Hi this is Pat Norwil calling from Adelaide, Australia, and the Crocodile Trophy. We did our Prologue today — 6km on the beach in Adelaide, it was in the sandbox. Two heats of 22 riders; I was in the second heat. I thought, "you know, it would be nice to watch the first heat go off and kind of figure out what's going on."

And I quickly realized that the first heat of 22 guys just chewed the sandbox up to a walking-race. And after they did their three out-and-back laps, and the top five qualified for the final heat, the odd-numbers, me included, went out and — I think we were able to ride about 300 yards, and then it was a 1km out and a 1km back course. So I think I rode about 300 yards one-way for the three laps. And then at the end of the third lap I was coming in and I thought I was in fifth place. I didn't want to be in fifth place, I wanted to be in sixth because I didn't want to do the second heat. But luckily I realized I was in sixth place and not fifth. But the leader jersey goes to Roger Smeets from The Netherlands and second place jersey is Thomas Dam from Denmark. And they went out for the second heat and did really well. And the American Carrie Edwards from San Francisco was the women's winner in the women's division — she's wearing the leader's jersey.

A bit of tragedy happened today. Jure Robic from Slovenia is one of the favorites, and he went down hard in the Prologue and broke his arm. So he's out, that means that the controversial Team Flugee is down to just five guys. One of the other favorites for the race is the Austrian Wolfgang Fasching, who is the two-time winner of the Ram race. There's some question as to whether he can be fast. Everyone knows that he can do really well in a nine-day no-stop race, but people are wondering, especially the Euros are wondering, if he can be fast and stay with the lead guys. I'm just kicking back and enjoying Australia. We do our transfer out to Mary tomorrow and then we start the race officially on Sunday — 148k into the Stony Desert and so it's been raining out there and there's some question as to what the terrain's going to be like; it's a clay surface and the four-wheelers have gotten out on there, it could be kind of slick. And then the Stony Desert is cobble for hundreds and hundreds of miles. So that'll be nice for the mountain bikers — not so nice for all the roadies.

This is Pat signing off.

— Pat Norwil, MountainZone.com Correspondent