Born in Texas, Julich has resided in
Glenwood Springs, Colorado, since childhood, with a brief time in
Philadelphia, where he met his wife. Most of his living relatives reside in the New York area. Bobby Julich got his start in cycling winning the
Red Zinger Mini Classics youth bicycle race in 1985. As an amateur cyclist Bobby Julich won the 1990 Junior National
Cyclo-Cross Championship, and as a member of the US National Team he participated in the 1991
Tour DuPont. At the time it was the biggest stage race in the United States, and Julich finished 5th overall in a race which included fellow American cyclist and 3-time
Tour de France winner
Greg LeMond. Bobby won the award for the Best Young Rider and was heralded as the next LeMond. After a few "false" starts as a professional, he joined the
Motorola team in 1995 alongside Italian rider
Andrea Peron and fellow Americans
Lance Armstrong and
George Hincapie. In the 1996 season, Bobby Julich was diagnosed with
re-entrant supraventricular tachycardia (RSVT), a heart condition which meant his heart would beat much faster than normal. Julich was treated with
radiofrequency ablation and was ready for the 1996
Vuelta a España late in the season, a race which showed the first glimpses of his potential in international professional cycling. There, Julich held the
King of the Mountains jersey for ten stages. Despite a strong performance he relinquished the jersey but did finish 9th overall, the highest placing ever by an American in the Vuelta up until Lance Armstrong finished 4th overall in 1998. It was this performance that made other teams in the peloton take notice of Julich. When Motorola ended its sponsorship at the end of the 1996 season he joined the French
Cofidis team with a few fellow Motorola teammates, including Lance Armstrong. Armstrong's cancer meant that he was not able to compete with the team, while Julich went on to participate in the
1997 Tour de France. He performed well in this Tour, getting stronger as it progressed taking two top 10s in late mountain stages including one where he finished only behind the podium finishers
Richard Virenque,
Marco Pantani and
Jan Ullrich. Then in the final ITT he placed 4th to finish the Tour in 17th overall. The embattled
1998 Tour de France was a breakthrough for Julich, when he took over the team leadership from Italian
Francesco Casagrande. Following the
doping scandal of the 1998 Tour, only 96 of 189 riders completed the race, and Julich finished third on the podium with winner Pantani and runner-up Ullrich. Julich was hailed as the next American Tour de France champion and he was once more proclaimed to follow in the footsteps of Greg LeMond. The
1999 Tour de France saw Julich as one of the favorites for the overall win, but a crash during an
individual time trial forced him to quit the race, which was in turn won by the recovered Lance Armstrong. For the 2000 season, Julich moved to another French team
Credit Agricole, joining compatriot
Jonathan Vaughters. He was part of the Credit Agricole team that won the
team time trial stage of the
2001 Tour de France. After a move to
Team Telekom of Germany in 2002, Julich rode as a
domestique in support of his team captain Jan Ullrich. Julich only enjoyed lacklustre results, and at the end of the 2003 season he contemplated retiring. Despite an offer below his wages at Team Telekom, For the very first Giro d'Italia participation in his career, Julich had early aspirations of conquering the pink jersey for the leader of the
general classification early in the race to lessen the pressure on Basso. In May 2011,
Tyler Hamilton, the winner of the men's time trial at the 2004 Summer Olympics, confessed that he had used doping products, and returned his gold medal. On August 10, 2012, Bobby Julich was upgraded from the bronze to the silver medal. In May 2013, he joined
BMC Racing Team as a consultant. In November 2014, it was announced that Julich would join
Tinkoff–Saxo as head coach, reuniting with Sean Yates (former sports director of
Team Sky) and team founder and manager
Bjarne Riis. Julich and Yates left after Riis's firing later in 2015. ==Doping==