Wanting to ride the st Bees to Robin Hood coast 2 coast next year but looking for a gpx file or similar of the route people have taken. Any big tips would be good too.

my tip is . . . out of rookhope, take the offroad choice, DO NOT take the road, the hill out of stanhope is a nightmare.

Good advice, jekkyl, but it doesn’t apply to the st bee’s to robin hood bay route.

Did the traditional C2C route in June and opted for the Rookhope incline, despite some of our party having inappropriate bikes. They pushed up most of it, but would have done so up the Stanhope climb anyway.

Whatever you do, in the Lakes segment don’t take the route you can find online over Greenup edge – it was a carry up followed by a bogfest of a walk back down.

Also the bridleway section up to the final road to Tan Hill might be there on the map but it’s another bogfest at the top. I think you can skirt around it but we were smack in the middle before we realised that it was another long, cold, wet walk.

Good places to stay along the way (assuming the locations work for when you want to break your journey)
Tan Hill Inn (for a lively atmosphere)
The Buck Inn at Chop Gate (for an amazing sunday roast, great host, fantastic beer selection and the biggest cooked breakfast I have ever seen complete with my first ever goose egg)
Whitby YHA – (We weren’t expecting much, especially after Helvellyn YHA on the first night but it is actually rather nice)

Have a great trip – if you can get someone to carry your bags, so much the better. The Dales and the North Yorkshire Moors were more beautiful than I could have imagined but also much steeper than I imagined too.

we’re definitely doing a baggage service, not prepared to carry it all, itll ruin half the fun!

Thanks for the staying tips we’ll look up the YHA’s.

we’re definitely doing a baggage service, not prepared to carry it all, itll ruin half the fun!

We were lucky enough to have a friends wife to carry our bags for the first two days (she was a complete star). We couldn’t have made it across the lakes without that.
I want to do it again but I would take 5 days and do the Black Sail/Walna Scar/Ambleside route rather than try and do it in 4 again.

It’s a wonderful MTB route.

Mate and I rode it in ’96 just bivvying at the end of long days. Wonderful to ride it with no support other than the perfect frequency of Spar shops and cafes for sustinenece (although the N York Moors need stocking up for – sparsity of Spars between Osmotherly and Robin Hoods Bay!). We probably smelled a bit on the train back to Newcastle…

If you google ‘Wheelwright Coast to Coast’ I’m sure youll find GPX files.

There’s plenty of GPX routes for it on GPSies. Check them carefully though, as most are slightly different.

ahhh I see, st bees to whitby is the wainwrights c2c as opposed to the sustrans. Good luck dude.

done it a few times bikepacking the route so staying in bothies/bivvies/campsites and living on dry packed food and haribo. get hold of the book if you can in addition to your gps, will give you some optional routes/diversions in case of inclement weather/soaked ground etc rather than following a gps track

if you’re not into bikepacking the lightweight gear crowd defo get support – you don’t want to be bombing down lakes descents or scrambling up black sail pass with fully loaded panniers! 🙂

PS: i might have a pdf of the book (maps aren’t great but the info is the same) – email me if you want it as the book is hard to get hold of 🙂