It was through friends of friends I had scored the job of mechanic for the Gatorade Dream Team in the 10th anniversary Crocodile Trophy. I’d seen the event on SBS a few years before and jumped at the opportunity. Without taking into consideration the severity of the event I booked the plane tickets and packed my bags. I was ready, but there was some concern in the back of mind. The heat and expected living conditions had me worried.

I first met up with Cristi Anderson ('wife of Phil' as she’s now known in the Burketown pub) in Darwin four days before the event to begin preparation of the bikes. As I had only signed up for the job two weeks before the roll out I had no idea what stage of construction the bikes were in. Turned out that allot of the tricky work was done, headsets were pressed and bbs were chased. The team was using new 2005 model Felt EPO pro's. Out of the box the bike was fitted with Skareb comp forks and XT v brake group. Fresh from Shimano came four XTR groupsets ready to install and from Rockshox, the new Reba SLs with motion control. The interesting thing with this combo was the lack of disc option on the frame, and the lack of v option on the forks. Leaving no choice but to run disc front and v-brake rear.

It’s totally engulfing working on bikes in a motel room. For the 3 days before the event I lived with the bikes getting things perfect, my bed was meters from the workstand, the entry hall of our unit was lined with Shimano boxes and the coffee table was my bench. I don't think I've ever seen so much Shimano in the one place- or so much shit on such a small coffee table. My tools, which were diverted to Darwin after failing to make it to my home town Rockhampton, never showed. Good on ya StarTrack Express, these guys are riding from Darwin to Cairns in 14 days and you can't get a package to Darwin- via airplane in 3. Luckily for me the lbs was just up the road, combined with the basic kit I had put together the day before my flight, the bikes went together without too pain. The only escape from the bikes was dinner with the riders whom I had just met. Jurgan (The belgum rider) ordered crocodile, along with the statement "The more I eat now, the less that can eat me out there". I had to laugh, but little did I know how true it was.

Although the ride started in Darwin with a prologue on the esplanade the real race started a day after in Materanka 300kms from Darwin. We organized camp within an hour of arriving so Barry Burns (the masseuse) and me headed to the local watering hole. Steve was the barman, and he was a classic. A New Zealander, he set up camp in Materanka after is full size bus, converted into a mobile home had died along the road. As we drank the TV played in the background and Steve tried to slow our drinking down. See the pub was between owners; as such no one was prepared to pay for beer, especially not the "premium stuff" we were drinking, carton cold. For some reason though the VB was flowing, turns out it’s the state drink up here.

Waking up the heat, combined with the previous nights beers hit me. Not hard- but enough to tell me that its no fun to pack up camp dehydrated. Luckily with our sponsor being Gatorade- mineral replacement was only a bottle full away. Mmm hot grape Gatorade, oh how I’d learn to hate you. The riders set off at about 8am for the first killer stage of 182kms to Roper Bar. Now 182kms is a long way in anyone’s books when it comes to bike riding. Chuck in the fact that it was on a mountain bike and you've got some serious loneys out there. We mowed onto Ropper Bar in the support vehicle, as unlike previous years, no mechanical assistance was permitted to the riders. Basically because there were so many solo efforts, the organizers didn't want to allow unfair advantage to team riders, fair enough I thought. I just hoped my bikes held up in there first real test.

Darren O'grady (Who had been invited to help out last minute) gave me a hand to wash the bikes and check things over after a spectacular finish though the local river crossing. Alberto Elle (An Italian rider) pulled up half way along the crossing and layed down in the flowing water with the local aboriginal kids who had heard about the event and had come to watch these 'deadly treadlys' cross the line. Jurgan hit hard and followed Elle to come in 5th. You could see the heat had already hit the belgum as his wife Natalie attended to him in the water. Larse the American also had a hard day, taking a wrong turn and pulling into camp instead of the finish line. Turned out the bikes were fine mechanically, but I quickly found asking the riders on the performance of their bike was probably best left to campfire beers. Not that I had time to drink, by the time five bikes were sorted and looking like new, I was out like a light.

The next days ride was to Nathan River, another shocking 177km. This time corrugations hit the riders hard. Before setting up camp we needed ice. A 20km side track lead up to Nathan River fishing camp. $8 a block is the price of ice out here. Not cheap by any means, chuck in the fact that the water STUNK of rotten fish and wasn't bagged, we felt ripped off. We arrived at the Nathan River camp about a week after a bushfire had been through. We camped in sandy soil covered in ash. I jumped in the water just to get away from the ash and flies, which at 2pm had found the campsite and started to swarm us. Trying to concentrate on getting a bike clean and functioning perfect after a day of dirt and river crossings (in which we saw two crocs) while trying to keep the flies out of your ears is no easy task. I'm not sure what they like about my ears- but once they went in, they didn't want to come out. There was a report at butterfly springs, that the food truck with cool room had burst a gas pipe, leaving the truck without refrigeration. From that day on I noticed food was either marinated or heavily salted, but it was probably just my imagination. That’s what I told myself anyways. Butterfly Springs was our first non-plumbed location. Showers were fueled by water from the springs and toilets were 100 meters thataway for the first person, 99 for the second, and so on. Not a pretty site.

Things in the outback were just starting to get interesting

To be continued…

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