03/06/2018 Melton Mowbray: Who Ate all the Pies??

Into June and I finally get some significant miles on my MV Agusta. I hooked up with old mate Andy (aka ‘Thumper’) on his BMW GS for this ride out. As per usual our pre planning was only notable by its absence and we had a quick look at the map before deciding to head to Melton Mowbray

To be honest the ride there from Sutton Coldfield wasn’t the best, a little ‘bitty’: Some good sections, but lots of mundane chugging too, but hey it was good to be on a bike rather than stuck in an office or in my car commuting. Melton Mowbray is a lovely old town, blessed with character and is of course famous for its association with Pork Pies. So once we had located a decent cafe and consumed a particularly healthy ‘light salad’ we also procured a couple of hefty chunks of proper Pork Pie to have later.

First big outing for the MV this year

Andy sipping his tea…I think his little finger might be pointed too

Then the Roads Opened Up

Back on the bikes things radically improved as the roads opened up, the traffic melted away and the views over the countryside just got better as we headed for Belvoir Castle just on Leicestershire/Lincolnshire border. The Castle made for a great backdrop to some pictures before headed of randomly towards a local airfield we thought might be nearby.

Somewhere in Leicestershire…

Belvoir Castle

When even BMW sat nav doesn’t cut it…

We were right out in the sticks by now we couldn’t find the airfield. However we did stumble across a tea room seemingly in the middle of nowhere. It was amazingly busy too. It seems to serve green lane loving trials bike riders, hikers and young families enjoying the canal walks and lovely countryside in the area.

Tea room discovery!

Suitably refreshed we hen squirted back towards Andy’s, but he had his BMW satellite navigation set ‘fun and twiddly’ and it guided us along some cracking roads…we were having great fun on this stretch. It was so good to out on my MV and be reminded why I bought the bloody thing in the first place. We wound up in a place called Barleston in a friendly pub called The Three Tuns. The locals dubbed us the ‘Hairy Bikers’ for some reason and we enjoyed a cooling Shandy on hot day in the beer garden. Bliss

So cool, so refreshing

Shed and Buried

The final few miles to Andy’s were also great fun. We rounded of an excellent day out by watching a bit of ‘Shed and Buried’ on the telly where Messrs Cole and Lovegrove grub around dusty barns looking for knackered bikes amongst other things to do up and sell on very dubious levels of ‘profit’.

I knocked off the final 30 miles home with a big grin on my face . I was very happy that I had covered a little over 200 fun miles during the day on the MV

Is summer here? I think it might just be!

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