Cycling
Cycling
Potton has some great cycling routes around the town. From short out and back routes to nearby villages and towns with good cafés, to longer circular routes and some all-day rides.
Starting at the Market Square there are multiple options for road and off-road fun. Up to the RSPB Lodge on the Old Bedford Road bridleways is good for robust road bikes, gravel and mountain and gets you to Sandy station in about 4 miles and nearly all traffic free.
Bedford is 12 virtually traffic-free miles almost due West from Potton. The route to Sandy is as described above, and once you get to Sandy the NCN (National Cycle Network) route 12 takes you along the route of the old Varsity line between Oxford and Cambridge. There is a good café at Danish Camp near Willington as a refreshment destination.
For an adventurous off-road loop of Potton just under 30 miles – from the RSPB Lodge a bridleway heads south across Biggleswade Common and allows a link to Sunderland Farm and off to Wrestlingworth via fields. Rough going in places especially if it is wet but rewarding and no cars! Ignoring the Chequers in Wrestlingworth, unless that is the target, head north towards Hatley Park (Hatley St George) and on to Waresley, where the reopened Duncombe Arms or the Waresley Park garden centre can provide sustenance. From Waresley head west until the roman road just south of the golf club at Abbotsley on roads, but very quiet ones. From there head in a very ‘Roman’ straight line for nearly five miles. You can head back to Potton up Everton Hill if you have the legs or carry on back towards Sandy and rejoin the Long Riding past Sandy Mast and back into Potton on Old Bedford Road.
Further afield, on the road to the south east, the hills above Baldock and Royston challenge the legs, and the A505, the wits crossing it. To the South West target Sharpenhoe for more hills or head round Bedford for some beautiful low traffic country lanes. Closer to town there are cafés at Deadmans Oak, (cycle specific!) on the ridge above Bedford that creates a 20 mile loop, Bourn a similar distance and Wimpole National Trust and Ashwell to the South East. All reachable on quiet lanes.
Potton itself has plenty of food options and even a maintenance stand outside the chip shop, which has excellent chips!