Just back from a most excellent cycling weekend in Galloway!

Pete, Debs, Jessica and my self all head up to Loch Ken Sailing Centre on Friday night. We travelled through some of the biggest rain storms we have ever seen, but dry sunny weather and a zillion midges greeted us at Loch Ken! After a lightening route planning exercise we retired for the evening. Next day saw the chef set of the smoke alarm, well the kitchen was a stupid place to have a smoke sensor! The rest of the guests filled out ignoring the antics in the kitchen an lined up neatly out side in their pj's! Doh!!! The route turned out to be a gem, we parked up just North East of the High Bridge of Ken then followed the Southern Upland way NE round Manquhill Hill and up to the summit of Ben Brack. To the south we had excellent views of the Lake District summits.
	Our route took us over three further hills, Cairn Hill, Black Hill and High Countam before descending into the forest. We headed for Allans cairn which marked the start of the best bit of single track on the ride, so good I had to do it twice! The road back to the car tracked the Water of Ken and whilst not technical was most picturesque. All in all an excellent 32km ride.
hef duties were handed to Debs after the smoke alarm fiasco of the morning! I can only say Debs pasta come highly recommended!............................eerrrmm! Later that evening we met with a quartet of Jackobites let by that bloke Jez. We ate drank and were merry! Sunday saw us all head for Glen Trool, some taking the longer route than others...Debs! Jez had a monster 72km route planned! Well the York'o'bites managed a mumbled a load of excuses about saddle soreness and stuff about having to get back to York at a reasonable hour, so we took the option of a switch back which saw our route trimmed to a friendly 32km. This gave time to snap some magnificent views over Lock Dee. The Jackobites cycled off into the sunset ...... eerrr.... never to be seen again! THE END. OH NO!.............. JEZ are you out their!!!!!!!!!! See you all down the Bay'oss Thursday, Simon PS. clanweston is working again.....huray!