Just got back into mountain biking after abandoning it back in the early 90's when university and booze took over and been watching this forum for a few months now.

Myself and a couple of my mates have signed up to do the Coast to Coast (Wheelwright route) in June next year, and was wondering if anyone had any tips / advice?

I actually haven't even got my bike yet (Orange Crush on order) but have booked accommodation and sherpa service, so would welcome any hints from anyone who's already done the same.

Also, just how hard is it? My mates took some persuading as they didn't believe they could make it, however it's never actually occurred to me that it would be so difficult that we wouldn't actually make it – am I naive?

over how long?

Sorry should have mentioned that. Planned to do it in 5 days:-

St Bees to Grasmere
Grasmere to Kirkby Stephen
Kirkby Stephen – Richmond
Richmond – Chop Gate
Chop Gate – Robin Hoods Bay

Instead of Chop Gate
Think about stopping here – it's a great place

It's probably the easiest day anyway so a few more miles will be fine

Already booked I'm afraid, although I do know Blakey Ridge as I'm originally from Middlesbrough and so the NY Moors are where I did most of my riding as a kid so it'll be nice to be back on "home ground".

If only I could get a ride onto the Eston Hills without risking a shotgun in my face from some 15 year old kid on a motorbike wanting my bike, it would be like old times – that and wearing a Bula hat on a Trek 830 with a crap headset….

We're going to be completing it sometime later in the year.

Still looking at routes, so would be handy to find where you got yours from.

Its a lot harder than it looks. Lots of climbing, carrying, and the hours you'll need to put in each day. Plus you've got the weather up in the lakes, Dales, and Moors. When its sunny its fantastic, rain+fog is another story

Found this the other day;
http://mbrc2c.blogspot.com/2008/07/friday-18-july-day-0-kirkby-stephen.html

The first two days are obviously the toughest if you can get your mates through those – you'll breeze it
I did it after [during] weeks of rain & found the stretch from Kentmere to Shap soul destroying

Does anyone want a Bula hat? I won won at Shatfest a fair few years back and don't really know the significance of it- must've been popular before I started riding 12 years ago.

Thanks for the link, I've found this one too:-

http://www.bigbikeride.net/

To be honest we just used the Sherpa site to calculate the miles each day, bought a copy of the Coast to Coast book and booked the hotels.

I fully expect the first two days to be hellish, and after that a bit of a breeze. If only my mates shared the same thoughts…

Bula hats were crazy hats in crazy colours, popularized by MBUK in the early 90s.

Completely tasteless and quite expensive as I remember, certainly for a 13 year old lad like myself. I also remember experimenting with crazy hand painted trousers which were all the rage in the mountain bike shop I used to frequent (Pyscik (sp?) in Middlesbrough)

Did a off road c2c last year, bit of a epic.
Black Sail pass, very steep, lots of hike a bike sections.
Avoid Harter fell, its a un-rideable swamp.

What route did you take to avoid Harter Fell?

Mosedale is the obvious but it's not much better

We didn't, we went over it, that how we know its a un-ridable swamp. 😕

Cheers guys, at least we'll know the place we're going to get bogged down on rather than finding out once were top tube deep in crap.