The world’s top cycling team in 2006, Team CSC, spent the first two weeks of February at a training camp in Gilroy, California. Team director Bjarne Riis didn’t pick the self-proclaimed "Garlic Capital of the World" for its plethora of pungent produce, but for its farm roads swooping into and around the Santa Cruz Mountains, which provide an ideal training ground. Plus Gilroy sits a short spin away from roads that will be the battleground for the first half of the Amgen Tour of California, which begins today in San Francisco.

CSC has lofty goals in California, as demonstrated by the depth of its roster, which includes Fabian Cancellara, winner of the 2006 Paris-Roubaix and world-time trial champ; David Zabriskie, second in the world’s TT; Jens Voigt, winner of the 2006 Tour of Germany; and powerful sprinter J.J. Haedo, winner of two stages of last year’s inaugural Tour of California.

Also headed to California is American veteran Bobby Julich. After hitting career highs in 2005 with stage-race wins at Paris-Nice and Critérium International, Julich struggled with illness and injury in 2006. His horrific crash during the first time trial of the 2006 Tour de France effectively ended his season in July.

VeloNews.com caught up with Julich during the team’s media day.

VeloNews: How has the dynamic of the team changed with Ivan Basso’s departure?

Bobby Julich: The dynamics are definitely different. With Ivan it had that entourage feel to it. The media was always there and the sponsors and VIPs were always there, which sometimes got in the way a bit. That has changed. I think people are less nervous, and it’s less stressful when you don’t have the guy who is expected to win the Tour or Giro on your team. But I’ve been in this sport long enough to know there’s a few riders in this room that will one day have a chance at the Tour podium so we have to work together and build that up.

VN: How motivated is the team to perform well at the Tour of California?

BJ: Obviously I think there’s another team that is a little more motivated than us because of the recent news that they don’t have a sponsor next year. It’s pretty obvious that we have a strong, deep team for the Tour of California. I mean, Jens Voigt was maybe 60 percent last year and Stuart O’Grady wasn’t nearly as strong as he is this year. I think having a lot of strong guys is a positive thing because we can play so many cards. Still, I think Discovery will be the team to beat. They have obviously done a little more training than us and put more emphasis on the Tour of California than we have, but for an American team to succeed with an American sponsor would be huge for them.

VN: How do you expect to perform?

BJ: I feel good. I’ve been training by myself for five months, and we came down here and did the two-week camp, which put me back in the midst of it a bit. Who knows? It’s all relative. I trained by myself and felt good, but you never know until you get into that first stage.

VN: Talk to me about your disappointments through the second half of last season. How did you get through it?

BJ: I really focused on my family and the birth of our second child. That helped me because it was a major disappointment crashing in the Tour. But it was a multitude of things that didn’t go well. I crashed at Paris-Nice and got sick at Critérium International — those were two races I had won the year before. Then I went into the Giro and thought it would be great and got knocked by allergies — I mean, I’ve known I’ve had those for a long time. Then I got myself up and was ready for the Tour, and what happened before the Tour even began really disrupted my mojo, my vibe. That was not a fun situation. And then crashing in the Tour was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I was like, hey, I’m pretty much done here. I told myself I’d deal with the injury and come back for the Tour of Benelux and the Tour of Germany and if I wasn’t 100 percent than that would be the end of my season. I realized right away that it wasn’t clicking, so I stopped my season and went home to be a husband and father. It made it a lot easier. I’m just eager to get back in the mix. It was a long off season after a bunch of disappointments, and that was tough after the mega-success I had in 2005. This could be the last year or the second-to-last year of me racing.

VN: What is your role on the team this year?

BJ: I’m the experienced guy who shows young guys, guys like Frank and Andy Schleck, the ropes a bit. Before I pass the torch and head off into the sunset, you know. I’m 35 and I’m not going to put a huge amount of pressure on myself to win specific races. Obviously I’d like to have successes before I call it a career, and it makes it easier to be on a team like this. This winter I was thinking that this would be my last year, but I’m starting to realize that I want to do the Olympics one more time. I feel like there’s a little unfinished business there. Right now I’m looking at that as my last race. It’s time for me to be a father. It’s getting harder to walk out the door with my wife and my daughter trying to block the door.

VN: Talk to me about the rivalry your team has with the Discovery Channel team.

BJ: I don’t know if I’d call it a — no, it’s definitely a rivalry, but it’s because we’re the first and second-best teams in the world. But I think it’s matching respect on both ends. Ivan put it clearly in an interview I read, that the teams are very similar and run very much the same with the same professionalism and attitude. So obviously there’s going to be some competition there. It’s going to be very bizarre riding against Ivan on that team. But I’ve been riding against that team for most of my career. I’ve never ridden for them and they’ve always been one of the best, so I’m used to it. We have mutual respect, but the same goals, which makes it very difficult to get along sometimes.

VN: How did you feel when Discovery signed Ivan?

BJ: I thought they just got a guy who we really built up, and they’re going to be able to harvest the fruits of our labor. That’s going to be hard to swallow. I think everyone on the team respects Ivan as an individual. We miss him, but he’s not on our team anymore, so that’s not an issue. What he does on that team is their issue.