Wednesday morning brought one of the biggest highlights of the trip, the Barber Museum. This is something everyone who loves motorcycles really needs to see. It is located in Birmingham, Alabama and it is an amazing place. It sits on the edge of Barber Motorsports Park. This really is a first class facility. Mid Ohio has really improved over the years and is quite a nice place, but Barber is like being in a state park. The grounds are unbelievably well maintained and it is just a beautiful place.
Above you can see the girl who sold us our tickets as we entered. The only reason she has that goofy expression on her face is because she really was not expecting the camera and flash in her face when she looked up. Everyone who worked there was really nice. Next to her you can see what I think is the most impressive motorcycle in the collection, the Britten. If you do not know what the Britten is this museum is not for you and you really should scroll down the page to something you would find more interesting. They don’t want you to touch the motorcycles, but I really did NEED to touch some of them, and I feel bad
for touching them, but my hands were clean and I really could not help myself. Hey, at least I did not touch the girl who gave us our tickets.
I’ll bet you have never seen one of these in person! This is a custom made 1600cc V8 KZ900. Man, I would love to hear how it sounds.
Above and to the left is a 1973 Triumph X-75 Hurricane. It was styled by Craig Vetter and I remember seeing an interview many years ago in a motorcycle magazine with him at home and he had one hanging from the ceiling of his living room.
Above and to the right is a 1925 B̦hmerland. It was designed to seat three people and was 10 feet long. One really surprising thing for the year is the fact that it has cast aluminum wheels. This is the oldest one known to exist and only 1,000 of these were built from 1924 Р1939.
Above left is a 1969 Kawasaki Mach III, and next to it is a 1983 Benelli Sei. I think it is one of the prettiest motors ever put in a motorcycle.
Above left is a 1956 Parilla Corsa. The fairing actually did improve the bikes top speed, but it was banned in the 1950’s because it made the bike unstable and caused the front brakes to overheat and fade. To the right is a Kawasaki H1 RA race bike. It was hot stuff in 1972 with those big drum brakes. Compare the drums on the front of it to the drums on the Mach III above.
Above left you will see a 1992 Honda NR750. This was the oval pistoned bike Honda made. Only about 200 were ever made and they were stupid expensive. Above and to the right is what I thought was the nicest bike in the collection, and Suzuki Vstrom. I may have a little bit of bias.
I don’t actually know how many bikes they have in the collection, but the pictures here don’t even begin to scratch the surface. I saw so many bikes that I remember reading about when I was a kid but had never seen in person. If you are anywhere near Birmingham and you don’t stop here you are stupid.
In southern Alabama we had a little run in with some love bugs. I know why they call them love bugs now. They were all so busy loving each other they forgot to get out of the way of cars, trucks, and motorcycles. Some of the cars we saw were just covered with them. Lucky for us there was only a short section of road that was infested with them. We stopped for gas and Mark had to wash his motorcycle. I just don’t understand these guys with clean motorcycles. Clean motorcycles are for museums.
We got into Mississippi pretty late, and I thought I would call ahead to the Motel 6 we were planning to stop at to make sure they still had a vacancy. Turns out it is a good thing I did because the place was still closed due to Katrina! This was something I sure was not expecting! Lucky for us there was an Econo Lodge in Moss Point that had a Waffle House next to it, so we were back in business. Mark loves to stay in cheap motels next to a Waffle House. We checked in and ate dinner at Waffle House.