In reply to Batcloud: Your gearing will play into it quite a lot. I live and ride in the lakes and I'm on a heavyish cyclocross bike. I have an 11-32 MTB cassette and a 24, 39, 50 chainset, that is what you need for the steep hills here if you want to avoid damaging you knees longer term.
My bike's lowest gearing is 24/32, much like a mountain bike but my highest is 50/11 - plenty for hooning it down long straight roads like the Grasmere side of Dunmail raise (56mph - you should try it!).
The problem is that most road bikes round here are sold with inappropriate gearing for the very varied terrain we have here, (too high, not enough range in number of teeth).
Apologies for not answering your question, but I hope this general advice is useful. East to West is easier IMO, I've done both with tent and touring gear, it's just mind over matter really.