Consumers also tend to be more forgiving when the wrongdoers admit guilt, said Valerie Folkes, a marketing professor at the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business. Mr. Armstrong “suffered because he so publicly denied doing anything wrong,” said Ms. Folkes, who is an expert on how consumers respond to negative information.

Until federal authorities forced his hand, Mr. Hincapie was not forthright about his own use of banned substances — and he was tight-lipped about Mr. Armstrong’s doping until the very end. When Mr. Hincapie did come forward, he was credited for his loyalty while Mr. Armstrong became a pariah.

After their initial damage control, the brothers started mapping out a strategy to move forward. That included a plan for the Hincapie Racing Team, a professional team co-owned by the investor Mark Holowesko. The team, which is focused on prominent American races, has posted some strong results in the last two seasons, including winning the third stage of the Amgen Tour of California in May.

Though racing teams typically don’t make money, the Hincapie team’s successes have increased visibility for the brand, and that spurs sales for Hincapie Sportswear. It also helps bring guests to Hotel Domestique, which is about 20 miles outside Greenville in the Blue Ridge foothills where Mr. Hincapie likes to ride. The Hincapies restored the property and opened it in 2013 as a luxury cycling destination, complete with an on-site mechanic and a fleet of high-performance bikes. All told, Hincapie Sportswear and its related ventures have 200 employees and annual revenue of more than $10 million.

In cycling parlance, a domestique is a cyclist who rides for the benefit of the team’s leader, often without glamorous fanfare and seldom in the prized yellow jersey of the leader of the Tour de France. In the end, that status might have spared George Hincapie the worst of the doping fallout. “George was probably the most successful unsuccessful bike racer there ever was,” said Mr. Baratto. “If he had won more, it might have been different.”