Today's destination would be Birmingham, Alabama, 116 miles from Huntsville, and directly to the Barber Motorsports Museum.
Last night's storm was much less intense than the weather channels predicted. We had a steady downpour and a few minutes of wind. When Rob went out to prep the bike in the morning, all was well. The ziplock bags we put on the handlebar controls worked great as did the protection of the fence.
We got our Airbnb tidied up and packed up the bike. Michele mentioned to Rob that the rain cleaned all the pollen off the trailer, it was shiny and clean. He said he had just spent 30 minutes wiping it down, that's why! We got on the road at 9am under heavy gray skies and temps of 54F.
At the intersection of I565 and I65 about 20 minutes down the road, traffic came to a standstill. Rob switched on the CB channel to hear about the issue ahead from the truck drivers. The bridge over the TN river was down to one lane due to construction that's been going on for two weeks, causing about a 5 mile backup. We figure we lost about 30 minutes. Once past that, we had easy traveling and not too much traffic.
We arrived at the museum at 11:30. We bought our tickets and then drove back into town to get lunch since the museum does not have food onsite. While we were waiting for our food, a guy asked Rob if his bike actually had a reverse gear? He said he was talking to his wife on the phone when we pulled up and said, "I've never seen that in my life! A motorcycle that has a reverse gear!" He was really funny, we had a good laugh.
We got back to the museum at 12:30pm and had until 5pm closing to see the 950 bikes on display. This museum is the world's largest motorcycle collection of over 1,600 bikes, collected from all over the world. There are a lot of racecars also, many from former champions, and a handful of Model Ts. George Barber was a Porsche racer in the 1960s and was encouraged to start a motorcycle collection since there were numerous car collections already. He was gifted a few rare bikes from a racer friend to start his collection.
The place is incredible and in a very large building. The property spans many acres, that includes a race track, small lake, waterfall and other racing areas. The bikes are maintained to run and are cleverly displayed throughout 5+ floors. A striking feature is the columns of four vertical displays that hold 60 bikes surrounding the elevator shaft, 15 bikes per column. The ticket guy suggested we start at the top floor and work our way down.
The bikes were mostly organized and grouped by era, with special sections for specific manufacturers. We learned about bike manufacturers we never heard of. The museum seems to specialize in rare bikes, with many on display that were small production. The displays included a write-up for nearly every bike on display including its specs and history. Here are just a few examples.
The sidecar exhibit was really neat.
This one holds the quarter mile record for a V-twin.
A few were both functional and unusual.
This one had directions written on paper that the rider rotated. Very clever to record the route of the off-road race course.
We admired the displays as much as the bikes.
The museum restores bikes and cars for its collection in the basement. Given the age of most of the bikes, including a lot of military ones from the major wars, they are in just pristine condition. Some from 1920 or 1950 looked brand new. The security guard chatted with us a bit and said they open the basement on weekends for the premium tour. There were a bunch of cool race cars and bikes down there that we could see from above. Next time we visit we'll be sure to pick a time when we can get this tour.
This amazing sculpture was in front of the museum. It was commissioned for the museum.
We definitely will be back. This place is like no other museum we've ever been to. No expense was spared, everything is high end and thoughtfully displayed. This was a bucket list place for us and we're so happy to have experienced it today.
We finished up around 4pm. We could have stayed longer but were a little tired from all the walking. On the way out, Michele told the docent that she noticed an oil leak on the 1920s Majestic, a beautiful white bike. A Lotus F1 car was displayed above it and was slowly dripping oil. We headed out and checked into our Hampton Inn nearby. We drove a short way down the road for dinner, then were done for the night.
Tomorrow is a long ride day westward through Mississippi and into Louisiana.
