When the Bissell Development team shows up to a race, they aren’t just looking to gain experience with the best, they are looking to beat the best.

"We're getting excited about the Tour of California," the team's director, Axel Merckx told Cyclingnews. "I think we have a really well-balanced team for the race and we have Oram for the overall."

James Oram is one of the senior members of the team despite only being 21 and hails from Auckland, New Zealand. He has already showing good form and many believe he may follow in the footsteps of his old teammates Joe Dombrowski and Lawson Craddock by performing well in the race. The team can show itself on allfronts according to Merckx.

The team's roster also includes promising sprinter Nicolai Brochner, climber Clement Chevrier along with Tanner Putt, Gregory Daniel, Ryan Eastman, Tao Geoghegan Hart and Ruben Zepuntke.

"We have Brochner for the sprints, Chevrier for the climbs and all the other guys will have the opportunity to get in the breakaways and try to show their talent," Merckx said.

"We're going to focus on day-to-day stages. The GC might start to be established very early on and that might give more room for breakaways to go further later in the week." He said in reference to the day 2 TT and the Mount Diablo summit finish on stage 3.