On the eve of this year's Grand Depart in Brest the directeurs sportifs of the Tour de France gathered to receive their last minute instructions.Jonathan Vaughters, whose taste in fashion blurs the line between cool and bizarre, cut a strange figure among men whose dress sense Alan Partridge would probably describe as sports casual'.

He sat just a few seats along from Bjarne Riis - a decorated former champion and Tour winner - who now heads Team CSC Saxo Bank.

Despite a nine-year pro career, Vaughters's resume never quite hit the same heights. He loved cycling from an early age and entered his first race, the Red Zinger Mini Classic, aged just 13. Thirty-three were on the startline; he finished 33rd.

But while Riis, his palmarès forever sullied by his admission that he took performance enhancing drugs, might have a record to envy, it's Vaughters, aged just 35, who could have the most lasting impact on his sport.

His Slipstream team, which includes Scotland's David Millar, is founded and funded on the principle of clean cycling. In addition to the testing they must undergo during and out of competition by cycling's authorities, Slipstream riders must also participate in a sophisticated in-house anti-doping programme, run by an independent company.

A bio-marker profile is established for every rider - if these markers move the rider is either ill, or has taken drugs.

In a peleton still shrouded in suspicion there are no more tested riders than the guys in the funky Argyle lycra, another nod to Vaughters's unique sartorial style.

"In this team, doping is not an issue," said Vaughters. "In cycling there is so much talking, rumours and it's really negative. When I go inside our bus and talk to the guys, they're talking about race tactics, wives, kids, girlfriends or whatever, it's not just negative. They just don't talk about it, doping for us is a non-topic."

When Vaughters was establishing his team, initially ploughing in £25,000 of his own money, many quietly thought his fine sentiments were simply not rooted in reality.

"Nice guy, nice thought, won't happen," they sniggered. But Vaughters was never one for doing things the easy way.

When his cycling career was taking off he decided against joining one of the professional American teams and instead packed his bags for Spain. He was just 20.

"The worst-case scenario was I would not succeed," he said, "Whatever happens I'd have lived in another country and learned another language and maybe kissed a Spanish girl.

"It's how I live my live - you commit yourself to something totally and if it doesn't happen, at least you've tried."

At a time when most teams are struggling to attract financial support, Slipstream have just signed a two-year title sponsorship with Garmin, a maker of global positioning devices.

The American company were at first reticent to tie their brand to a sport whose reputation is ranked somewhere alongside professional wrestling. But when they met Vaughters, whose passion comes through in every sentence, the deal was done.

Millar, his past well-reported, likes to say his success is now based on nothing but bread and water' and, so far, he and fellow riders at Garmin-Slipstream are delivering results.

They lead the team standings, Millar produced his best time trial result in years earlier this week, while William Frischkorn came second in stage three and Christian Vandevelde and Julian Dean have both recorded top-ten stage finishes.

Vaughters believes removing the expectation of success and giving his riders the freedom to breathe is the key.

During his days with US Postal, the team where Lance Armstrong won six of his seven Tours, Vaughters remembers team manager Johan Bruyneel ordering the same meal for every rider.

Millar will testify that such a regimented, European style approach - still in evidence in hotels at every stage stopover this year - just doesn't apply at Slipstream.

"It's very simple: I pay the athletes for the training they do, for the work they put in, for the talent they have," adds Vaughters.

"I don't pay them for the exact results they get, so why would they dope? What's the incentive? If we disincentivise winning at all costs, then I truly believe the results will still come and we are proving that.

"This is a long-term project - it won't deliver immediate results and if it did, maybe something would be wrong anyway.

"We're doing well so far but I don't expect it to last. The mountains won't be so good for us but I'll still be the same happy guy."

In Millar, Vaughters recognises he has a wide-eyed convert to the cause - a loyal disciple whose reformist zeal matches his own. "There is no more hard-working rider than David - he's so dedicated and passionate about what we are trying to achieve," he said.

"Cycling and sport in general needs people like him, they need someone as intelligent and honest about the problems it has faced and faces. I've always seen him being a positive influence on the team because he can say: I got caught. This is how I did it. This is what it did to me.' "Besides, you can't replace the entire peleton with 12-year olds - you need to take a bit of a post-apartheid view."

Cycling is crying out for a visionary. Vaughters may have finished last in his first competitive ride but he's leading a breakaway from the peleton in the most important race of all, the race for cycling's future.