THE FRIDAY NIGHT BEFORE the Sponsor Ride, Lance was motivating the likes of George Hincapie and teammate Michael Barry to down Coronas. The smarter riders had a beer in one hand and a San Pellegrino in the other. "They know how to hydrate," one of the Champions observed.

Across the room, the Australians (only three of the 27 Discovery riders are American) banged the tables with supersize Kirins, while Discovery's lone Japanese rider, Fumiyuki Beppu, was downing shots amid general hilarity. Tiger Williams told a story about partying in Vegas with Hincapie for three days, then catching a flight to Greenville, South Carolina, Hincapie's hometown, just in time for the start of a race. "They'll be fine tomorrow," he said. "They're amazing."

Most of them looked like they were too young to drink. (The youngest, Aussie Trent Lowe, is 21.) When the riders assembled on stage for a special team presentation, lean and tan-cheeked and slightly gawky, they looked like a high school soccer team. At the center of it all, gliding through the crowd, was Lance. "They're remarkable specimens," said Rich Silverstein, the guy behind the "Got Milk?" ad. "They just look better than us."

In July, both groups are headed for the Tour de France. The riders will face three weeks of grueling work: more than a hundred miles of racing each day, over mountain passes and long, windy plains. The Champions Club guys will ride some of the big passes, too, several hours before the pros come through. It won't be a race, but they'll put the hurt on each other and everybody will know who reached the top first.

"There are a lot of Type A personalities in this group," says John Bucksbaum. "The competitive juices come out and nobody wants to be embarrassed."

Least of all him. Before you woke up this morning, Bucksbaum was probably in the basement of his home in Chicago, churning away on his CompuTrainer, a $1,500 computer-controlled cycling simulator that can be programmed to replicate famous races from the Tour of Flanders to L'Alpe d'Huez. Bucksbaum also does interval workouts prescribed by his coach, former Postal rider Robbie Ventura.

In San Francisco, John Doerr is a regular on Palo Alto's Morning Ride, a hammerfest featuring some current and former pros. In New York, when the weather's decent, Tiger Williams and Michael Patterson will be making their 6 a.m. circuit around Central Park. "Those guys are doing 25 just like that," says Weisel, who recently installed a Velotron, a $5,000 item that's the Bentley of cycling simulators, in his Sun Valley home, just so he can get his daily fix. Rich Silverstein rides 16 miles each way to work—and tells his staff not to bother him if he decides to spend a morning riding his mountain bike in Marin rather than returning calls. He's preparing for the Tour.

And when the climbing is finished and the race passes through, "we'll be jumping up and down like little kids," says Silverstein. "And then we'll go and eat dinner at a castle."