Good coast to coast route?

[kerndog]

Hi - myself and a few friends are talking about doing a coast to coast this summer. We are scattered around the south of England, a few in Cornwall, bristol and south wales.

So a few questions:

Can anyone recommend a good route?

We would ideally like to finish on the west coast as we are all fairly close - would you recommend this or should we finish on the east coast?

Is a long weekend enough, we all ride a fair bit although a few of us are only a few months in?

Would you recommend B and B/hostel/camping? I love camping but not sure about lugging the tents etc around...

Thanks in advance

 

[snorri]

Can anyone recommend a good route?

A few points to consider....
"Good route" in cycling terms covers wide variations.
Do you mean the shortest/flattest/hilliest/the one with most pubs/most tourist attactions/quietest roads/ off road/on road?
Will you cycle to/from the end points?
You could check out the locations of camp sites and or hostels and plan a route which has comfortable daily cycling distances between these locations.
I think you should make up a group of cyclists with similar ability, otherwise you will not all be friends by the end of this proposed tour!

 

[kerndog]

A few points to consider....
"Good route" in cycling terms covers wide variations.
Do you mean the shortest/flattest/hilliest/the one with most pubs/most tourist attactions/quietest roads/ off road/on road?
Will you cycle to/from the end points?
You could check out the locations of camp sites and or hostels and plan a route which has comfortable daily cycling distances between these locations.
I think you should make up a group of cyclists with similar ability, otherwise you will not all be friends by the end of this proposed tour!

righty ho - so we would be looking for quiet roads if possible, medium amount of hills and distance I guess, pubs are always good, yes we would be looking to start on one coast and finish on the other.

We're an old group of friends so ability isn't an issue. We will simply wait for the slowest riders. One for all and all for one!

 

[Brandane]

The only one I have done is The Way of the Roses, from Bridlington in the east to Morecambe in the west. As a 50 year old with mediocre fitness, I found it reasonably challenging when done over 3 days.

I used B&B accommodation (York and Grassington were the 2 intermediate stops) as I am not a great fan of camping and even less of a fan of extra weight on the bike.

Finishing in Morecambe is handy for those traveling home to the north (in my case) or south, as you are a short ride from the west coast main line at Lancaster.

 

[matthat]

Hi there,
I'm doing c2c in August with 2 family and a friend, we're going from whitehaven to sunderland over 4 days in august! The only problem is c2c generally involves going over the Penines if you want to go over at the shortest points. We're B&Bin it and paying a sherpa company to carry stuff day to day between B&BS! Jet (on here) my sis in law is doing the organising so she knows the finer details but i do know that days 1 and 2 are harder and 3 and 4 are generally downhill.
Hope that gives a few tips in the right direction.

 

[DTD]

Planning on doing The Way of the Roses this year – I think the Morecambe to Bridlington direction is sometimes suggested because it gets the bigger hills out of the way in the first half and (might be making this bit up) the wind tends to be more behind you. You can get a map of this and other C2C routes.

Good luck whatever route you do.

 

[Ticktockmy]

If you wanted to stay down south how about Great Yarmouth to St Davids head that would give you a variety of countryside to ride through, or Lands end to Margate (North Foreland) likewise this will give you a challenge in places.

 

[taximan]

Your route can be tailored to whatever you wish. I did it last year for the first time with a friend, ( both of us are getting a bit long in the tooth) and we had a fantastic time. You can see what we got up to if you click on the link below.
Enjoy your trip

 

[MontyVeda]

Planning on doing The Way of the Roses this year – I think the Morecambe to Bridlington direction is sometimes suggested because it gets the bigger hills out of the way in the first half and (might be making this bit up) the wind tends to be more behind you. You can get a map of this and other C2C routes.

Good luck whatever route you do.

I can vouch for that at the Morecambe end... definitely a prevailing wind from the west... not sure what happens when one gets closer to the North Sea though.

Planning on doing it myself too... anybody recommend any good en-route camp sites?