Coast 2 Coast

[Geemachine]

Planning on doing the coast to coast some time in the spring / summer east to west. Anyone got any road routes, websites or info. Want to do it over a long weekend saturday to Monday

[bikercolin]

Chech this out http://www.c2c-guide.co.uk/

[sadjack]

This forum is worth a look http://c2c.freeforums.org/

[Mick F]

Also, join the C2C forum.

http://c2c.freeforums.org

[Mick F]

oops, looks like we posted together!

[cranky1]

The official C2C route is mainly on tracks, some of them a bit rough in places, but you can get a card that is stamped at various places along the route and you can buy a tee shirt. It is usually done west to east due to the prevailing wind, it is sign posted but in some urban areas the signs are somtimes missing. if you want to follow this route I would advise you to buy the Sustrans map.

If you want to do a road route I have done Hartlepool to Ravensglass a couple of times and can recommend it as an alternative and possible to do mainly on minor roads. You can either go North aiming for Keswick in the Lakes or South aiming for Kendal and then either over the high mountains or skirt around the bottom of Windermere to miss a couple of steep climbs. If you go North I can recommend the ride up Teesdale as an alternative to Weardale that the traditional C2C route follows, it is a more gradual climb and more scenic in my humble opinion.

Or go over Stainmore out of Middleton in Teesdale to Brough and then follow minor roads to Penrith and beyond. The traditional C2C routes both start by routing through Industrial Urban Landscape (Sunderland and Tynemouth/Newcastle are large urban sprawls. Starting at Hartlepool means that you can be in open countryside within a couple of miles.

Good luck anyway.

[fatboy]

The official C2C route is mainly on tracks, some of them a bit rough in places.

Not too much track I didn't think. Mind you we joined it at Cockermouth and avoided some of the pointless bits of path. All of us were on touring bikes and none of the tracks that we went on were too bad. The Reivers route on the other hand had loads of rubbish tracks.

IMHO use the signed routes as a guide but feel free to cut bits off, and for most of the tracks there are road alternatives.

[Geemachine]

Thanks for the info guys