Picture: Hey no camera remember, none to borrow.
Maggie Valley, NC, home to the Wheels Through Time museum (http://www.wheelsthroughtime.com/), is a typical mountain tourist town. Motels, restaurants, gift shops all stretched along the main drag and in this case a lot of catering to motorcycles. Unbeknown to me there were two rallies going on this weekend, on in MV, the other in a nearby town. Thunder in the Smokies was the name of the MV rally. They must have copied it from Marquette's Thunder ON the Smokey. Harley's were the dominate brand of course with small groups cruising by as I relaxed in front of my motel room. Full face helmets were as rare as sport bikes and loud pipes were the norm. I saw a few Wings, some trikes, choppers, a couple of cool old hand shift HDs and one Boss Hoss.
I was the second person to arrive at the museum just at opening time and someone was moving the World's Largest Motorcycle. It's a huge mock up of a chopper that really runs. That someone turned out to be Dale Walksler, the curator and moving force behind the museum. As I was getting out of the truck he came over and introduced himself and checked out the Dubya. We talked a few minutes before he had to be about his business, nice guys. I was him several times during my visit talking to folks and in general being a good host.
The Wheels Through Time museum is quite different from Barber Motorsports in that there are many original condition bikes, it doesn't have the glitz as Barber. There were only USA made bikes too with Harley's having the most. What was interesting to me was the other thing related to the brands, like the Indian chain saws and homemade Harley powered airplanes. Now that would take a lot of guts, going up in an airplane with a '49 HD engine.
My tour complete I bought a raffle ticket for the 1936 Harley VLH-80 in./Flat Head from the aging tattooed biker chick with the modified chest; picked out a T-shirt and struck out for Athens, GA.
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