A group of activists are getting ready to cycle 1,000 kilometres from the Fort McMurray area in northern Alberta to Calgary to draw attention to their environmental concerns about the province's oilsands.

The trek, which begins later this week, is organized by the Sierra Youth Coalition and is the second in what the group hopes will be an annual event.

Last year, cyclists travelled from southern Alberta to the oilsands area.

Some of the seven cyclists who will take part in the trek from the Fort McMurray area to Calgary gathered at the Alberta legislature Tuesday. (CBC)

"We want to continue what we started last year … witnessing the impacts of development," said Marya Folinsbee, the co-ordinator of this year's trip as the cyclists gathered at the Alberta legislature Tuesday preparing to depart.

"I was very concerned with both the environmental and social problems that Alberta communities are facing as a result of the obsession with the tarsands," said Greg Ellis from California, who took part in last year's trip and is taking part again this year.

This year the seven cyclists will be carrying bottles of water from the Athabasca River near Fort Chipewyan to present to oil executives in Calgary at the end of their three-week journey.

Officials in the tiny northern community downstream from the oilsands have long complained that their water is being polluted by the massive industrial development in the Fort McMurray area.