The Tour of Utah kicks off later today with a 180km first stage from Brian Head to Ceddar City and has gathered a strong team of both North American and European stars. During the next 6 stages, the riders will battle it out at high altitude in the race that has been known as America's toughest.

The best American riders have few chances to show off themselves on North American soil during the first half of the season but in the autumn the opportunities are numerous. The first of those comes today when the Tour of Utah kicks off with the first of 6 stages.

The race is known as extremely mountainous and has no timed event in this year's route. Hence, it should be one for the climbers who will excel at the high altitude and on the steep slopes. Already the first stage offers some solid climbing with the Bristlecone climb preceding a fast 40,9km downhill run to the finish line but some kind of sprint finish is on the cards.

Wednesday's 210km second stage should be an even tougher as the riders have to crest the Boulder Mountain just 38,1km from the line. The day is certainly not one for the sprinters and while we may not see any separation between the overall contenders, big time gaps should still open up.

The 191km third stage has a similar profile with the tough Mount Nebo preceding another fast 38,2km downhill run to the finish line. The 54,7km fourth stage is a Tour of Utah classic as it consists of 5 laps on a 10,9km circuit in Salt Lake City. The circuit is by no means flat and the repeated climbs should break up the field.

Saturday is the day of the 182km queen stage that takes the riders up the Guardmans Pass before the traditional summit finish at Snowbird Resort. This is the day to for the climbers to strike as the final climb always produces major time gaps. However, nothing will be decided until the very end as the race finishes with a short, difficult 129km stage starting and finishing in Park City. The top of the very steep Empire Pass is located just 8,2km from the finish and that final stretch is all downhill, meaning that the lead could change hands right until the end of the race.

As usual, the American teams put great emphasis on the race and line up strong rosters for the race. The team to beat appears to be Garmin-Sharp who intend to fight for the win with riders like Ryder Hesjedal, Tom Danielson, Rohan Dennis, Peter Stetina and Christian Vande Velde. Veteran Chris Horner spearheads a strong Radioshack squad and is intent to show that he is back to his best after an injury-plagued first part of the season. With George Bennett, Matthews Busche and Hayden Roulston also in the line-up, the team has a number of different cards to play.

BMC won the race last year with Johann Tschopp but line up a team mostly consisting of youngsters. It will be interesting to see what an in-form Yannick Eijssen can do on the climbs in Utah. The ProTeam field is completed by Orica-GreenEdge and Cannondale that are likely to target stage wins.

Champion System, MTN-Qhubeka  and UnitedHealthCare are the three ProContinental teams that have been invited to the event and the latter should be in the mix with its climbers Philip Deignan and Lucas Euser while Champion System has Chris Butler and MTN-Qhubeka Tsgabu Grmay for the GC. All those professional teams will be challenged by a host of continental teams from which Phil Gaimon (Bissell), Chris Baldwin (Bissell), Chad Haga (Optum), Javier Acevedo (Jamis), Lawson Craddock (Bontrager) and Francisco Mancebo (5-Hour Energy) should all make their presence felt on the climbs.

When the Tour of Utah finishes, most of the riders will travel to Colorado for the US Pro Challenge which starts on August 20.