f your travels ever take you to the western mountains of North Carolina, make sure you carve out time for a visit to the Wheels Through Time Motorcycle Museum. Located in Maggie Valley just west of Asheville, the 38,000 square foot facility is packed with more American motorcycle history than you can imagine. It’s truly a walk through time, lined with countless rare old motorcycles, trophies, displays, riding gear, tools, signs, posters, trophies, and more. As you’re walking through this massive display of motorcycling history, you’ll notice that some of the bikes are actually being worked on as they sit on the floor. That’s because WTT Museum policy states that any bike sitting on the floor actually runs, and if you find a particular bike that interests you, a staff member will come over and get it started!
The museum’s founder and curator, Dale Walksler, has a keen eye that has helped him design the whole experience to seem like you’re walking through a series of period-set bike shops and motorcycle displays. One section is dedicated to nothing but the early years of hillclimbing, another to military bikes and riders, another to flat track. Evel Knievel. Easy Rider. The Jack Pine Enduro. The Wild Ones.
My personal favorite display is from the early 1900s and the notorious age of board track racing, when seemingly every big city in the country had a wooden motordrome for racing motorcycles at more than 100 mph. Safety was an afterthought then, for both riders and the spectators who lined the track. The nationwide craze passed its peak in 1912 when Eddie Hasha, nicknamed the Texas Cyclone, crashed with another rider, killing them both along with four spectators. The New York Times went on the attack, calling the wooden tracks “murderdromes.” By the start of the Great Depression some 15 years later, the wooden tracks were all gone. I learned all that reading the actual newspapers, which were a part of the display!
The one thing the museum lacks is motocross, which really didn’t catch on in America until the late sixties, though there are a lot of beautiful old scramblers on the museum floor. No matter, Wheels Through Time is well worth the detour, and the time you’ll spend inside is well worth the cost of admission.
To find out more, visit wheelsthroughtime.com. 
