Bobby Julich’s CSC Aluminum Cervélo Soloist

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The aluminum Cervélo Soloist was the bike I rode during the best year of my career, 2005. Almost every time I put my leg over the top tube, in both training and races, I felt an incredible sense of confidence and power.

My teammates and I rode many kilometers on or off the front with this bike and would often talk about how fast we felt and how much energy we were saving compared to our competition.

2005 was quite successful for me. This is not the actual bike that I rode to victory in Paris-Nice, Critérium International, and the Eneco Tour, but I believe it was one of my spare bikes from that season as it has black bar tape, compact cranks, and round chainrings instead of my favorite Osymetric set-up.

At Team CSC, we prided ourselves in training hard during our team camps in January and February so that we would be as prepared as possible once the races started. The whole team trained together every day, and it created an incredible team atmosphere. We would get back to the hotel exhausted, but also confident that not many riders were training as hard as we were.

This year in particular, we were based out of Artimino, in the Tuscany region of Italy, just outside of Florence. This region has great roads with varied terrain for all sorts of training, but weather can sometimes be an issue.

During our second camp after a few early season races in the south of France, we got together again prior to the opening classics weekend and Paris-Nice. The training was going well, and the momentum was building until we encountered a massive snowstorm that blanketed the region.

There was so much snow that we were stranded in the hotel as the roads down to the main towns were impassable. The first day after the storm hit was a scheduled rest day, but that evening, when it was clear that the snow wasn’t going to melt for a few days, everyone started to get a bit nervous about their training.

We decided to break out the home trainers under the mechanics’ tent and try to manage the best we could as our big objectives were right around the corner.

Due to the large number of riders and the limited amount of home trainers, we had a sign-up sheet for two-hour blocks in the morning and afternoon to accommodate everyone.

Indoor riding platforms hadn’t been invented yet, so we just stared at our SRM head units and tried to simulate the efforts that we should have been doing on open roads.

There wasn’t much interest to do this sort of training at first by many of my teammates, but I had no problem doing the work inside. I was so motivated for the upcoming races that I signed up for two times, two-hour sessions per day and wound up getting some amazing training done.

After my last hard interval session in that tent, I was getting off the home trainer when one of the sport directors came up to me and casually said, “How great will it be to win Paris-Nice for the first time, towards the end of your career”?   It was nice of him to say, but in the moment, I thought he was crazy.

The bike

Some of the things that stick out to me about this bike:

• Cervelo Aluminum Soloist Frame: This bike just felt fast!  The aero down tube and seat tube were unique back then and the black paint job was simple but cool.

• Alpha Q Sub-3 Carbon Fork: This was a great fork and I remember being very happy with the handling and responsiveness in corners and on descents.

• FSA Compact Crankset: I believe that the mechanics took off my SRM cranks and replaced it with this model as I never raced with these. I also used 52×42 Osymetric chainrings.

• Speedplay Pedals:  I loved these pedals! The first ride on them, I felt like I was on ice skates, but got used to them very quickly.
• Prologo saddle: We rode Selle Italia saddles in 2005 and I kept the same one on my race bike for 3 years, so this must have been one that I put on when I switched my saddle to my 2006 race bike.
• Wheels: These were my training wheels as we used Zipp 303 and 404 in the races.
• Position: our team boss was a big believer in aerodynamics, so he insisted that our stems were slammed as low as they could go.

Memories from Paris-Nice

I had a lot of success on my trusted Cervelo Aluminum Soloist in 2005, but my best memories are from winning Paris-Nice.

I raced Paris-Nice for the first time in 1995 while riding for Motorola. It was my first race with the A-team along side Steve Bauer, Sean Yates, Lance Armstrong, Frankie Andreu, George Hincapie, Wiebren Veenstra, and Kevin Livingston. I finished on my knees after a late crash and brutal race, but for some reason after warming down after the final stage I told myself that, one day, I would come back and win the race.

I raced Paris-Nice almost every year between 1997 and 2003 and didn’t even come close to achieving that goal, but in 2004, I finished third overall. Since I was based out of Nice, France since 1997, I was especially thrilled with a place on the podium in such a difficult race.

In the 2005 edition of Paris-Nice, Jens Voigt was our team leader for GC as he was flying at both training camps, finished fourth in Étoile de Bessèges and had just won the Tour Méditerranéen a few weeks earlier.

The best tactic for such a difficult race like Paris-Nice is to race aggressively and have as many options as possible for overall success. With Team CSC, we were stacked with Jens, Carlos Sastre, Dave Zabriskie, Frank Schleck, Nicki Sorensen, Kurt Asle Arvesen, Vladimir Gusev, and myself.

