Mehr is one of those names that turns up in half a dozen places across Iran, because it means kindness or the sun, and in the old calendar it is also a month. This one lies in the north-east, in the broad plains of Khorasan between Sabzevar and the road towards Mashhad, a country of wheat, saffron, pistachio and long pale ridges where the Alborz tails off into the great deserts. It is a place for riding rather than sightseeing, and the pairing with Miandasht in the ride titles is a clue about why.
This was Silk Road land. The caravan trade between China, Central Asia and the Mediterranean passed along this corridor for well over a thousand years, and the Safavid shahs of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries built caravanserais along it, big fortified courtyards where a merchant and his animals could rest behind thick walls. Miandasht has one of these, and at its best it is a magnificent brick square with a high entrance and rooms around the inside. Stand in the courtyard at dusk and you can almost hear the camels.
The riding itself is straightforward and beautiful in a long, undramatic way. Roads run dead straight to a far vanishing point, then bend gently round a spur, and you are on the move again. Traffic is mostly trucks and the odd pickup loaded with melons or sheep. Wind comes up in the afternoon, and cross-gusts out on the open stretches ask for attention.
Fuel here is not as frequent as in the west. Sabzevar and Mashhad are real cities with plenty of pumps, but between them you should not let the tank drop below half. Roadside tea houses and small restaurants do skewers, rice and yoghurt, and you will probably be asked in for tea even if you only meant to check your map.
Take it as a point on a great old trade road and go and look for the caravanserai, because that is where the history sits.