The Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum

What: Five levels, 80,000 square feet of exhibit space and 500-plus classic motorcycles on display at any time.
When: April 1 through Sept. 31: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and noon to 6 p.m. Sunday. Oct. 1 to March 31: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday.
Where: 6030 Barber Motorsports Parkway, Birmingham, AL, 35094; (205) 699-7275; on the web at: www.barbermuseum.org
How to get there: 13 miles east from Birmingham International Airport on I-20. Take Exit 140 (Leeds) and follow the signs.
Keep an eye out for: New projects in the basement. The basement’s closed to the public, but you can often catch a glimpse and hear the roar of something special coming together.
More bikes: Check out our tally of 500 classic motorcycles on display at Barber during your visit listed by year and model.

For the record, there is no stairway to heaven.

You get there by taking Interstate 20 to exit 140, a few miles east of Birmingham, Ala. There, at the end of a parkway that twists through a lush pine forest, you’ll find it.

The sign outside says Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum. For motorcycle enthusiasts, it could just as easily say paradise.

Because inside this five-story, 80,000-square-foot building lies one of the world’s largest collections of motorcycles, consisting of more than 900 bikes produced by upwards of 140 manufacturers.

Of the 500 bikes on display at any given time, all but a handful could be fired up immediately and taken for a run on the 2.3-mile track at the adjacent Barber Motorsports Park.

Bikes recently on display ranged from Ariel to Zundapp, from motorized bicycles that could be lifted with one arm to the 794-pound Honda Valkyrie Rune, from board-track Indians to Superbike series Ducatis.

"They’ve got bikes that I’d heard of but have never even seen pictures of," says Jim Nicoletti, who rode to the museum from Pensacola, Fla., as part of a Harley Owners Group tour. "I can’t imagine how many millions of dollars they’ve got invested here."

Numerous, suffice it to say. The museum boasts a state-of-the-art machine shop, restoration bay and research library among its attractions, housed in a gleaming building less than two years old.

The star attractions, however, are the bikes themselves; such as Craig Vetter’s 1980 Mystery Ship, a 1912 American, of which the museum’s operators believe there are only two in the United States, one of only three remaining Honda RC161 racers from 1961, a Rikuo, the so-called Japanese Harley, and a wall of European singles from the Fifties. The list goes on. "If Mr. Barber is going to attack something or approach something, it’s going to be the best," says Jeff Ray, executive director.