The most important – vital – part of your planning should be choosing your ride and keeping it in tip top shape!

When cyclists tackle it every year there’s a difference to each trip. Each rider has a different opinion, experience and journey.

Every cyclist knows that each bike is different too, meaning that unless you have the same one in the same condition – you’ll never have the same experience, regardless of making everything else identical.

So, which bike is right for the Coast to Coast?

In short, we can’t possibly tell you that.

A longer answer would be – whichever feels right to you. We don’t subscribe to a way of “telling you” what you should and shouldn’t use, as we know of so many riders who’ve travelled in so many different ways.

You don’t have to Google far to discover it has been done on unicycles!

For the typical routes – which can be started and finished in two different places, Whitehaven / Workington to Sunderland / Newcastle – a hybrid or cross bike will work just as well as any other. However, many riders choose to do the optional off-road sections, which will always require something “a little bit more”, regardless of season.

Both start points and end points have a similar route in between, with the same beautiful landscape and succession of hills – expect an occasional uphill push, but complete it from West to East and you’ll find it much easier.

With Stanley Travel, you can get your luggage transported for you and enjoy the luxury of a support vehicle service, if things go a little “pear-shaped”.

If you want to complete off-road sections, a mountain bike is great – but it might struggle with parts of the main route. Of course, many of us are fond of our much-loved bikes, but if your ‘pride and joy’ has seen better days – or quite frankly, is on the edge of retirement – ensure you get it serviced.

You can only decide yourself on which bike is right for you, as only you know what you want to do and when you’ll be doing it – however, you should have judged, planned and decided long before you start pedalling from Whitehaven / Workington!

For more information on the C2C read our other blogs or tweet us at @UKBikeBus!