Jens won the prologue and took the yellow jersey but then lost it on the next stage to Erik Dekker due to time bonuses. Stage 2 and 3 were typical Paris-Nice mayhem with crosswinds and bad weather, but we were all still within striking distance in the top 20 with all the toughest stages to come.

The fourth stage, which finished in Montélimar, was incredibly difficult with attacks all day long. At the top of the last climb, the peloton came back together but I noticed the entire Fassa Bortolo team hitting the front for the descent prior to the flat run into the finish.

They hit the top of the descent hard by sprinting out of every switchback which quickly strung out the group and created splits. It was everyone for themselves and I noticed one of the star riders from Fassa Bortolo struggling to hold the wheel in front of him, so I quickly jumped around him and latched on to the group. This single decision turned out to be one of the most important of my career.

When going full gas on a descent, you don’t look around until you get to the bottom and when we did, I saw that we had a decent gap. Jens Voigt didn’t make the front group, so I tried to hide in the back and didn’t contribute to the pace making as the kilometers to the finish counted down.

With only nine of us in the group and the stage win on the line, we were flying. I knew I had little chance for the stage win, but knew I was in position to take valuable time in the overall classification.

Fabian Cancellara won in front of Jan Kirsipu and teammate Juan Antonio Flecha with me in fourth, but most importantly I took a massive 28 seconds to the main GC contenders. This moved me up to third on GC behind Cancellara and Flecha, with the summit finish of Mont Farron to come on stage 5. I knew I could climb better than Fabian and Flecha, but they were not our main competition for the overall.

Mont Farron is a difficult climb that I raced up many times before, but this time we went up the back side. It is a bit easier, but still not my favorite type of climb. The group was all together as we approached the climb until a young rider named Alberto Contador attacked from the bottom. He went so hard I knew I couldn’t follow so I settled into my rhythm when suddenly his team captain yelled at him to slow down. Young Alberto didn’t like this and swung over to the side of the road in disgust which luckily for me slowed down the blistering pace for a moment.

It didn’t take long before the attacks started again, but I just tried to keep a steady tempo and limit my losses to the GC riders left in the group. I went into time trial mode and wound up crossing the line in 10th place, 41 seconds behind the winner Gilberto Simoni.

As I was taking a drink and putting on some warm clothes after the finish line, our team press officer ran up to me and informed me that I had taken the yellow jersey and had to go to the podium. I didn’t believe him until a member of the race organization came over to escort me to the media area.

It was an amazing feeling standing up on the podium on top of Mont Faron in the yellow jersey and being handed one of the famous Crédit Lyonnais lions. I hadn’t won one of them in many years and now had a young daughter at home, so I couldn’t wait to give it to her.

After the podium ceremony, I was finally able to return to the team bus and celebrate with my teammates, but standing in front of the bus with his hands crossed and a very stressed look on his face was our team boss Bjarne Riis.

Instead of a big congratulatory hug, he looked at me and asked, “Bobby, can you win this race”? It was a bit of a buzzkill question that I didn’t expect at that moment, but without hesitation I confidently responded, “yes I can, and I will.” He stood there looking me up and down for a few seconds and then turned around and entered the bus without saying anything else.

The remaining two stages were on my adopted home roads around Nice and I knew every twist and turn. I was confident, in great form, and had the best team to defend the yellow jersey, but knew our competitors weren’t going to just roll over and let us win.

Although we faced many challenging moments during the final two stages and especially the final climb up the Col d’Éze, the whole team rode brilliantly and delivered me to the finish line in Nice in the yellow jersey.

The podium presentation was something that I will never forget. Not only did I win the overall classification, but Jens Voigt won the green points jersey, Team CSC won the overall team competition, and I was awarded the first ever ProTour Leader’s jersey.

It was special sharing the podium with my teammates and friends, but the best part was walking off the podium and into the arms of my wife and young daughter and handing her another Crédit Lyonnais lion.

I was not the strongest rider in Paris-Nice that year, but I think I was one of the most focused.  Not many people can say that they wound up winning one of the biggest races of the year by making a split decision on a descent halfway through the race, but it turned out to be just enough to hold on for the overall win. I guess my sport director who told me about winning Paris-Nice late in my career after that hard interval session under the tent wasn’t as crazy as I thought!

I am happy that I held onto this bike not only due to the results I achieved with it, but for the fact that it was one of the last aluminum frames made by Cervélo used in the pro peloton.  Carbon fiber became the material of choice, but this frame was one of the first aero road bikes and probably my favorite bike that I raced on in my career.

This recently published video recaps Paris-Nice 2005 quite nicely.

For my next article in this series, I will share the story of my Cervelo Carbon Soloist which was the bike I rode during my last year in the professional peloton.