Boulder News

Team Slipstream/Chipotle

Toward Drug-Free Cycling

By Richard Martin, 11-14-07

Now he's clean

Tonight at the Boulder Theater, sports fans will get the chance to be present at what could the rebirth of the troubled sport of cycling. There, the Boulder-based Team Slipstream/Chipotle, which has dedicated itself to building a completely drug-free and ethical squad, will introduce its 2008 lineup including the former world time trial champion David Millar, who in 2004 was stripped of his title and subsequently served a two-year suspension for doping.

So how could a confessed drug cheat head up a team that is “dedicated to promoting ethical sporting and developing the next generation of cycling champions,” as Slipstream/Chipotle declares? A British rider, Millar is among the handful of top cyclists to admit his past doping activity (in sharp contrast to Americans Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton) and to rededicate himself to competing at the highest level possible, without the use of performance enhancers.

“I don’t want to race with monsters anymore,” he told The New York Times. “I want to race with good guys who are trying to make a difference. I want to be that good guy.”

Founded by a wealthy New York financier, and co-sponsored by the wildly successful Northern Colorado-based gourmet burrito chain Chipotle, Slipstream/Chipotle is attempting a radical experiment in the shady, drug-ridden world of high-level pro cycling. The two dozen riders will be tested several times a day during the 2008 season, and have all volunteered to essentially have their movements and their possessions tracked at all times. (Each rider will carry a BlackBerry so they can be summoned at a moment’s notice for random drug tests.) What’s more, Slipstream riders will not be tested only for the direct evidence of illegal drugs: their baseline personal and biological profiles will be tracked through a combination of metabolic states, lactic acid threshold, hematocrit levels, and medical histories. Any abnormalities will set off alarms, whether EPO or other enhancers are found in their bloodstream or not.

“This sends a simple message to our athletes,” says Slipstream Sports chairman and founder Doug Ellis, “Do not dope or you will not compete.”

The Slipstream testing program was devised in conjunction with the independent Agency for Cycling Ethics and will take place alongside, not instead of, routine drug-testing by national cycling federations and the World Anti-Doping Agency.

Team Slipstream/Chipotle is hoping to qualify for next summer’s Tour de France. If it does, it will almost certainly be the only American team in the Tour with the collapse of Lance Armstrong’s Discovery Channel squad last month. For young cyclists it’s a chance to compete at a high level, with out any pressure to take drugs. For disgraced former world champ David Millar, it’s a shot at personal redemption. 

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