The only thing certain about this year's Tour of Alberta is that nothing is certain. The five-day race lacks any summit finishes or major climbs to break up the peloton, and the most decisive day for the general classification could be a short 12.1km time trial in the penultimate day.
Time bonuses for the intermediate sprints and stage finishes will also be an important factor, but will those bonuses go to breakaway opportunists, or will the peloton find itself in a stingy mood?
"It's going to be a very tactical race, and that can make it difficult," Trek-Segafredo's Fränk Schleck told Cyclingnews. "On any big race, I'd be able to tell you with my experience what's going to happen, but here I'm not because it's going to be very tactical, and we don't know what's going to happen.
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"Talking about the parcours, there are no big climbs, so that's not good for me, but we should never forget that the race parcour is not challenging the winner," Schleck said. "It's the riders themselves who make the race hard."
Schleck's Trek-Segafredo team is one of two WorldTour teams in the race along with Cannondale-Drapac, and while Schleck seemed to imply his team, which features 2015 overall winner Bauke Mollema, would take a wait-and-see-what-happens approach, Cannondale's Michael Woods said his team would go on the attack.
"We don't have a pure sprinter on the team," Woods acknowledged to Cyclingnews. "We're definitely more of a rouleur/climber team, so we can't just sit back and hope for a field sprint and hope someone on the team can win it for us. We're going to have to really try and take the bull by the horns.
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
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