Jasper has a lot of work to do before the Tour of Alberta rolls into town in September, but first things first it needs to finalize its local organizing committee.
The committee, which has 10 positions ranging from chairperson to sponsorship director, is responsible for coordinating the festivals at the start and finish lines, as well as marketing the event, creating awareness and organizing volunteers.
Most communities on the 2015 bike route have already formed their committees, but because Jasper announced its participation last month, it hasn’t yet had the opportunity to nail down its volunteers.
But that didn’t stop nearly two dozen Jasperites from attending a Tour of Alberta symposium last week, along with people from each of the other host communities, as well as representatives from the tour’s own organizing committee.
“Jasper came out in full force with 21 people,” said Mary Darling, CEO of Tourism Jasper. “So, although we don’t have our formal committee established as of yet, I believe very strongly ... we can incorporate all of this enthusiasm and have the best committee out there.”
Darling said the Jasper Partnership—which came together to pool its funds to bring the tour to town—hopes to announce the finalized committee by the end of the month, so it can hit the ground running and start planning Jasper’s segment of the race.
The Tour of Alberta takes place from Sept. 2–7. On Sept. 4, 120 of the world’s best cyclists will finish Stage 3 in Jasper National Park and the following morning they will begin Stage 4 in the townsite and finish at Marmot Basin that afternoon.
“So, we’re going to be putting on three festivals: a finish festival on Friday night, a start on Saturday and then the mountain top finish at Marmot on Saturday afternoon, so there’s a lot of work to do,” said Darling. “This isn’t going to be easy, but it’s such an opportunity to showcase the community and everybody sees how amazing this opportunity is and they want to be involved and we want to make it world class like we know we are.”
Last week’s symposium, which took place in Jasper, provided each of the host communities an introduction to the tour, with members of the tour’s organizing committee providing information about the race’s rolling road closures, the festivals, how to train volunteers, and all of the intricacies of organizing a large-scale moving event.
Speaking about the intense seven-hour workshop, the tour’s Executive Director Duane Vienneau said each year it’s an opportunity to get into the nitty gritty details with the people who need to articulate them, so they know exactly how to move forward.
“From the Tour of Alberta perspective, we look at all the big picture logistics as it relates to the race and then we ask the [local organizing committees] to really dive into the detail of what happens inside of each community.
“We go through all the things that we have to look at for every community and then we break out with each community specifically and have individual meetings with each one of them.”
Those small details include everything from how to set up the festival to where to put volunteer route marshals, ensuring the safety of the cyclists and motorists on the road.
The Tour of Alberta hasn’t yet announced its finalized route for the September event. Vienneau said it will likely do that in June, but it all depends on the weather.
“When our technical people can come and see the entire route without snow on it, that’s when we finalize it, and once the entire route’s finalized we usually do a press conference to announce it because, for the avid cycling fans, the route is one of the biggest announcements.
“They always want to know where are these guys going, what is it like, what’s the incline, what’s the distance, those kinds of things.”
The Tour of Alberta is the highest ranking cycling event in the country, attracting the same cyclists that compete in the Tour de France. The inaugural event was held in 2013, taking cyclists from Edmonton to Calgary; in 2014 the route was reversed.
Now that the event is established, attracting 200,000 spectators and 41 million international television viewers, the route is receiving a revamp to showcase other areas of Alberta.
This will be the tour’s first time heading north, with the race beginning with time trials in Grande Prairie on Sept. 2. The following day, the County of Grande Prairie will host Stage 2 and on Sept. 4, riders will make their way from Grande Cache to Jasper, making up Stage 3 of the race.
Stage 4, both its start and finish, will be in Jasper. Then, the riders will be driven to Edson, where they will start Stage 5, cycling to Spruce Grove.
The final stage is a circuit race in Edmonton.
If you are interested in volunteering, either as a member of the committee or on one of the many subcommittees, it’s not too late.
According to Darling, all expertise is welcome.
“This is a community effort to showcase our destination to the world, so we are still looking for people to help out.”
If you’re interested, send an email to [email protected].
Nicole Veerman
[email protected]
