From the streets of Colorado to the Tour de France, Boulder-based Team Slipstream/ Chipotle has officially made the cross-oceanic leap. Team director Jonathan Vaughters, a Cherry Creek High School graduate, said his second-year cycling team officially received its invitation to the Tour on Thursday.
Slipstream/Chipotle, which started four years ago as a Colorado youth team called CIAA-CREF, will be one of 20 teams invited to the biggest bike race in the world.
“I’m super happy,” Vaughters said from Girona, Spain, where many of his cyclists are based. “It was pretty hard-fought.”
The race begins July 5 in the Brittany town of Brest and concludes July 27 at the Champs-Ely-sees in Paris. Before the Tour, Slipstream/Chipotle will take part May 10-June 1 in the Giro di Italia, one of three Grand Tour races in the world.
This is a major step for a cycling program that didn’t get invited to its first international race until last year.
“Honestly, I wish I could say it was part of a big vision,” Vaughters said. “I just wanted to work with young riders. But people took notice. People with resources pushed us to the next level. Whether it was Chipotle or (owner) Doug (Ellis) . . . they said, ‘Wow, maybe these guys actually may do it.’ ”
Slipstream/Chipotle made international news a year ago when it joined a revolutionary drug-testing movement. Every cyclist is tested for drugs every week. As the Tour stiffened its drug policies, it began leaning toward teams making overt stances against drugs.
However, Vaughters believes the team’s results on the road were a major contributor. The team finished fourth at the Tour of Qatar. At the Tour of California, the biggest bike race in the United States, it won the overall team competition and David Millar took second place overall.
John Henderson: 303-954-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com
