The King of Moto Shindigs Returns

More than sixty-thousand motorcyclists congregated for the 16th Annual (Except-For-Last-Year) Barber Vintage Festival in October 2021.

By Corey Levenson
Published on December 11, 2021
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by Corey Levenson
Kings of the jungle oversee the weekend’s events.

It was touch-and-go in the days leading up to the 2021 edition of Barber Vintage Festival. On the Wednesday before the event, thirteen inches of rain drenched Birmingham, Alabama. But by Friday, Mother Nature had relented, fans began swarming in and the three-day par-tay was underway.

The fifteen-year run of annual Barber Vintage Festivals was interrupted in 2020, another casualty of the pandemic. The event bounced back full-strength in 2021 with more than sixty-thousand motorcyclists congregating for the 16th Annual (Except-For-Last-Year) Barber Vintage Festival held October 8-10, 2021.

Yes, we were still fighting a pandemic and yes, it was a large gathering of people but, hey; we ride motorcycles and we’re OK with a bit of risk. Was it worth it?

Hell, yeah! Two years is a long time to go without seeing old friends, smelling race gas, drooling on immaculately restored motorcycles, and foraging through other people’s junk in a giant swap meet.

The Barber event is the Big Enchilada of vintage motorcycle festivals. Other events have racing, swap meets, and bike shows but they come up short when compared to the Barber Vintage Festival, which stands out as the premier event of its kind and is a “bucket list” item for anyone who loves classic and historic motorcycles.

Only the Barber event can offer fans the largest motorcycle museum in the world (certified by Guinness in 2014). The museum, originally opened in 1995 in downtown Birmingham, moved eight years later to its current location on 880 acres of rolling hills a short distance out of town. There are approximately 1,800 bikes in the collection with close to 1,000 on display in the 240,000-square-foot, 5-story building. The staff claims that 99% of the restored bikes can be started with less than an hour of prep work. In addition to the motorcycles, the museum also contains the world’s largest collection of Lotus cars. It’s proved a huge success with over 360,000 people visiting the museum in 2019.

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