BARBER BIKE FESTIVAL
The Barber Vintage Festival for classic motorbikes in Alabama is a huge event with a wealth of things to see and do
A motorcycling mecca
FOR ANYONE WITH THE slightest interest in motorcycles, the 14th annual Barber Vintage Festival, to be held on 5-7 October in Birmingham, Alabama, should be considered a must-attend event. Possibly the largest classic bike gathering in the world, it’s staged in the landscaped estate of the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum, which is definitely the world’s largest motorcycle museum, as confirmed by Guinness World Records in 2014.
A sometimes raucous, high-energy affair, the Barber Vintage Festival splits its entertainments between the on-site 2.38mile race track – which hosts a series of American Historic Racing Motorcycle Association (AHRMA) races – and the estate’s car parks and parkland. A key draw for visitors is the vast swapmeet (another candidate for ‘world’s largest’ status), boasting around 500 stalls and noted for its ability to unearth the rare and obscure, while a motorcycle stunt riding show and a Wall of Death are also popular crowd-pleasers.
Of course, many of the visitors will be attending Barber for the racing, and the AHRMA traditionally puts on a full programme featuring classic bikes that date as far back as the 1920s. And the action isn’t confined to the tarmac – vintage trials bikes will be blatting about off-road, too, around specially designed skills courses and on tracks through the woods.
Barber’s is a large venue so the organisers have laid on a fleet of shuttles to spare your legs. If you haven’t been before – and even if you have – then an excursion to the museum is essential. The bike collection is now 1400-strong, spans 100 years of production, and features exhibits from 200 different manufacturers spanning some 20 countries. There’s also a car hall that includes ‘the world’s most extensive Lotus collection’ as well as several F1 cars, including the Ferrari F-158 in which John Surtees won the 1964 Drivers’ World Championship. barberracingevents.com