Barber Vintage Festival.  They seem like simple enough words.  “Barber.”  “Vintage.” ”Festival.”  Words….just like “Scottish Woods Resort”, “Cherohala Skyway”, and “Chinaco Reposado”.  Somehow, though, over the last few weeks those three simple words, “Barber Vintage Festival”, have acquired a deeper, more somber meaning for me.

Bill Ballon's MH900e at the Barber Vintage Festival

I left Albuquerque, NM on the morning of October 1st, 2011 with the intention of riding a lot, chatting a little, watching some racing, and viewing some of the most desireable Ducati motorcycles ever built.  I and three Ducati mounted friends loaded our bikes into a trailer and headed toward George Betzhold’s Scottish Woods Resort outside Murphy, North Carolina.  We arrived on the evening of the 2nd and went to sleep with thoughts of twisty roads and great weather on our minds (after sipping a bit of George’s Aha Toro tequila and watching the day’s MotoGP event).

DesmoPro's "Cafe 31" at the Barber Vintage Festival

I won’t bore you by raving about the riding in western North Carolina.  Either you’ve experienced it, or you should.  You either know it’s sublime, or you’ve never been there.  There’s really nothing more to say about it.  However, what I got, more than I thought I would, was a dose of great comraderie!  George is an excellent host.  I knew that going into the endeavour.  However, I didn’t know that my compatriots (Tom Rolland, Scott Metcalfe, and Jim DeBlois) are more engaging and interesting than any man has a right to expect of any friend…much less of three of them!  These four guys, accompanied by George’s fabulous wife, Pat, and several other riders who showed up over the next three days made drinking George’s premium tequila more pleasant than I expected….and I expected a lot.

Paul Smart (left) and George Betzhold at the Motorcycles By Moonlight dinner

We left the Scottish Woods on Thrusday and headed to Birmingham.  We checked in at the event hotel and immediately began renewing old friendships and starting new ones.  I finally met Harlyn Jenkins of Ducati.net fame, Bill Ballon from MH900e.org, the Bellissimoto crew (Lyle, Randall, and Amy), Ted from NED (the New England Ducati club…who rode his Ducati in from New Hampshire), Rich Lambrechts from DesmoPro, the guys from EMS, Phil Hitchcock from Road and Race in Australia, and tons of people that it would take me pages to mention now.  Additionally, I got to renew acquaintances with Vicki Smith, Doug Barnette, Scott Turner, Mark Turner, Rick Booth, Dave Hedden, Jim Calandro, Peter Bonner, and literally hundreds of my favorite people of all time.  If no bikes had been present at the event, the personal relationships would have made the trip worthwhile in my book…..but there were bikes, too!!!!!

Ducati F1 at the Barber Vintage Festival

Mh900e?  There were three that I saw.  The sad part is there were more “green frame” SSs there than that!  (I counted six including the one in the museum!!!)  F1s?  TTs?  Supermono?  You betcha!  The first Ducati was on hand (the best being Mike Cechinni’s exemplary Cucciolo, I think), as was the latest NCR offering…and virtually everything in between.  GTs?  Check.  Superbikes?  Check.  Mountaineers?  Yup.  Scooters?  Even a scooter!

A pair of MH900e at the Barber Vintage Festival

I took tons of photos at the Festival, and you can see them at http://photobucket.com/tscloninger-barber2011

Heck…I haven’t even mentioned the Motorcycles By Moonlight dinner, or the Barber Museum, or that I met tons of cool people who are also famous like Paul Smart and his lovely wife Maggie, Cook Nielson, Jason DiSalvo, Kevin Schwantz, Dave Roper, Jay Springsteen, and several others.  I also got to watch Kevin Schwantz race a ’60s Norton single to victory in a Sound of Singles race!  Then there was the swap meet….and the auction….and the Wall of Death…and Cafe Racer Magazine…and Classic Bike Magazine…and the Guzzi show….and…well…you get the idea, don’t you?  It was a weekend that is indelibly etched into my memory. 

A pair of "green frame" SSs at the Barber Vintage Festival

So, what do the words “Barber Vintage Festival” mean now that I’ve gone?  Well, that’s easy!  They mean great friends, great bikes, great times, and a must-attend event for the forseeable future.  If you haven’t been, there’s always next year, so don’t let another year slip by without attending this exceptional event.  You won’t regret it!

Mike "The Asshole in the Van" Cecchini in the Ducstock area

If a picture is really worth a thousand words, then Phil Aynsley’s new book, Ducati:  A Photographic Tribute, is the most descriptive Ducati biopic ever published! 

Ducati: A Photographic Tribute

Phil has taken a look at Ducati’s history, from it’s Electronica roots to the latest Desmodromic masterpiece, and has documented it in rich photographic detail for all dedicated Ducatisti to behold.

For we MH900e owners, there are several MHe shots to tickle the fancy as well as various photos of motorcycles from Cucciolo to Desmosedici, and everything in between.

The photos in this article are copyright protected and may not be used without explicit permission from Phil Aynsley Photography.  These particular photos and are taken from Phil’s extensive catalog (not from the book).  For a look at more, you can visit Phil’s website at www.philaphoto.com.

Cloner:  ABQ, NM

After a few months of hiatus, the MH900e Owners Club is finally back.  Far from finished, but ready to serve the community of loyal Ducati MH900e aficionados.

I’m Brian De Groodt, and I guess I’m now president, ring-leader, or something official here.  In any case, it doesn’t really matter to me.  I’m just happy to put the community back together and get our group served with information and conversation about the MH.

This site is definitely still a work in progress.  I have literally gigs of information from the old site (Thanks JohnC!) and will be uploading it over the coming days, weeks, months.  If you have a specific request, please email me and let me know.  If I have it, I’m happy to share it and put it to the front of the line.

For now, here’s what we have right now.  We have this blog/main page.  We have the Forums page for all things considered.  What we don’t have right now is direct integration between MH900e.org (blog) and the forums.  So if you post a comment on the blog, you won’t need a password, but you also won’t automatically be logged into the forum section.  Everyone needs to register to participate in the forum.  It’s easy.  I think the forums give us a little more functionality than we had previously, but are still pretty basic. If there’s a reason to move to something more advanced in the future, we’ll discuss it as a group and figure out what makes sense.

I’d really like to see us get back to the same or better level of participation we had previously.  That includes owner registration, which I’ll start working on as a next step.  Ideally we can record the whereabouts of all 2,000 units.

Finally, welcome to your home! If there’s anything you’d like to see, I’d love to hear it.

That’s all for now. 

BD #760