 Tour, which lead CSC manager and Tour de France winner Bjarne Riis to also admit he doped throughout his Tour de France career, including the 1996 Tour he won.

Once racing started in July things really went pear shaped when race leader Michael Rasmussen was fired by his team and removed from the Tour with the yellow jersey still on his back due to missing doping controls. On the same day, French team Cofidis pulled out of the Tour because one of its riders tested positive, and the day before that stage winner Alexander Vinokourov was found to have doped blood, also causing his entire Astana team to withdraw.

Before all this muck started raining upon the Tour de France, Vaughters had quietly been taking strong measures to ensure that as it grew up, his team would not be party to cycling’s doping traditions. The team partnered with the Agency for Cycling Ethics (ACE), an independent organization that tests each Slipstream -Chipotle rider every 14 days. That is 700 tests a year, or 20 times more frequently than is required by cycling’s governing body, the UCI. In the interest of transparency, Slipstream-Chipotle will also share its drug testing results with sponsors and legitimate journalists. The fact that Slipstream-Chipotle started and bankrolled one of the most aggressive and technologically advanced drug testing programs helped attract the interest of the ASO, which was desperately smarting after two years of drug-marred Tours. Tour director Christian Prudhomme said that he invited the unproven Slipstream-Chipotle to the Tour because they are an American team whose anti-doping measures “suit us.”

Slipstream-Chipotle’s testing is unique—and it marks the team’s role as the vanguard of the third generation of science-driven Americans in the Tour de France in that, rather than testing for individual drugs, the testing establishes baseline biological markers for each rider—blood composition and hormone levels. ACE can quickly identify any variance from this baseline without needing to identify a specific doping product. By watching for variances from a baseline, the testing eliminates the cat-and-mouse game in which athletes and their doctors constantly search for new performance-enhancing drugs before tests have been invented to identify them. To use an analogy: by watching for changes in baseline biological markers, the testing agency does not have to look for the needle in a haystack, but instead only has to identify changes to the overall height of the haystack.

Ellis points out that while the team “does not lord its anti-doping stance over others,” taking a conclusive stance against doping was “a real necessity.” Several top international cycling teams have lost their sponsors over the last few years: T-Mobile, Liberty Seguros, Adidas, Phonak and ONCE have all abandoned the sport because they got burned by doping scandals with their sponsored teams. While Slipstream-Chipotle is looking for a title sponsor, Ellis points out that the team’s unprecedented clean rider stance—the baseline testing program costs upwards of half a million dollars a year—put them “ahead of the story when everything went wrong in 2006 and 2007.” And that, according to Ellis, is “a message we need to use for sponsors to give them confidence that their investments won’t go off the rails.”

Both Ellis and Vaughters are proud of the fact that the team is America’s with a capital A. Vaughters expresses a deep commitment to nurturing the current and next generations of American riders. He is dedicated to ensuring that at least half of the team’s riders are from the United States, and Slipstream-Chipotle’s young rider development squad currently sponsors 17-year old cycling phenomenon and recent Olympic team invitee Taylor Phinney, son of Olympic medalists Connie Carpenter and Davis Phinney.

Ellis also sees the commercial benefit to sponsors who back a quasi-nationalistic American team. “If people get emotionally connected to us—and we think they will,” says Ellis, “they will tune in and watch.” Ellis also points out that while 13 of the team’s 25 riders are Americans, “24 of the 25 riders are English speaking. They can deliver an interview in English.” And that is a real benefit to American and multinational sponsors who want to reach the world’s widespread English-speaking populations. “We are the predominant American team and with that we bring access to the American market,” Ellis observes. “That’s something that will resonate with a sponsor.”

The team is certainly resonating with the worldwide press and the fans who are charmed by the young team’s moxy in races so far this year. In fact, Ellis and Vaughters have been approached by wealthy people, who, like Ellis, want to get closer to the sport they love. While these individuals might not have a brand that they want to publicize, they want the experiences that come with having behind-the-rope access and team car rides at races like the Giro and Tour de France. Toward this end, Slipstream-Chipotle started a Founders Club program so individuals can invest in the team and gain all the VIP-access privileges extended to big sponsors.

With all this attention, is Vaughters apprehensive about leading his team into its first Tour de France? “Apprehensive?” he responds. “No. Not really. As long as we execute going into it we’ll do fine. Being apprehensive is wasted energy.”