I'M IN THE LEATHER passenger seat of a black Bentley that Michael Ball is driving up the Southern California coastline. Slick-haired, dark-featured, and kept trim by daily long-distance bike rides, he still looks like the model and aspiring pro track cyclist he once was. The controversial forty-something fashion mogul, who made a fortune with the premium Rock & Republic label—think $370 jeans and gothic imagery—is shuttling between a pair of mansions he's rented in the Malibu hills. "This pushes the cool factor even further," he says of the extravagance. "Am I spending money? Absolutely. But you have to spend money to build a brand." Ball's image-making isn't just about denim, though. The houses are HQ for the January training camp of his one-year-old cycling team, Rock Racing. At a time when professional bike racing is fighting back against years of scandal by instituting the strictest anti-doping measures in sports, Ball is enthusiastically courting some of the most drug-tainted riders in recent memory. Tyler Hamilton, San-ti­ago Botero, and Oscar Sevilla—all of whom have been implicated in doping scandals—are among his recent signings. Floyd Landis can't participate just yet—his two-year ban for using testosterone during the 2006 Tour de France isn't over until next year—but Ball turns to him for advice and has listed him in media materials as a "friend of the team." It's all part of a strategy in which Ball plans to create a squad of bad-boy all-stars whose image extends beyond cycling, then cash in by selling merchandise linked to the brand. Think hip-hop kids wearing black Oakland Raiders jerseys. "Soft goods. That's where the money's at," says Ball. "Look at Ferrari. They don't make their money selling cars. They make it in Formula One, by winning a race on Sunday and then selling a million dollars' worth of T-shirts and hats on Monday." [Note: We called Ferrari. They assured us they make their money on cars.] Of course, Ferrari doesn't operate in a sport where it has to apply or be invited to compete in each event, as is the case with cycling. As a third-tier "continental" team, Rock Racing isn't ­eligible to compete in major European events. But even at home, the establishment has resisted Ball's seeming embrace of cycling's drug culture. Hamilton, Botero, and Sevilla were all banned from February's Tour of California. In March, Ball announced a new internal testing program, but his hiring practices suggest that he wouldn't mind a return to the bad old days of laissez-faire oversight.

"This sport is eating its young," he says. "It needs to be policed from within. Major League Baseball is a perfect example. You have to close ranks and take care of your own." Baseball? The sport whose attitude toward steroids led to an era of gorilla-shaped sluggers? Ball argues that the tactics of organizations like the World Anti-Doping Agency are more harmful than the dopers. "What the athlete did kind of disappears when you have an organization dictating with Gestapo tactics," he says. "They're destroying lives."