Top Canadian rider from the Tour of Alberta, Ryan Anderson, on the 2015 route

In Spruce Grove, Alta.’s city hall, there were politicians, community representatives from various towns, race organizers, sponsors, and even fire fighters. They were there for Thursday’s announcement of the host communities for the 2015 Tour of Alberta. Ryan Anderson, the top-placed Canadian in the 2013 and 2014 editions of the TOA was also on hand. It was fitting, not just because of his successes in the race, but he grew up in Spruce Grove. The 27-year-old rider from Optum presented by Kelly Benefit Strategies spent 18 years in the town roughly 35 km west of Edmonton.

The town, along with Grande Cache, Grande Prairie, Edison and Jasper, was added to the 2015 TOA. “I think it’s going to be a great route. We’re going to go into the mountains this year in Jasper. In Grande Prairie, we’re going to get the team time trial, which will be unique. We’ll come through Spruce Grove. We’ll finish with the city circuit there in Edmonton,” Anderson said.

Before the announcement was hours old, some Albertans were grumbling about the northern focus of the race. Anderson, who has heard similar criticisms about U.S. races he’s participated in, had a practical analysis of the choices. “It’s a mammoth province,” he said. “The race is only six days long. You can’t reach every community you want to. And there are only so many roads and communities you can go through, especially coming from from Jasper down to Edmonton. I think the race organizers did a great job putting together the northern route. I think for next year, it’s quite possible that we won’t be back in Spruce Grove as there is talk of a more southern route. You see those changes with other races in North America, such as California and Colorado.”

A significant addition to the 2015 event is mountains, which were absent in the first two Tours. “I remember growing up, I spent a lot of time riding my mountain bike around Canmore. It was unfortunate that they had flooding in 2013 and we weren’t able to make it to that part of the province,” Anderson said of the re-routing of 2013’s Stage 4. “This year, we’re going to get that opportunity to get there. Last year, you could see the mountains from Calgary. They were so close. There are a lot of logistics to get us into the mountains. We’re going into federal parks. That we are going into those areas shows the value that the race has for the country and the province. It’s a remarkable thing.”

While the mountains played a role in Anderson’s youthful riding, altitude continues to feature in his career. The past two years, he’s competed in Colorado’s USA Pro Challenge. “I’ve come out of Colorado the past two years in good form,” he said. In 2013, we was on the podium twice in Colorado, third on Stage 3 and second to Peter Sagan in Stage 7. He hopes to ride the USA Pro Challenge once again, which could help in on the Stage 4 finish at the Marmot Basin ski resort. “But it’s going to depend on what the gradients of the final climb to Marmot Basin are going to look like,” he said. The route details are expected in the spring. Anderson is not a pure climber, so Stage 4 might not be for him. Still, he handles the punchy stuff well, such as the routes that have featured in Edmonton.

Anderson will know more about his late 2015 season after the Optum training camp next week. Along with the Pro Challenge and Alberta, he’s hoping ride the Grand Prix races in Quebec and Montreal again, as well as compete at the world championships in Richmond, Va. His season will kick off in Portugal at the Volta ao Algarve (Feb. 18–22) and later the Volta ao Alentejo (March 25–29).