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Joe McDonnell is a member of the SSCC and achieved gold in 2005 in the NSW Teams Time Trial, two silvers in the Criterium and Road Race and was the overall Elite Men’s race series champion at the 2005 Australian National Clubs Championship.
Another crash on stage 6 was carried out in spectacular fashion by none other than Peter ‘The Professor’ Herzig who tangled with a Bouygues Telecom rider, completed an A-class cartwheel before landing on his feet and waving his arms like one of the Gendarmes you see standing on the medium strips in The Tour so as not to be hit by the rest of the bunch, all the while belting out an unmistakably Aussie string of expletives… entertaining stuff, thanks Herzo. Crocodile Trophy - Australia, October 18-30, 2005 There are times when curiosity gets the better of me. One of these times was somewhere in the middle of the year when I agreed to ride the 11th Crocodile Trophy from the 18th-30th October 2005. I could equate this instance of curiosity to a time when I volunteered to be sprayed in the eyes with capsicum spray on a recruit course of my last job. Only, instead of spending 45 minutes with my head in a bucket of water wondering why I’d volunteered, I had a whole 2 weeks of heat, sand and corrugations to give myself an upper cut and ask WHY??? However! I’d also disagree with the description of The Croc being a road race on dirt as this race has commonly been nick-named. There were several stages in this years Croc which are ideally suited to true mountain bikers and the results in Stage 5 and Stage 12 (On the CREB track) in particular show the need for technical skill on rocky climbs and difficult descents.
Adam did a great job getting sponsorship for the race, which saw us riding nice new carbon fibre Simplon hardtail frames. Simplon is an Austrian company but like many frames these days, made in Asia somewhere. Nevertheless, a really nice chunky, stiff and light carbon frame Stage 1. Townsville. 30km circuit race. Stage 1 was a circuit race around Townsville esplanade which soon had me riding my brand new bike through boggy sand and saltwater on the beach. It became apparent very quickly that my new bike wouldn’t stay new for long, and bike maintenance was going to be a big part of the Croc Trophy Challenge. The course was pretty much a hotdog circuit that went up the footpath a couple of kms then back down the beach for the same distance in boggy sand with about 10 or 15psi in the tyres. The race blew to pieces first lap on the sand, and as I hit the really boggy sand I soon realised my gears were far from perfectly adjusted and no end of problems with gear changing and terrible chain suck which saw me impossibly trying to ride through the boggy mess with only the big chainring. Losing 17 minutes in only 30km it wasn’t a good start to The Croc. Stage 2. Kirland Downs - Paluma Dam. 102km This stage started about 100km west of Townsville in the dry and dusty Kirkland Downs area and took us through a fairly flat and uneventful first part of the race. As we headed towards Paluma through dry and open scrub country the race broke up with some of the big boys putting the hammer down as we hit the hills. Coming from the mild Sydney temperatures straight into the heat, had me struggling a bit and I finally lost contact with the now very small front group about 60km into the race.
