self supported

I splashed out and bought Tim Woodcock's "book" on the coast to coast ride. I put book in inverted commas because it's more of a short log with some hand-drawn maps and advice on how to prepare and undertake an off road coast to coast ride. It's still good though.

I said from the beginning that this ride was to be self supported. I assumed that would mean we'd have to camp out at least some of the time, which is why I've got whole posts dedicated to what kit would be best for a night in the wilds.

Having read Tim's book and some others, and watched a few youtube videos of a group tackling the route, I'm beginning see what Martin's been telling me for weeks:

This ride isn't across Canada. It's not even across Scotland. In fact, if we were cycling across wee Ireland we'd probably want to be prepared to camp out at least once; but this ride is across England.

I don't know much about England, but it would appear from what I've read and seen that there's a country pub, or a youth hostel, or a bed and breakfast perched on every available flat surface.
People in England don't carry food or water when they travel, they just wait until they're hungry and pop into the next pub they pass to eat a hearty lunch (with ginger beer and lashings of whipped cream, if some of the books I've been reading are accurate) before setting off to continue their adventure.
In fact if my new, better informed, vision of England is correct, we'll have to choose our routes carefully to avoid crashing into youth hostels and pubs on our way down from every inaccessible peak - instead of just at lunch time and at night when we want to crash in the "falling into bed after a physically exhausting day" sense of the word.

This is a bit of a weight off my mind - and my bike - and it means we'll be able to enjoy the exceptional off-road riding better than if we were carrying sleeping kit, pots, pans and food.

I might still squeeze a proper self-supported overnight journey into my training though.