It was time for the biweekly ACE testing. By this point, the Slipstream riders just shrugged and rolled up their sleeves. (This was Millar's second test this week and he reckoned that, if the needle and pee gods were lined up properly, he could get tested by four agencies in one day: ACE, UCI, USADA, and UK Sports, his national governing body.) The samples would go back to the lab, and if technicians saw something suspicious, ACE would call Steffen, who would take the issue to Vaughters. They would talk to the rider, see if he had a natural explanation (a lot of travel, chronic bronchitis, age), and get back with ACE. The rider would be taken out of any races and given more testing until they figured out what to do.

"There are three possible results," Steffen told me. "The rider continues racing with further testing, the rider is suspended with further testing, or the rider is terminated." So far Slipstream has had three alarms go off—two for higher-than-normal hematocrit levels, which Steffen attributed to natural causes, and the third a young rider who, Steffen believed, had still unpredictable hormones. No punitive actions were taken.

The riders are resigned to the needles and cups. "I'm used to it," Peterson said after his morning round of tests, still looking sleepy. "Last year was tough, though. I was tested probably 50 times." I suggested that this is the price you pay to be a pro cyclist in 2008. "Yeah," he said, "and it's the fairest way."

Peterson is only 21, young enough to claim that he's never even seen doping. "I'd heard about it, but the young guys were never in that mind-set where everyone expected us to dope. We didn't have the pressure."

Later on Sunday, as the race headed into Pasadena, Slipstream continued its aggressive cycling but couldn't catch Leipheimer in the overall standings. Still, Millar got second and Vande Velde third, and Slipstream won the team classification.

Vaughters was confident, even cocky. "It was what I expected," he said. "I'm happy to have lived up to expectations, but it isn't a surprise. It's what we set out to do. It's a risk to think this way, but I've always thought if we did everything right, we'd be one of the best."

In April, Slipstream's Martijn Maaskant earned a surprise fourth-place finish at Paris-Roubaix, the most important one-day race in cycling, and teammate Trent Lowe finished second overall at the Tour de Georgia. But the team got its biggest win yet without even climbing onto the bikes. On March 21, it received an invitation to the Tour de France, one of only three non-ProTour teams to get in. After two years of crippling drug scandals, cycling's marquee event needs a feel-good story.

"Slipstream/Chipotle's ethical philosophy appealed to us," Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme said of the decision. "The sport of cycling has been entrenched in a fight against doping for the past several years, and the team's approach supports that struggle.... When certain young teams show ample sporting ability and a strong anti-doping commitment, we try to give them the chance to race."

Vaughters isn't done, though. He wants to continue opening up the sport and has gone so far as to suggest that each team be assigned two "compliance officers," independent monitors who would have access to the riders during their off hours—sort of like what I did in California, only on a permanent and more formal basis. "I don't know if that will ever happen," Vaughters told me, "but I'd rather prove my innocence and lose my privacy than always have a small bit of suspicion every time I won something."