Our Sunday Morning Ride at the 2017 Barber Vintage Festival will take us through 40 miles of Alabama countryside.
A handful of riders congregate at the Motorcycle Classics tent following the 2016 Sunday Morning Ride.
Join Motorcycle Classics for our Sunday Morning Ride at the 13th Annual Barber Vintage Festival on — when else — Sunday morning, Oct. 8, at 10 a.m. Sponsored by our good friends at Hagerty Motorcycle Insurance, the Motorcycle Classics Sunday Morning Ride is a casual 40-mile romp through the hills of the Alabama countryside surrounding the Barber Motorsports Complex. Last year’s ride was excellent, with dozens of readers joining us on their vintage bikes. And thanks to Hagerty, this year we have swag! The ride leaves our tent in the Fan Zone at 10 a.m. sharp, so don’t be late! Ride ’Em, Don’t Hide ’Em!
We’re pretty excited about pulling together another ride, taking us back as it does to our first years at the Barber Festival when we staged an annual ride starting at nearby 29 Dreams Motorcycle Resort early — painfully early! — Saturday morning, winding our way to the Barber park and culminating in our Saturday Vintage Motorcycle Show. But then 29 Dreams shut down, and with the Barber Festival growing by leaps and bounds we kind of lost track with our roots at the show — in a word, Ride ’Em, Don’t Hide ’Em, only we’d forgotten to keep riding. Well, at least at Barber.
Last year, almost as an afterthought, we decided to put together a short Sunday morning ride. Frankly, we had no idea if anyone would be interested because, equally frankly, we barely promoted it. Plus, traditionally, lots of folks are pulling up stakes on Sunday morning, getting ready to head back home to resume their regularly scheduled broadcast. Apparently people were looking for an excuse to ride, because by mid-Sunday morning 30-some readers and riders were at our tent and ready to head out. It was an awesome ride, taking in a great little section of Alabama SR 25 otherwise known as Alabama’s mini-Tail of the Dragon. OK, so it’s nowhere near as epic as the real Tail of the Dragon, but it’s a hell of a road nonetheless, an absolutely beautiful stretch of two-lane blacktop winding up, over and down a series of ridges.
We’ll run an altered version of last year’s route, hitting SR 25 again, but from a different direction. Wanna see the route? Just click here or on the route map below for a little preview of what to expect. Don’t miss it — every participant gets a cool Hagerty Sunday Ride bandana specifically made for the ride and other cool swag! See you there!