Brant Lake by Bike
Last Offered 2016. Not currently being offered.
By bicycle, we take to the road around beautiful Brant Lake, right at the cusp of autumn to explore the lake’s stunning historic resources. Once a hub for loggers, tanners, and teamsters, the lake by the late nineteenth century began to draw in tourists—hotels and summer homes for the wealthy replaced taverns and mills. Summer camps for boys and girls also emerged along the lake at the turn of the century.
We start our trip at a new community institution, “The Hub,” a bicycle repair shop and café. Afterwards, we will make our way over to the Horicon Historical Society, a museum complex of nineteenth-century farm buildings. Stops on this tour highlight the lake’s turn-of-the-century architecture: Bent Lee Farm, Brant Lake Camp, a beautiful boys camp founded in 1916, Brant Lake Farm, and Sunset Mountain Lodge, the earliest nineteenth century hotel still extant on the lake. In the last leg of our tour, we will stop at Point O’ Pines, a girls camp right on the water. Our final stop around the lake is the petite 1907 cobblestone Queen Anne library in Horicon, which houses the town historian during the summer.
The tour begins at 10 a.m. and ends around 4 p.m. The fee is $45 for members and $55 for non-members. Lunch is included.
The bike tour covers 15 miles in a loop around the lake, and is intended for intermediate cyclists. Participants are required to provide their own bicycle, water, snacks, and helmet. Road surface is a combination of pavement and packed dirt.