A beer and an idea

The idea began with a proposal from Mr. McNees to his longtime friend Mr. Lewis on Oct. 13, 2013, when the two were drinking beers and watching a football game at the same restaurant where they met in 2000 when Mr. McNees was a waiter there.

If Mr. Lewis is the money and experienced businessman of the team, Mr. McNees is the ethical guide.

Last year Mr. McNees published something of a treatise on the problems with cycling, as he saw them, in “Sports Philosophy Now: The Culture of Sports After the Lance Armstrong Scandal,” a 261-page book that combines philosophy and culture.

That attitude extends from avoiding any sponsor who was connected to anyone convicted of using PEDs — including Nike, which sponsored Mr. Armstrong — as well as avoiding races associated with any sponsor like that, or run by anyone connected to a PED scandal.

Mr. McNees’ book reads a bit like the backing for the ethos behind Cyclus, which he admits is not far off, but notes: “No one in our organization has to read the book to be on our team.”

What they have to do to become a part of a Cyclus team is sign a contract that calls for the immediate termination if a rider is found to have used any PEDs.

“It’s blatantly stated right in the contract,” said Jordan Villella, 34, who is director of the Pittsburgh Cyclus team and lives in Imperial. “I think it’s awesome.” The riders do, too. “Yeah, I like that,” said one of the Pittsburgh team’s six riders, Van Morales, 25, who lives in Morgantown, West Virginia. “You have to be transparent.”

Mr. Morales was one of those young fans disappointed by what he was seeing when it was so obvious that most of the riders in the major races like the Tour de France were using PEDs.

“All you needed to do was see the data [on racers’ performance and power output] from one year to the next to know what was going on,” he said.

Cyclus’ upfront attitude about PEDs extended to how they chose their head coach.

Jacob Fetty, 38, helps to run a coaching service, Cycle Smart, from his home in Spencer, West Virginia. Mr. Lewis and Mr. McNees hired Mr. Fetty and his company three years ago, and not just because of their reputation in helping to improve competitive cyclists’ performance.

“We’re sort of known for being outspoken against performance enhancing drugs,” Mr. Fetty said.

Just being opposed to PED use is not going to result in winning cyclists who can get the attention of national media and maybe reach Mr. Lewis’ goal of getting a cycling league on television.

So what is Cyclus doing for the riders that potentially is going to change the sport and possibly produce those world class cyclists?

“We start with local teams,” Mr. Lewis said.

Their kind of town

In 2014 it began with just one local team in Greensboro. It added two more North Carolina teams in 2015 in Raleigh and Charlotte.

Then last year — thanks to Mr. McNees’ Western Pennsylvania heritage — they added Pittsburgh, which made perfect sense to Mr. Lewis.

“Pittsburgh is our type of town,” Mr. Lewis said. “Because, I’ll tell you, Pittsburgh is made up of really true, honest people there who love sports.”

Each five- or six-member team gets its own Cyclus jersey, with different colors to separate them from other Cyclus teams. The colors were chosen in some cases on a whim. But, in the case of Pittsburgh (black and gold) and Charlotte (light blue and grey,) they play off local pro sports teams.

This year, Cyclus is adding teams in Cleveland and New York City. Next year, it plans to expand to Boston and possibly two or more cities, potentially in Tennessee.

The teams ride races locally and regionally nearly every weekend together from March into the fall. The Pittsburgh team, for instance, will travel to West Virginia, Ohio, Virginia and the Washington, D.C., area.

Now that Cyclus has six local teams — which act as something like farm teams, with the best riders competing to join the national team — this year for the first time it is planning to hold an inter-team competition in Greensboro. The 100-mile-or-so race will pit all six of Cyclus’ teams against each other in a race around a 1½-mile course through downtown Greensboro. The race has yet to be scheduled.

“We want the fans to get to see the team strategy they use,” Mr. McNees said of the proposed race. “We need to educate fans about what cycling is.”

Last year, Cyclus’ national teams raced some of the lesserknown races in Europe, and this year will race the best stage races in North America. Eventually, Mr. Lewis said, “we want them to be racing the biggest races in the world” including the Tour de France.

Building each team starts with the local directors — Mr. Villella in Pittsburgh — who work with Mr. Fetty to recruit local riders.

They don’t look for just the fastest local riders. Instead they target men — no women yet, though there may be women’s teams in the future — who aren’t necessarily winning every local race.

“We get a fair amount of [unsolicited] resumes and calls from guys looking for a team and program to be part of,” Mr. Fetty said. “But a lot of these guys are good riders who are simply looking at what they can get, but are not really interested in their growth potential.

“We’re interested in loyalty and growth potential. So we’re typically looking at riders a bit younger who haven’t been noticed yet. We’ve had more luck with those riders. And then we mix them in with some riders with more racing experience and life experience who can mentor them and push them.”