MAYBE. CYCLING FANS are wishful thinkers. It doesn't matter how many scandals hit their sport or how many of their heroes fall—Basso, Pantani, Heras, Hamilton, Landis, Ullrich, Vinokourov, Rasmussen. The fans want to believe that that was then and this is now—that cycling is cleaning up. But after a particularly bad doping year in 2007, one could be forgiven for maintaining a certain amount of skepticism about the newest fix. Even Catlin, while praising Slipstream's efforts, sees room for improvement in any system in which only the UCI or the teams control who sees the test results and who gets sanctioned.

"What kind of tests are they using?" he said when I asked him to assess the biological-passport programs. "Some markers are better than others. Also, who is monitoring the data and making the decisions?"

Indeed, aside from ACE, Vaughters and team doctor Prentice Steffen are the only people who see the results and make decisions for Slipstream. To be fair, though, Steffen, the former team doctor for U.S. Postal, has been such an outspoken critic of cycling's doping culture that, for a period, he had difficulty finding work in the sport.

As for the UCI program, keep two things in mind: (1) This is the same organization that has already done a less than fabulous job of keeping the sport clean for the past century, and (2) the new program—involving more than 800 cyclists getting tested 16 times each in 2008, eight times before July alone—was only announced in October and launched in January. It would be understandable if a few bugs remained.

Still, by the end of April, the UCI claimed to have conducted 2,172 tests, of which 23 warranted further analysis. In early May, the UCI announced that one of those would likely lead to a suspension, the first rider to be snagged under the new program.

Catlin still has concerns. "The testing program looks at levels at random points in time," he said. "There are drugs that are here and gone in a few hours. Still, what Slipstream is doing is definitely an improvement. What I like about these programs is that they have the ability to help change the culture."

No system is foolproof, of course, especially in a world where the dopers are always a couple of steps ahead of the testers, and where the financial rewards of successful cheating are huge. Cycling's recent history doesn't inspire confidence in any system that asks fans to trust that team managers and the UCI are telling the truth.

But my time with Slipstream suggested that this team and its example may actually be changing a culture that has accepted and even encouraged doping. Of course, I had no prior knowledge of what professional cyclists act like during their off-hours—the Slipstream guys could have been donning robes and sacrificing rabbits when I wasn't around. But I can report that their hotel-room doors were open more often than not and that the only things the soigneurs delivered were laundered uniforms for the next day. The eight riders at the Tour of California (all Americans, except for Millar) look like an indie rock band after sound check—wool hats pulled over their ears, backward ball caps, long hair. They talk about girls, music, and notable bowel movements. They are typical young American men from places like Salt Lake City, Lemont, Illinois, and North Bend, Washington.

Vaughters has made community and connectedness a big part of his attempt to eliminate secrecy. At a November training camp in Boulder, Colorado, he brought in a corporate consultant who made riders split into groups and talk about effective communication techniques. They took psychological surveys, helped each other up and down the walls at a rock-climbing gym, and partied together in Boulder clubs. "We were a new team," Vaughters said, "so before we did the serious work, we needed to understand everyone, what their personalities were about, how to function as a group."

While cyclists on most teams live apart, training on their own or with the help of private doctors and advisers, most of the 25 Slipstream riders live and train in Girona, Spain, which makes it easier to coach and monitor them. They all have team-issued Blackberries, pre-loaded with race schedules and each teammate's and staffer's contact info. If riders fail to respond to messages about drug tests, they get a strike. Three strikes and they're suspended. "Even if they have a viable excuse," said Vaughters, "that's a strike."

"All you need," Millar told me, "is for team management to make the decision that the riders won't dope, and they won't. It's not an option anymore. If you put a system in place for athletes that makes them feel they're being monitored, they recognize it's wrong."