I rode with a bit of a bunch for a while, and as we headed back East and into the misty rainforest near paluma dam, a couple of us picked it up a bit and stomped home to finish off a 5 hour plus stage. After arriving we were told Adam had broken away, won the stage and now had the leaders jersey with just a couple of minutes up his sleeve. Stage 3. Paluma Dam Lake Lucy. 161km This stage took us North-West through hot undulating scrub land which opened out later in the stage to a 40 degree, shadeless slog through large cattle stations with numerous dry river crossings. The stage started pretty easily with one of our Coconut boys off the front with Dream Team member and ex-T Mobile pro Kai Hundertmark. I expected it to be relatively easy for quite a while but Dream Team leader and World Cup MTB marathon leader Mauro Bettin attacked early as the race got a bit hillier. With Bettin being the marked man, I chased hard with Adam on my I rode most of the remainder of the race with my team mate Johnny Reiser, finishing in around 6 hours and 10 minutes, which is a bloody long way on a mountain bike (especially if you think about a road race taking this long, it would have to be over 200kms and in around 40 degree heat, not exactly a walk in the park). When I got in, I was told the water truck had broken down, so it was off into the scrub to hook the camelback up for a quick camelback shower. Today was the beginning of some saddle problems for me also with the seam of my new knicks rubbing right on the edge of the saddle not good. Stage 4. Lake Lucy - Blencoe Falls. 134km After a night of rain, it was only 10 minutes into this stage and I was already covered from head to toe in muddy stagnant water. A couple of guys went up the road early (as usual) and with no Coconuts in the break, I rode off the front of the bunch for a long lonely day trying to get across for at least 100km and getting 11 minutes on the main bunch. All in all it was a good day off the front, with a chance to have a bit of look at the rough North QLD countryside littered with termite mounds and white paperbark trees, before being caught by a small group of leaders shortly before the finish. The finish was very hilly and at the bottom of a hill only 400m before the finish line you had to negotiate a dodgy pick a plank with no lines and gaps big enough to swallow a motorbike tyre, and just to make it interesting a nice thunderstorm in the last 5 minutes of the race. Finished 8th, I think. A long day with a now even sorer backside and a long way to go. Stage 5. Blancoe Falls - Koombooloomba Dam (via The Powerline Track). 75km My initial expectations of this stage, was that it was only 75km, a good rest day, walk in the park, that sort of thing. How wrong could I be? As usual it was on from the gun and I felt like I was going flat out, but as I looked at my Heart Rate monitor it showed only 157bpm. It was going to be a long day! After 5 hours I finally made it in, rode straight to the waters edge of Koombooloomba Dam, dumped the bike and went in shoes, helmet, camelback and all. To top the day off, when washing my bike, I discovered a huge crack straight through my right rear chain stay, my brand new carbon Simplon gone! And to make things just a bit harder, Adam crashed, needed stitches in his knee and lost 16 minutes and the leaders jersey. Stage 6. Koombooloomba Dam - Irvinebank (Population 80). 98km This stage had more than 50% of asphalt road and the plan was to get a couple of our guys up the road and a couple of the Dream Teams guys up the road together, then for Adam and Bettin to go across, then drive it and try to get as much time as possible on new race leader Heinz Zorweg. Johnny and I attacked first from the gun getting a good break, but with no Dream Team coming across we were brought back in before another group of guys went off the front and all went to plan with Adam back in the lead at the end of the day.
I had to try to help Chris the tour mechanic to build a new bike with a spare frame we had, so I steered clear of the tavern that was just opposite the campground and crawled into the tent around 11pm only to be woken by a father-son blue that went from around 1am til 4 or 5am. There was a few punch-on sessions, some screaming matches and some more biff before someone locked some keys in a 4wd (not that anyone should have been driving for about a week!) and started talking about steeling some bikes to ride home, gotta love downtown Irvinebank. Stage 7. Irvinebank - Chillagoe. 115km Another fast race from the gun in this stage (It amazes me that people have the energy to attack day in day out in 40 degree heat with a 4-6 hour stage in front of them and plenty to go). During the first feed station Czech rider Sibl Radoslav attacked (much to our dismay), stringing it out as we entered a 25km section of the stage that was extremely rough and rocky (and giving my backside a real caning!) I had a pretty bad stage, after struggling through a big section of sand, I got the shits and sat down on the side of the track, sucked on a Gel and counted to 10. Fellow Sydney-sider Kim Proctor motored past asking if we (Johnny and I) were right. Johnny and I reached a big patch of asphalt and this rekindled a bit of ‘roadie’ motivation to go fast and we soon reeled in over a dozen riders through a big electrical storm and smoked into Chillagoe in just under 5 hours. We spent the rest of the afternoon swimming down at the Chillagoe billabong with a rope swing and a bunch of the local aboriginal kids. It was a bit of a relief to reach Chillagoe with a decent camp ground, showers, dunnies (instead of taking a shovel and some bog roll off into the scrub!) and even a satellite internet cafe!! Stage 8. Chillagoe Individual Time Trial. 