Cyclists and doctors teamed yo in one of the Asia’s hardest bike races, pursue different objectives.

A team of volunteer Australian doctors will be travelling alongside riders, undertaking training for deployment to a regional disaster zone.

It was the National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre’s idea, in Darwin, to train doctors to respond to regional crisis such as Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, Cyclone Pam in Vanuatu and the Pakistan floods. They will also learn how to prove the medical support to the riders, and simply to test themselves.

“It’s hot, it’s dusty, people will be physically stressed, with heat stress, and as for the staff supporting them, we’ll be out in the dust and the heat ourselves, camping every night”, Dr Philippa Binns said.

It’s a great chance to check knowledge, strange and professional skills.

The biggest problem for the riders is heat exhaustion and dehydration, as well as diarrhoea, grazes and broken bones.

David Lyons, a police officer from Queensland, has participated in the race every year but one since then president Jose Ramos-Horta launched it in 2009 as a peace-building exercise.

He said the cyclist numbers had dropped off from a peak of more than 400 in the early years because the East Timor government had not been marketing the event properly since it took it over in 2013.