June 12th was the Sunday social ride out, organised and led by Kevin Hudson. The destination was The Alpine Restaurant, Melton Mowbray, and the aim was to be there before they finished serving breakfast at 11.30am.
Thirteen bikes and one pillion attended the ride, with the weather being in our favour, albeit a bit on the windy side.
The route was a 46-mile ride through some beautiful villages and excellent roads, with some interesting single tracks and an unplanned crossing of the A1 (due to sat nav glitch) thrown in.
The ride went to plan with the second man drop off system in place, until less than half a mile from the restaurant, when one of the riders had to stop due to having picked up a puncture.
Whilst the rider himself had a puncture repair kit on his bike, one of the other riders had a pump, which made the job a lot quicker.
With the help of other group ride members, the puncture was fixed in no time, which meant, we all arrived at the café in time to enjoy the breakfast menu, where the bacon butties were popular, with those who ordered them saying, that they were the best ever!
The return journey was less eventful, but still a very enjoyable 55-mile ride back to our final coffee stop of the day The Country Lounge at Wansford, where we had an unexpected guest rider appearance!
With today’s events, its very much worth thinking about carrying a puncture repair kit and if you can a pump. And of course making sure, that you have breakdown cover in the event of not being able to repair your breakdown on the spot!
Thank you to Kevin Hudson for planning and leading the excellent ride and for Nigel Belham for his TEC (very fetching in pink hi-vis!) duties.