It seemed like Levi Leipheimer couldn’t catch a break last year. Despite some great racing and excellent form, victories were slipping through his fingers in the narrowest of margins.

He lost the Tour de Georgia by four seconds and a time trial victory at the Dauphiné Libéré by less than one second. Then came the final insult when Alexandre Vinokourov swiped his hard-earned fifth place at the Tour de France with all the world watching on the Champs Élysées.

But Leipheimer scored a sweet payback with the best victory of his career at the Tour of Germany two weeks later. It made all the hard work well worth it.

The Gerolsteiner captain lines up Sunday for the start of the Dauphiné Libéré in his final tune-up ahead of the Tour de France.

VeloNews European correspondent Andrew Hood caught up with Leipheimer at last month’s Volta a Catalunya to talk about Vino, Germany, psychologists, altitude tents and life after Lance Armstrong. Here are excerpts from the interview:

On not doing any special pre-Tour training camps
“I don’t need to do any training camps because the only climb I don’t know I am going to do in the Dauphine. After the Dauphine, I can go over to that last time trial and that’s about it. It’s just a scheduling thing more than anything. Some of the guys are in Switzerland. It’s a real-world sort of decision you have to make. In the end I can get a lot more work done if I stay in the same place. It’s home, I’ve got everything there and I don’t have to pack up and move.”

On using an altitude tent
“I sleep at altitude every night. I started before Christmas for the first time. In California, I have one of the big, big ones. Over here I have one of the travel ones, but it’s still pretty big. If they ban them, then they’ll have to take steps to ban a lot of other things, like power meters. What’s the difference? It definitely helps. It’s not like I keep track of my hematocrit, but obviously that goes up a little bit. More than anything, it’s a stimulation to your body because you’re lowering your oxygen saturation, I just felt like my metabolism was going better.”

On working with Max Testa
“Huge difference. He’s like my rock. E-mail, phone off and on, sometimes it’s like a couple days in a row, then sometimes once a week. The big thing he just writes me a program, all detailed out and I look at it when I get it, say the night before, I figure out in my head and I know which ride I am doing. I go out there, I know where I am going, it’s like I am on automatic mode and I get a lot more work done. I am pushing myself more. We’re always changing the work out.” On improving in the Tour
“My job is to ride for the overall. I look at it trying to get the most out of myself and reaching my whole potential. When the day comes when I feel like I can’t improve or I don’t want to improve anymore, then it’s time to quit. I’ve never felt like that. Every time I’ve finished the Tour, I’ve always felt like I should have done this, I should have done this different. There’s always that feeling that I could have done a little bit better. I think when that feeling goes away, maybe it’s time to stop.”

On his goals for Tour
“I don’t know where I will end up, a third, a fourth or whatever, it’s a matter of preparing for the best that I can and riding the best race I can. I am sure I will learn something this year as well. If I am going up Mont Ventoux in the Tour de France, it’s an hour-long climb and it’s pure suffering, it’s very painful, if you’re on the very limit the whole time, if in your head, you know you didn’t do all that was possible to prepare, you’re going to crack. If you know you’ve done everything to your best of your ability, that’s going to give you that little extra grit to hang on and suck it up.”

On how he deals with pressure
“Relax. You have to think about why you’re doing the sport and what’s important to you. You have to be ready for the worst. Prepare for the best, but expect the worst. You have to be willing to lose, really.”

On working with a sports psychologist
“I saw a colleague of Max’s, who is a sport psychologist. We had a couple of meetings and she determined the best thing for me was to do these sessions of trying to relax, going through every muscle in my body and relax. That’s what she saw in me was the major theme was that I needed to try to relax. She set me up with this technique and how to go through it and take the time out. I suppose, it’s close to (meditation), just trying to turn off your muscles and relax. When you’re starting to stress, you need to learn to relax. You waste a lot of energy that way. It’s reminding yourself to relax is the big goal, just being aware when you are starting to tense up and starting to get turned on in terms of your mind and muscles, just trying to relax and slow down. There is a saying that the body follows the mind, and I believe that. It’s a delicate balance, but then you do have to listen to your body. One can never go into the Tour with expectations of being relaxed, I’ve never seen anyone do that before. Certainly, Lance was never relaxed. There’s being ready and confident and aggressive, that’s not really being relaxed is it. It’s a very stressful event and the stakes are so high.”

On importance of getting big results early season
“I think it’s nice to always to get results. I did win the first race I did this year (prologue at Tour of California), but I haven’t won any big, big races. For as far as the Tour goes, you really don’t need to. Sure, it would help your confidence, but it’s not all about the Tour, either. Sure, it would be nice a big race just on its own.”

