c2c ending at tynemouth

[weely]

My wife and I are getting together a small group to do this in the spring.

We will do it over 3 days and to save money we thought about staying in hostels?

has anyone done this before and a bit of advice on equiptment to take with us ect would be of great help.

 

[Kirstie]

Yes - there's a very informative website here: http://www.c2c-guide.co.uk/
It has route tips and lots of accommodation listed. You need to book your B&Bs well in advance, and it's almost impossible to get lost because the whole route is very well signposted. I did it in three days no problem.

 

[Cathryn]

I did it in the wrong direction last year... really good trip!! The one advantage of doing it backwards is that you're not part of the scrum trying to get your bikes on the train in Newcastle when they only take two bikes per train. The disadvantage is, of course, headwinds, but it was rarely TOOO bad.

Our journal is here, if it helps.
http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/?o=3Tzut&doc_id=4178&v=3J

Kirstie is right, the website is very good, but get the map as well which you can buy online.

 

[Kirstie]

If you do it in March/April the headwind that Cathryn mentions will be a tailwind, as the winds always come from the NE at that time. I did it at that time and rode 150 miles into a freezing cold north easterly. It was still great though.

 

[Brains]

We did it in 4 days/5 Nights - and found we were pushing it in places. (OK so the weather was dreadful)

We did nights in
Whitehaven
Keswick
Langwarthby
Allenheads
Sunderland

I would definatly get the Sustrans map, but do some careful reading as there are several hills that can be avoided by going on 'main' roads - for an urban cyclist the main roads are not main at all.

If I was to do it again the one change I would make would be to avoid some of the sustrans traffic free variations and take the logical (if busier) route.

 

[Magna]

I did an abbrv. C2C from Tynemouth to Pooley Bridge in the Lake District. Getting up the pennines to Hartside summit was a great sense of achievement but very difficult if you don't ordinarily tackle hills. Needless to say I was largely under prepared and left knee pain rendered me unable to go beyond Pooley Bridge on what ultimatley amounted to a 1.5 day tour.

 

[Brains]

Personally I found Hartside not too hard, the real hard bit was black hill