From early models to V-Rods, you'll find it all. Photography courtesy of Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum.
Pickerington, Ohio--The AMA's Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum launches its Heroes of Harley-Davidson Exhibit, timed to coincide with the Harley-Davidson Motor Company's 100th anniversary celebration. The exhibit opens at the beginning of February and with a gala on May 3. There will also be a special Charity Preview of the show on March 4 in Daytona Beach, Florida, during bike week.
Sponsored by Progressive Motorcycle Insurance, the Harley exhibit replaces the "Century of Indian" motorcycle exhibit, and features some of the most significant and memorable motorcycles from Harley's century in the business and sport. Besides collectible and rare production machines, there are race bikes, customs and the streamliner that propelled the late, great Cal Rayborn II to his 265-mile-per-hour motorcycle land speed record in 1970. There is even a 1958 Rikuo, a Japanese V-twin copy of a Harley VL produced under license from Harley-Davidson. The Rikuo-Harley arrangement, which started production in the 1930s, is sometimes credited with teaching the Japanese how to mass-produce motorcycles.
The streamliner piloted by Cal Rayborn.
But the exhibit focuses on more than the machines. It also shines the spotlight on the people associated with the brand, besides the obvious candidates, like company founders, Arthur, Walter and William Davidson and William Harley, racers like Rayborn and noted Harley riders such as Evel Kenievel, "Heroes of Harley-Davidson" celebrates the accomplishments of people such as "The Motorcycle Queen of Miami," Bessie Stringfield, the African-American woman who broke barriers more important than speed records when she made eight solo cross-country rides and served as a motorcycle dispatch rider for the U.S. Army.
A replica of a bike from the movie, "Easy Rider."
The Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum is open from 9:00 to 5:00 everyday except on Memorial Day, Independence Day and Labor Day when its hours are noon to 4 p.m. It is closed Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day.
The Museum is located southeast of Columbus, Ohio. Take I-70 to exit 112A for Pickerington and highway 256 East (which heads south). Turn left on highway 204, the first major set of lights you come to. Next turn left at the first street, Yarmouth Drive, and follow it past the large R.G. Barry building ton the left, the AMA/Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum is up the last driveway on the left, flanked by two brick pillars and cast-iron gates. with a bronze AMA sign on one set of pillars and the Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum bronze on the other.
Admission is $5 for adults and $4 for seniors and AMA/AMCA/AHRMA members. Children 17 and younger are free.
For further information see the museum's website.
You can also call or write the Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum, 13515 Yarmouth Dr., Pickerington, Ohio 43147, (614)856-2222, info@motorcyclemuseum.org.
Click on map for larger version.