30km I took advantage of this stage to have a bit of a rest, and maybe recover enough to try to help Adam in the next few stages. My glutes were feeling cooked and my backside like someone had been at my left cheek with a cheesegrater. I rolled out of the start gate pretty easily and with 5 people passing me before the turn around, I was well on track for an easy day, until I started wondering if I would be too slow to make the cutoff which was a whopping 50% of the winners time (I was really going slow!), so the last 5km I whacked it in the big chainring and motored home to comfortably finish well inside the time limit. Stage 9. Chillagoe - Mt Mulgrave Station. 125km This day was one of the low points of The Croc for me. All was going well, I was riding in a good group through a 20km section of very rough track that apparently hadn’t been used for 20 odd years when I lost concentration for a bit, hit a washout with my front wheel and bit the dust. I was a bit banged up after this with a good whack of skin off down my right side, a big swollen lump on my right forearm, and a couple of areas in my right hand that could easily have been fractured (A week later, and I’m just going to get an xray). To make things worse, it was a stifling 44 degrees or thereabouts with some reports coming back that it was nearer 50 degrees celcius, and I had a twisted front and rear derailleur, and problems with my rear disc rubbing and a right hand that was more or less incapable of holding an allen key. I struggled into the finish in just over 6 hours, and with no clean water, straight into the dirty river to try to wash some of the stones and dirt out of my abrasions. One of the hard things about The Croc isn’t just about the racing, and the heat and the distances. A big part of it is, setting up camp, cleaning and fixing bikes, eating and drinking properly, washing clothes, dressing wounds, applying copious amounts of antiseptic cream to the crotch and getting things ready for the next day of racing. Luckily our support helps out with a lot of this (apart from the cream!), but it’s a challenge to find a bit of time to relax with so much to do and prepare for the days ahead. Stage 10. Mt Mulgrave Station - Laura. 148km
Another bad nights sleep in Laura as some of the locals played a 3 track Country and Western CD on repeat from around midnight until 6am.
Stage 11. Laura - Cooktown. 142km The worst experience I’ve ever had on a bike, perhaps the worst experience I,ve ever had on or off a bike. My bad day began at breakfast when the only milk provided was powdered, the bread was stale and they pretty much only had marmalade (the cooks on this trip and the food provided was very ordinary, but that’s another story!).
The race was flat out from the gun again and with the corrugations and a full stomach from breakfast, I had 2 spews before the first feed station at 30km, then about 3 spews after the first feed. I couldn’t eat anything until after 60km and every time I tried to drink I’d have a chuck. So, it was a bad day and the bruises/sprains/fractures or whatever I had in my right hand were killing me on the corrugated roads. By the end of the stage everything hurt, my hands, my backside, my lower back, my arms and the soles of my feet were burning from the constant vibration. The stage then finished at the lookout at Cooktown which is steeper than a 20% gradient, but a pretty awesome view from the top. Stage 12. Cooktown - Daintree. 139km. 2500 metres vertical climbing. One of the best stages of the Croc Trophy and the penultimate stage for the last few years. This stage includes the famous CREB track which many of the mountain bikers of the Croc pride themselves on riding. The CREB has extremely steep climbs and descents, multiple creek and river crossings and beautiful rainforest surrounds.
Stage 13. Port Douglas. 30km This stage has often been a bit of a publicity stage of the croc with the real results decided in stage 12 on the CREB. I had trouble early in this circuit race each time I’d hit a bump or drop off a gutter my chain would drop off the big chainring, so, like all but 7 or 8 of the starters of the last stage, I got lapped by Mauro Bettin, was pulled out and got the same time as most people, time of the slowest rider to finish plus 1 minute. Adam Hansen won his second Crocodile Trophy and a hard 2 week slog was finally over. PROs
CONs
Joe finished in a very respectable 17th place out of the 37 finishers ! |
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Much of the hype about the race quoted it as “The toughest MTB race in the world”, which is a pretty big statement in anyones terms and with my limited knowledge and experience of MTB racing i’d be in no position to agree or disagree with this. I would however, disagree with describing The Croc as a pure mountain bike race as such. In the defence of true mountain biking (it may seem a bit strange - a roadie sticking up for mountain biking!) you can’t tag a race that has absolutely no technical single-track with such a big statement as “The toughest ˜mountain bike race in the world”.
