Team Stavmat are now in Oban on their cycling tour and seem to be steaming along quite nicely (I, on the other hand, haven’t been on my bike since London to Brighton) and can’t have many days to go before they reach John O Groats.

Mat’s blog has turned into some sort of cycling gastro tour - well a pie eating omnibus, at least. They even wrote up the top three so far:

1. Glovers, Bamber Bridge

Sold mainly pies, in tin foil pie dishes. They were all hot (cooked recently and on the premises), which is important, and well filled. I liked the custart tart which was moist, eggy and nicely textured and flavoured. The butter pie and the meat pies were excellent.
2. Name unknown, Wem

Lovely cold cheese and mushroom quiche and hot meaty (importantly - gristle free) pies. Nice big Danish pastry and a quiet, well planted community garden down the road in which to eat it all.

3. Blakes, Liskeard

Amusingly had “Blakes the Master Bakers” over the shop - try saying it quickly. A fine purveyor of traditional Cornish pasties. Well filled, highly flavoursome with a good mix of meat and veg. Excellent Lardy Cake, a sweet bready thing with raisins inside and sugar on top. Tastes a lot better than it sounds.

The rest - Monmouth, and somewhere on the way to Bristol don’t get a mention for some or all of the following reasons.

Number 1 offence has to be cold pies & pasties. Nothing says “baked ages ago” quite as well as stone cold pastry. Flavours come out much better in a hot pastry (probably because the fats are liquid, transporting flavours to the tongue and improving the mouth feel) and the pastry stays crisper.

Underfilling is not uncommon, neither is the horrible habit of using gristle instead of meat. Both make one feel a bit cheated. Thick, dry pastry is never good either.

Now they’re in Scotland, they seem to be enjoying the salmon (and, I hope, the odd whiskey).

It’s almost inspiring enough to put the wheels on one of the two bikes littering up my lounge and go for a blast.