Lake District

Rode the A road through Ings yesterday. It's a mixed use pavement and not indicative of what the lakes has to offer! Defo recommend taking the ferry route.

Also rode some of the lanes near Winster. They can be gravelly and steep up and down. The A5074 there has quite nice views and usually quiet if you want a less climby route after hard knott! I use it all the time. Also, after Brigsteer your route seems to go off road at the Heslington church so I've rerouted that. Back near hawkshead the route goes down a gravel track so have changed that too. Have tried to make those changes to your google route:

Winster road route: https://maps.app.goo.gl/DV3NUoFiAf1AmTxQ7

More laney:https://maps.app.goo.gl/vMPMKk6ukUqoBHTM7

The Wheatsheaf Inn in Brigsteer has a sign that says cyclists welcome thou I've never taken my bike. Good pub, food is decent.

Thanks so much for the extra info and the routes and re-routing gravel/offroad sections. I've done some google street viewing on spots of the laney route and it looks great, will do that version I think. Looking forward to it, fingers crossed for the weather!

Apologies for the thread hijack, I’m planning on the C2C gravel route here in 3 weeks time:
https://pedalnorth.com/gravel-bike-coast-to-coast-route/

Wondered how muddy and therefore how knobbly I would need my tyres to be? Currently have 43mm Semi-slick gravelkings which are fine on loose dry stuff but they’re not really midpluggers!
The Lakes looks like the likely damp section but not sure how muddy these trails are likely to be?
Any thoughts/advice appreciated
Cheers
Simon

If anyone is thinking of this, don't, day 1 was unride-able and barely hike-able, I think they've made a mistake or never ridden it.

Just had a look at that because I was in the Lakes and rode some of the a coast to coat route and also made the mistake of riding on the coast to coast foot path and there was quite a difference but the bit I rode on was like between Ullswater and the a66 I think, a good bit north of that route.

What is it with 3T sponsored gravel routes being shit/untested?

They probably know people who buy their bikes aren't going to ride them on anything like that.

They should at least know that 3T riders don't want to be throwing their bikes over locked gates.

Do they have form on this? Apparently some of the Day 2 route was ride-able but you still had to get off for sections. 2 of the group tried it and then stuck with the road after lunch.

Day 3's 100miles/3000m off-road was always going to be optimistic so given our experience we didn't even attempt it

We did an Italian event in Mallorca and it seemed pretty clear the long route hadn't been ridden/tested. At some point we got sick of climbing locked gates or rerouting around fences and stuff that we sacked the whole thing off and rode home. We did a shorter version the next day and it was a nice route. Bit shitty though. I do my own shit routes, I don't need to pay someone to make shit routes for me.

Been meaning to say thanks for the help with routes, ended up riding from Seascale back to Natland. Went your laney route and catching the ferry in the middle of a ride was something new, roads were great, not much traffic at all. Your recommendation of Chesters by the River was amazing, I couldnt believe it was all vegan. I stayed at Fox Hall vegan B&B which was really nice actually.

Epic area to ride a bike!