Yeah, I never got past that stage, so regretfully, I sold my Norco to someone who will really ride it. Just too technically dependent for me, though I loved being in the woods. My last mountain bike ride was on dirt roads in Maine, and that I liked.
Good luck. I knew I was dead, when I was what I thought getting pretty good, and a guy in jeans and a 20 year old bike embarrassed the sh!t out of me at Great Brook. I never went on a group mountain bike ride again.