The Tour of Alberta gets underway with a 19.6km team time trial on Wednesday, followed by five road stages on rolling roads through the national parks of Alberta, including an uphill finish on stage 4, before concluding with a final stage on a hilly circuit around the city of Edmonton on Monday, Sept. 7.

Team Giant-Alpecin heads to Canada following a hugely successful edition last year, where the team won two stages and claimed second place in the final GC with Tom Dumoulin (NED). In the 2013 edition of the race the team achieved podium finishes on three of the six stages. 

In the lineup for this year are Tour de France stage winner Simon Geschke (GER) and fast men Nikias Arndt (GER) and Ramon Sinkeldam (NED), as well as the Ludvigsson (SWE) brothers, Chad Haga (USA) and climber Georg Preidler (AUT), who had a strong debut in the Tour de France in July. For Lars van der Haar (NED), the Tour of Alberta is the final stage race of his road season, before he starts his cyclo-cross season in the US later in the month.

Coach Aike Visbeek said: "Our goal is to start with a good team time trial, as we have several guys with the potential to do a good GC. With a strong TTT we can keep that door open and see during the week who is in the best position.

 “It is a diverse course in Canada, with some sprinting opportunities as well. For those occasions we will aim for stage results with Nikias.”