A team of junior riders from Bobby’s home town of Glenwood Springs, Colorado is competing in races around Colorado with the help of some mentors …

NEW CASTLE – Together, Jeff Nelson and his group of mentors are training the next generation of competitive area bicyclists.

While it’s still a tad early to tab any of the current group of racers on the Brown & Willis Cycling Team as the next Bobby Julich, Nelson and his coaches have gotten off to a good start with them.

The club produced one junior level champion in 2005. That success has carried over to the ‘06 campaign with additional high finishes in earlier events in the yet-to-be completed Colorado road season.

Julich, a 1990 Glenwood Springs High School graduate, is one of just three Americans who’ve made the Tour de France podium, and he was a bronze medal winner in the 2002 Olympics; he got his start as a junior racer.

Currently, the team’s roster has 17 cyclists, ages 13-22, and Nelson said he is hoping to add more riders. Nelson said the main thing he’s looking for in young cyclists interested in joining the club is a commitment and willingness to make the effort.

“I saw a need for the kids around here to have a structure for a program. Then I got together with five other mentors and I said, ‘Let’s kick this thing off.’ We all talked about it and formed a plan.”

As the plan took shape, Nelson met local attorney Walt Brown, who had a role in Julich’s early race career. Brown even went to last year’s Tour de France to watch Julich ride. Working with Brown and the other mentors, young cyclists found out about the new team.

“I knew a couple from just racing around the area,” said Nelson. “Then, once we pulled these mentors together, everybody knew somebody in the area. So we kind of hand-selected our first crop of Juniors.”

An important piece of sifting through that first group was a commitment to racing.

“First thing we looked at were kids that wanted to learn how to race,” Nelson explained. “The whole program is about taking kids from the beginning level to racers – not just club riders. So in the process, we looked at kids that were interested in racing.”

From the start, desire was no problem for the cyclists. Rather, it was a lack of skills.

“They weren’t really training properly and weren’t structured,” Nelson said. “They just raced and had fun. They just went out and did their thing. So we talked to those kids and along with that we grabbed a lot of ‘greenhorns’ or kids off the couches that had seen cycling on TV.

“From there it just kind of snowballed. Parents heard about (the program) and sent them our way.”

A huge factor in maintaining the young racers’ interest is to make the sport fun and affordable, Nelson said.

“For our 13- and 14-year-old kids, the commitment is to go ride and have fun,” he said. “Those kids show up on Thursday night and ride with the big boys.”

As team members advance to older age groups, training becomes more intense.

Depending on an individual’s age, training ranges from six to 11 hours weekly for both mountain bike and road racing.

Cycling, Nelson admitted, is expensive. Major sponsors, which include Brown’s law firm and other local businesses, keep riders’ costs down.

“We want to make this affordable. That’s one of our key mission statements,” Nelson said. “I don’t promote $5,000 bikes for these kids. I promote entry-level machines. If a kid doesn’t have a bike, we’ll hook him up.”

Entering BAR-sanctioned events is free, providing the club is in good standing. Expenses for club members to participate include transportation, lodging and food.

“It costs $160-$240 for a kid to go race and come back for one weekend,” Nelson said. “The racing is free. We just have to get them there.

“We actually have to limit that because they are Juniors,” Nelson explained. “On the road scene, there are 14 BAR races in Colorado; we choose nine to 10 of them. In July, it’s every weekend. In August, it’s every other weekend. In July, the kids will be like bike bums.”

Just like Julich when he was that age.

Today, Julich is preparing to ride for Team CSC in this year’s Tour de France. The team has Ivan Basso, the favorite to win the three-week race.

“The influence of Julich has helped hugely,” said Nelson. “To have (Brown) know Bobby the way he knows him, it’s helped motivate these kids and make them say, ‘Hey bike racing looks kind of fun.’”

This story is from the Glenwood Springs Post Independent

From VeloNews.com …

Team CSC churned its way to victory Sunday in the UCI ProTour team time trial in Eindhoven, Holland. Riding with a strong eight-man lineup that included Americans Bobby Julich and Dave Zabriskie, CSC won with an impressive margin of 42 seconds to Discovery Channel and 55 seconds to defending champions Gerolsteiner on the out-and-back mostly flat 48.6km course.

Both CSC and Discovery Channel had many of their Tour de France tour riders in flight in what was an improvement in participation across the board in the second running of the team time trial race.

All 20 ProTour teams were present, plus two continental teams, with many teams bringing many riders heading for the Tour despite there not being a team time trial in the 2006 Tour. This year, the format was expanded from six-man teams to eight-man.

In addition to Julich and Zabriskie, CSC rode with Lars Bak, Michael Blaudzun, Stuart O’Grady, Luke Roberts, Brian Vandborg and Jens Voigt. The victory was a repeat of the team’s win last month in the Giro d’Italia and makes up for the disappointment in last year’s Tour when CSC lost the team time trial to Discovery Channel.

UCI ProTour Team Time Trial, 48.6km
Team CSC (Den), 45km in 52:28
2. Discovery Channel (USA) +0:42
3. Gerolsteiner (Ger) +0:55
4. Phonak (Swi) +1:25
5. Davitamon-Lotto (Bel) +1:31

Lancaster is the only race of the “Philly Series” that Bobby will be racing. He will be heading back to Europe to join his team as they prepare for the Tour. “Coming here was kind of an extension to my vacation over here,” Bobby told Cyclingnews. Bobby finished in the main field at Lancaster and will get a couple more days of his vacation before returning to Europe. Source: CyclingNews.com