I rode The Croc as a member of the Cairns Coconut Caravan Resort/Simplon team, led by the 2004 and now 2005 Croc Trophy winner Adam Hansen. I had spent a couple of months road racing this year in Austria and lived and trained with Adam for a lot of the time I was there. The team included Adam Hansen, Tim Northy (Cairns mountain biker, mountain runner and adventure racer), Struan Lomont (another local Cairns mountain biker and adventure racer who was a member of the support team for Cairns Coconut Caravan Resort team 2004), Stefan Rucker (Austrian road cyclist from Adam’s road team in Austria Elk Haus/Simplon), Johannes ˜Johnny” Reiser (Austrian road cyclist from Team Rapso in Austria) and myself. Another non-official member of our team was U/23 Austrian Road, ITT, Hill Climb Champion Marcus Eibegger who rode The Croc for his sponsor Team Rapso. Our support crew included Adam’s Aunty Camie and family friend Deb, Tim’s missus Elsie and my old man, Neil.
After struggling along by myself for a few more kms I came to a race sign that pointed left up a little used bush track. After 5 or 6kms of climbing I was getting worried that I hadn’t really seen any tyre tracks on the road and definitely no empty gel packets, banana peels or red bull cans for a while. It wasn’t until I came to a locked gate at the end of the road that I realized the race sign I’d seen earlier had been blown around by the wind and consequently sent me up a very long, hot, uphill garden path! so to speak. In around 40 degree heat and after just busting myself to try to stay with the lead bunch, it cracked me a bit to know I’d just done an extra 10 or 12kms, but I turned around and headed back to the sign, running into a few of the other Coconut boys who’d already been dropped along the way.
wheel and bridged the gap before yelling to Adam to “GO!” as I blew to pieces and started going backwards.
I rode one of the guys spare bikes, a hard tail Iron horse, that was not the best fit and took a bit of getting used to but we made it into Irvinebank in 3.5 hours and kicked back at the tavern for a few hours. It turned out being a bit of a big night for some of the boys, with a big mix of locals making things interesting at the tavern, especially some old guy completely smashed with a very mangey looking duck under his arm, that he kept whispering sweet nothings to and kissing on the beak!
Today the mercury hit nearly 50 degrees and with all my skin off, my backside still feeling like the victim of a nasty cheesegrater accident, and a bad night sleep sticking to the mattress I had about zero motivation for this stage. We were warned about the last 20km of this stage being extremely rough with very bad road corrugations. The warning turned out to be quite accurate and after rolling in 6hours 23mins later I spoke to one of the Austrians about the last 20km of corrugations. It sounded like he had a similar day to me ”I just wanted to sit next to the road and cry like a baby”
For this stage we were told the road was in a shocking condition for the first 100kms. It’s hard to believe a road can be really that bad for a whole 100km but if you ever go from Laura to Cooktown via Battlecamp Road, you’d better believe it. The road is corrugated the entire way and before the stage when I asked Adam Hansen how bad the corrugations were, he was quick to reply they were as bad as they get.
I rode with a strong bunch near the front for the first part of the CREB track before finding the going a bit tough and continuing on alone for the second half of the race. I was happy with my ride, and although I took it fairly cautiously on a lot of the steep fast descents, I still managed to drop it on a big rut in the road on a steep section, smashing my shin on a rock and ending up with a half orange size lump that finally started to go down by the end of the race. I finished 11th which I thought wasn’t too bad for a road wombat like myself.
