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 graduate, said his second-year 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 be the biggest bike race in the world.
“Obviously, 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 in the Champs-Elysees 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.
“We’ve had good moments and bad moments,” Vaughters said. “We were great in the Tour of Qatar and great in the Tour of California. Even at the Tirreno-Adriatico we had moments. We fumbled at Paris-Nice. That wasn’t good. But if you get it right eight out of 10 times as a first-year team, you’ll get an invite.
“We got it the hard way.”
At Paris-Nice March 9-16, Millar crashed twice and abandoned due to the flu. No Slipstream/Chipotle cyclist finished in the top 55. However, the Tour saw the overall body of work and felt it worthy of an invitation.
“We weren’t the worst team, but we weren’t the best team,” Vaughters said. “All in all, our team performed as one of the top 10 in the world.”
Slipstream features five Colorado cyclists, including Danny Pate, 28, of Colorado Springs who’s one of the original CIAA-CREF riders and is “90 percent” certain to ride in the Tour, Vaughters said.
“All we said in 2003 was we wanted to work with young American cyclists,” Vaughters said. “We had the strongest cyclist in the world in Lance (Armstrong), but we had nothing with young riders.”
After the Giro, Slipstream/Chipotle will rest at 7,000-foot St. Moritz, Switzerland, before training for three to four weeks then returning to sea level 10 days before the Tour. For Vaughters, taking part in the Tour won’t be enough.
“We don’t have anyone right now who can win the overall race,” he said. “If we get the yellow jersey for a day or two or win a stage or get a rider in the top 10, like eighth, for a first-year team, we’d be over the moon.”
John Henderson: 303-954-1299 or jhenderson@denvepost.com.
