Note: A couple of things. First this is not so much a ride report as a location report. Second, I must confess that my second trip to the museum was in a cage. In my defense it was a cold rainy, my son was with me, and I was carrying quite a few dollars worth of camera equipment. I did do my best to try and educate my young'n about the finer points of Ducati valve trains, carbon fiber, board track racing, not that I know squat about any of that myself. A third thing, I am writing this on the fly, one of these days I'll do a proper report on this fabulous place.
This museum has to be on the Must See list of any motorcycle enthusiast. If you can think of a brand of bike there is probably at least one example in the museum. From Croker to Velocette, from BSA to Vincent, you'll find it here. Even though the museum holds true to its motorsports name there are plenty of non-racing bikes to interest the street bike crowd to include a rather impressive display of WWII military bikes. It has a good display of Harley-Davidson history, to include the infamous AMF years, lots of Indians, etc etc etc.
When my son and I returned home from our visit my wife asked him how many motorcycles he had seen. He replied that he could not count them all. That was a very true statement because even though the museum is rather large it only has room to display about 2/3rds of the Barber collection.
Do yourself a favor and make the trip to Leeds, Alabama (just east of Birmingham) and take in this museum. My recommendations on time are as follows:
Casual enthusiats: At least one hour.
Enthusiast touring alone: Two to three hours.
Enthusiast with enthusiasts with friends: Four hours, maybe more.
Enthusiast and camera nut: All day and maybe more to get the light just right.
Dad with kid(s): About an hour and a half.
Etowah
