Barber Motorsports Museum

[bagobones]

Well, whadya know? Next weekend the fam and I are going to central Iowa to visit some relatives. Thinking of breaking in the new bike trailer, I start looking for places to ride, and looky what I found...

J&P Cycles in Anamosa, IA is having their yearly open house bash. Looks like fun and is only an hour or so away from where we will be.
http://www.jpcycles.com/pages/openhouse

Also in Anamosa, The National Motorcycle Museum. I spoke with oone of the curators at the Cycle World show in Chicago for a while about a mind-blowing original condition wood-track Harley they had brought to the show. I told him I would get to their museum ASAP. That time has come!

http://nationalmcmuseum.org/

To top off my good fortune, Arlen Ness will be there at a fund raiser for the new museum wing  dedicated to his works. Jackpot!

[dt]

Sweet! Sounds like a good time. No, I’ve never been there. I don’t think I’ve ever been to Iowa for that matter. I know I’ve seen photos of the inside of that museum though. They have the Steve McQueen and Easy Rider exhibits…there’s a good slide show in their website. Unlike Barber, which was only motorcycles, it looks like this museum has a ton of other motorcycle stuff to look over. Very cool.

Hey, don’t tell Arlen I was making fun of some of his creations in here. 

[mrbones]

I've seen this bike before. It was at the Orlando Museum of Art in an Art of the Motorcycle exhibit. I wish I could find my photos of that day!

Here’s one of the bikes that I snapped a shot of at the Barber Museum. I’ve now learned that there’s quite a story behind this bike and the guy who built it. Here’s a link to a documentary Britten: Backyard Visionary. There are six segments to the documentary (the last is just a few seconds of credits) and it’s around 45 minutes in total. It’s just something you might like to watch when you have some free time…