After a while, I had to take action though, relegating myself to the fact that they must be rendering their services elsewhere for the day.

So after a quick jaunt to the closest Convenience store and purchasing copious volumes of Gatorade, I returned to the base camp to engage in an epic campaign of force hydration, attempting to un-do in a few short minutes the damge done from a week of excessive drinking, sleep deprivation and other modes of self-destructive behaviour. Armed with a fig newton, and what must have been two liters of fluid in my gullet, I was prepared to assault this course once more, and this time, there was no turning back. There was no way to expain failure to the hardened bunch of two-wheeled misfits I was riding with today, Team Big Ass Ham. Rumor abounds that they scalp those who slow them down, and are notorious for their MacGuyver-like bike modifications made from parts of the human anatomy.

I suppose now would be a good point to speak of the history at Fort Clinch. Most are unaware that General Alowishus Clinch, commander of the Fort throughout the civil war, was an avid mountain biker. In the spring of 1863 the fort was seized by Union forces in a bloody battle. General Clinch and his remaining forces fled the fort with their mountain bikes and lived in the nearby woods foraging for wild fuits and berries. Through continual guerilla-action battles and Union supply problems, the Union Army garrisoned at the Fort was attrited to almost depriciable numbers. Then, in the early spring of 1864, General Clinch and his band of 34 highly skilled mountain bikers, all sponsored by Cannondale, along with a detachment of North Carolinian free-riders sponsored by Trek and Shimano, made their final assault on the Fort, reclaiming it once and for all. It is this very trail that they used in their final approach on the fort.

Perhaps it was intense sense of patriotic duty or his passion for history, but my long-time compadre and chief shaman of Team Big Ass Ham, "Obi-Wan," was attacking this trail like a meth-fiend fresh out of rehab who had just adopted the philosophy of "just a little bit won't hurt..." While the competitor in me wanted to finish first, half-way through the trail I was aware that the only way to beat him would involve the hand of God and perhaps a heat stroke. The sheer implications of which, would cancel out any joy of winning, but would, in my own twisted sense of humour, allow me massive shite-talking rights as he recuperated in his adjustable hospital bed. And I'm sure he'd laugh... blind in one eye or not. But he was out there conquering climbs that made the mere mortals among us gasp a futile sigh of inevitable defeat before falling over motionless and saying hello to the realities pumonary distress .

The trail is a good combination of technical manuevering and balls to the walls speed. And wherever there is speed, the sh*t demon will be there. Ready for you to miss that turn, hit some soft ground, or just smack into a tree for no apparant or good reason. Snake trails down the hills, tempt you to ride that rear brake, only to force the inevitable tear when you see what you are about to have to pedal up, now that you've lost all your precious momentum. Play it safe here and that's what you get. Throughout a particular section of trail, there are a obstacles abounding. From fallen trunks to exposed roots and what I can only explain as vegetative stalagmites, this is a great course for the Darwinian development of trail-route selection. It's not just a matter of going to the left or right of that big satan sticking out of the ground... you have to factor in the other 23 satans on either side and behind it. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, but of all the things I like about speed, the sheer sense of impending doom is at the top of them. Choose wisely or say hello to the sh*t-demon.

We had only one casualty that day. Laying in ambush, the sh*t demon sprang into the air and threw JT clear off his saddle and into a makeshift bed of pain. At a rally point, one of many along the trails, he pulled up and allowed us to take a gander at the battle wound, While I originally suspected it to be the work of the palmetto trunk, a consensus was eventually forged that this was, in fact, the work of the Southern Oak. And it figures. The Southern Oak is a wily bastard, cunning in it's ways and notorious for leaping in front of the unsuspecting endorphine junkie. Good one, Mr. Oak. Say hello to the sh*t monster for me.