Thought it’ll be a good idea to meet up as I was talking on the forum to some of them but never met.
Said, done and I also stupidly volunteered Rick and me to do the cooking as an ‘Einstand’.
(German culture thing...yes, we Germans do have culture other than putting towels out on sunbeds at the crack of dawn...).
I wasn’t quite sure if I was more nervous about matching people’s cycle skills on the tracks or about messing up the meal!
Saturday we went to Kirroughtree. Quickly it emerged that it was better that Dave G., Alan, Rick and I split from the group as our speed was a notch faster than the rest. Unfortunately half an hour after that Rick had an accident due to new tyres/bad brakes which finished his day, and as it later turned out, the weekend as the front wheel was bent.
Never mind the cut in the leg!I was tempted for a moment to bail out and do the 'I accompany him home' trick, as I was a bit worried riding 30kms+ with two guys I've never cycled with before. Visions of Chamonix returned.
I only noticed later, that in fact I had never cycled without Rick at all (not counting the daily commute...). So, it felt a bit to me like a 'coming of age' in the mountain bike world. And man, did we have fun!
Riding McMoab at Kirroughtree:
Alan doing the same: 
Sunday we went to Dalbeattie as everybody was keen to see (and some to ride) The Slab :
I remembered when Rick had done it 2 years ago, it didn't look that steep looking up from the bottom. I had never seen it from the top as then I used the escape route which starts before the thing comes into view, to also avoid The Qualifier,
a bit of a rock heap which just preceeds The Slab.So, after some discussion, if and how The Qualifier would be rideable at all (and deciding it wouldn't), on we went to The Slab. Gulp. Somebody made that steeper since I was here the last time or what ?? After lengthy discussions (again!) we decided that we would try the lower half of it:
And it wasn't bad at all, once you were over the edge..... The full Slab next time then.
More exhilarating riding from there on and back.
A fantastic weekend overall (minus Ricks accident of course) and looking forward on doing it again soon !
PS: The meal went fine. Tom Yum soup, Green chicken curry with rice (a bit too sticky), and Luca's ice cream as afters.....One thing I learned: 2 kilos of rice for 15 people is too much. Waaayyy too much.
