Have you ever had a bee in your bonnet about something you've always dreamt about doing, and suddenly there is an opportunity that has to be seized?
Years ago I saw a video about the Crocodile Trophy, and it has been on my bucket list ever since. Strange how life pans out, but after last years Himalayan adventure I spent a weekend mountain biking near Byron Bay with friends and at a race bumped into www.11hills.com.au legend Craig Quinn, we rode together on quite a bit of the course, until it came time for descending and he sped past me like the wind, he picked up straight away that my technichal skills were somewhat lacking!
At the end of the ride we had a great chat and after realising we both lived on the sunshine coast, he kept in touch and he has been an inspiration, patient skills coach and massive positive encouragement to me ever since. I blame Craig and his wonderful group of talented mountain biking athletes for their infectious enthusiasm. I now have fallen in love with mountain biking, and there was born a hunger to get fit and build on my technical skills to compete in the Crocodile trophy!
Being the first trip this far North in Queensland I was super excited, and my eyes were glued to the window as the plane was touching down in Cairns. The view of glistening sea, white sandy beaches, and seamlessly never ending rainforest was spectacular and just added to the butterflies playing havoc in my stomach as I thought about the week ahead.
The Croc Trophy is an 8 day mountain bike stage race travelling through the tropical outback from Cairns to Port Douglas. It travels a total of 600km with 13,000m of climbing and is an iconic Australian race that has been running for 24 years. World Champion roadie Annemiek Van Vleuten has been rumoured to say that she found it harder than the women's giro, so I knew I had quite a week in store!
Cairns to Lake Tinaroo
100km with 2500m of climbing
The race rolled out with a 11km neutral section from the beach and began climbing out of town to a point on the hill where we halted before the official racing commenced. Sizzling heat and humidity of the day was already upon us, and sweat was dripping from everyone's backs. Personally I was finding this super hot already and had no idea how our poor jet lagged Euros were coping with this heat having come from cool Autumn weather!
Having a quick chat with one of the commissaire's on the start line proper, I could see a cheeky smirk on his face when asking how long we had to climb initially. I had no idea what was in store for the day, but could see that he certainly was looking forward to seeing the tortured faces in the coming hours.
Beginning on a road climb, I sat in close to the front of the peloton sitting at a solid tempo rising up towards the dam, after 20 minutes I glanced at my garmin and saw a HR of 175BPM. Realising I may have been a bit too excited to keep pace early, and decided to back of a little as we were only at the beginning of a long day and race. Sitting in no mans land I let the front markers go and settled into my own climbing pace before we hit the dirt. Suddenly the gradient increased and the first half of the day was characterised by relentless steep climbs that seemed to never end.
Upon reaching the second feed station temperatures were reading 38degC, and I felt like my organs were beginning to cook from the inside. It was a huge relief to throw some cold water over my head and grab some fluids and caffeine before keeping going. Luckily I was met by the leading male team, two super strong Belgians and for the flatter sections to come glued myself to their wheels, feeling nauseas from the heat and exertion I just kept telling myself that the more I dug in, the sooner I could cool off in a shower!
Somehow I thought this stage was 67km long, and at the last feed station when the happy volunteers announced we still had 50km to go my spirits dampened somewhat, my legs were burning from top to bottom and felt like they just wanted to stop turning, so it took all my will to keep them going all the way to the finish.
Suddenly we bagn to hear rumbles of thunder and flashes of lightning before the heavens opened, this was a welcome shower and the temperatures cooled off somewhat, thank goodness! I lost my Belgian compatriots somewhere along the way, but rolled into the soggy finish line at Lake Tinaroo. What a feeling, thank goodness we had made it back to the first pit stop! Time for a feed and relax before catching up on all of the stories and dramas that had unfolded for everyone in the race.
Being day 1 we were all a group of strangers and this was our first chance to chat and bond over our adventure stories from the day, there had been mechanicals including punctures, a derailler completely blowing apart and many riders stopped at the last feed station due to inclement weather conditions making it impossible to keep riding, however despite all of the challenges everyone's spirits were high and the group was still fresh and excited to travel further into the outback the next day.
I was rather surprised to find that I had won the first stage by almost 25 minutes, what a great feeling to start off the tour! Had I spent too much with fresh legs on day 1? There was a looooong way to go, and pacing yourself over the 8 days certainly could have been a more intelligent tactic!