On losing fifth place on final day in last year’s Tour
“That was on my mind between the races. It motivated me. I didn’t feel satisfied what happened on that last day. I kind of felt like I was schooled, so that really stuck with me. I was also very relaxed going into Germany. I didn’t expect to win and I was just taking it as I can. I was relaxed and it turned out great. They took the time on the first time coming through (Champs Élysées), so if he got a gap on me, that wouldn’t have been a problem. In fact, he jumped, and I couldn’t get to his wheel, I was a little bit like they said there’s no time, but at that point there was nothing I could do. They kept going back and forth. They kind of dropped the ball.”

On difference between fifth and sixth
“A little bit, because people talk about top 10, top 5, there is definitely a line there between fifth and sixth. There is a line between second and third, third and fourth, fifth and sixth, 10th and 11th. It kept me focused on taking care of myself on recovering well and training well between those two races. It’s not like I went to Germany and said, I’m going to kill it. I’m not that kind of person. I just felt like I needed to ride well again.”

On the depth of competition in 2005 Tour
“I think the level last year was the highest I’ve seen at the Tour, without a doubt, and I think everyone would agree. I think the overall speed and strength of the Tour last year was the highest I’ve seen and all the other riders said the exact same thing. The Tour was just unbelievable last year.”

On who’s his favorite for 2006 Tour
“I think Ullrich will win the Tour. He’s the big favorite. What he’s doing right now is perfect for him. He needs to do the Giro. He’s so talented, he can race that much and just get better and better. I think the trick for him is finish the Giro in good health, it doesn’t matter what position he is, and then stay focused, and for him that’s a big question mark. If he does all that, it really shouldn’t be a problem for anyone else, with that much talent, I would be all over it. The Tour was made for him. Two long TTs and it’s hard in the third week. The Pyrenees aren’t that difficult, there’s one hard day. Basso has got the Giro lead now and the team is really focused on the Giro. I could be wrong, he could win the Giro and show up great to the Tour, but they’re putting a lot of energy on the Giro.”

How the Tour will be different without Armstrong
“There was no doubt that everyone was racing for second place (last year). Basso was for sure. The tricky part of the Tour will be when a team can’t control, when two teams cannot control. Team CSC has put a lot into the Giro and they come to the Tour and they don’t have anyone for the mountains, let’s say Sastre is tired, what’s Basso going to do? If it’s Vino, then Mancebo, then Pereiro, then me, you can’t go with all those moves. It goes the same with us, too. We can’t just say, well, Basso’s still here and I’ll just stay with him, because that might not work. There might not be a team strong enough to do like Discovery has done the last four or five years, when it was like 15 guys over a huge alpine climb and they have like six, that’s not going to happen. Then it’s really going to be a different race. A little bit of luck. It also has me thinking about those scenarios and be able to make those decisions on who I can follow, it’s definitely exciting, that’s for sure. I think it will definitely be a year when being aggressive can pay off, which that has not paid off for seven years has not been the case. You feel it the day after or whatever.”

On 2006 Tour route
“I always like the last week hard. I’ve been trying to work on my TT because there are two long flat TTs because you cannot give up time there, but the mountains always make a more decisive section I think.”

On improving in time trial
“The Tour is more competition and higher level than the Dauphine, my performance at the Dauphine should have translated into a better finish in the Tour. A time trial comes down to the day, it’s the race of truth because you’re on your own. If you have a 95 percent day, it’s going to show. There’s nowhere to hide.”

On winning Tour of Germany in 2005
“Sure, to win, to win is always better. It’s one of the best races on the calendar, in terms of the people watching it, the organization, the safety, the quality of the race, by far it exceeds other ProTour races, like Tirreno. To me, that race is a joke.”

On Tirreno-Adriatico
“I felt like the way we were treated was horrible. We had a stage when it was 38 degrees (F) and raining very hard at the start and we had to go over a 1000 meters climb. It was in the first 50km in the race, there was no TV coverage, there was not one person watching the race. We all wanted to drive the climb. If it’s 4C at the start and we have to climb 1000m, and the race organizer was like, it’s 4C at the top. They were treating us like stupid people. Then they went to the other smaller teams and said if you don’t start, you’re out of the race, and that means if they start, we have to start. Then we went over the climb, there was not one person watching and then we had to go down 15km and that’s when people get sick. Sure, if I was a first-year pro, I would be like, great, let’s go race in the snow. It’s not worth it, certainly not for Tirreno. There will probably be a day in the Tour with very bad weather, but that’s a different story. It was the same day that Bettini crashed. He wanted to drive over the climb. He was leading that race. Paris-Nice had no time trial and no mountain-top finish. Tirreno had both of those, of course, they ended up canceling the mountain-top finish and the time trial was kind of a disaster for me.”