For four years now, the third weekend of October means it’s time to ride to Birmingham, Alabama, for the Barber Vintage Motorcycle Festival.  What better venue for a weekend of vintage motorcycle racing could there possibly be than the race course that is arguably the most beautiful track in the country and the only one that is home to the best motorcycle museum in the country?  The Barber Vintage Festival has become my favorite event of the year.  It features three days chock full of way more motorcycle-related activities than any one person could possibly take advantage of.  In addition to the aforementioned museum, there was AHRMA-sanctioned road racing, motocross, cross country, and trials events, a swap meet, seminars, a motorcycle auction, demo rides, an air show, plus all the usual vendor and club displays.

As has become our custom, Diane and I, along with Mike and Mandy Finney, and Brian and Beth Hirshburg, left Evansville after work on Thursday.  As much as I hate to admit it, we rode the superslab to Franklin, TN, where we stopped for the night.  From there, we took a more twisty and scenic route on Friday across the Western Appalachians toward Birmingham.  Upon our arrival at the track, we rendezvoused with my father and with Vladimir Roznos who had traveled down on Thursday. As we perused the event schedule and began to make plans, we discovered the event organizers had moved the vintage trials event to Friday.  Unfortunately, it was already over by the time we arrived.  As an avid trials rider, Brian was somewhat disappointed by that turn of events.  Maybe we should check the online schedule ahead of time next year.  We did, however, use our time Friday afternoon to check out the swap meet where Diane found a perfectly restored version of the Honda Trail 70 she learned to ride on as a kid.

On Saturday morning, since it was Brian and Beth’s first time at Barber, we spent some time in the museum (of course it pretty much takes all day to do it justice) before tramping through the woods to find a vantage point for watching the cross country action.  Afterward, we found a good observation point and took in some road racing action.  Despite the “vintage” moniker, AHRMA has classes that include pretty much everything from hand-shifted Harleys and Indians through modern Ducati superbikes and even supermotards.  One of the more competitive events is a spec racing series based on the Triumph Thruxton.  At the conclusion of the road racing, Brian, my dad, and I returned to gawk at some more of the 700+ bikes in the museum.  We ended up closing it down, much to the chagrin of the girls, who by then were dangerously hungry.

Sunday featured more road racing (they run the same card of races on both Saturday and Sunday) and vintage motocross at the still-under-construction “World’s Best Motocross Track.”  At least, that’s what the sign said.  At the conclusion of the day’s events, we said our goodbyes to my dad as he headed back to Georgia, and the rest of us departed for parts north.  We pulled into Kimball, TN, after dark where we shared a pizza and checked into our hotel for the evening.

On Monday, we followed an excellent route along TN 56 through Beersheba Springs and on to TN 135 through Cookeville.  Aside from the tasty curves and the excellent fall color along the way, the ride was uneventful save for a brief stop to help a group of motorcyclists from Michigan who also were returning home from Barber.  One of them had run a bit wide in a curve and gone down, but other than the inevitable embarrassment, neither he nor the bike was any the worse for wear.