Wheels Through Time Motorcycle Museum

The Wheels Through Time Motorcycle Museum in Maggie Valley (Waynesville) NC is opening at irregular intervals this year but has just decided to open on July 11th and 12th. This museum has been reviewed in many publications and should be a "don't miss" if you can make it. You can check them out at www.wheelsthroughtime.com/.

Wish I could take advantage of these dates myself but no luck!

The owner of the collection keeps busy with many projects. However, if he is available, he would probably do a private tour and/or open a specific date if he knew enough people were to visit.

I live in Haywood County and have visited the museum many times. If you are looking for BMWs, you are out of luck. This is totally a U.S. made collection. However, it is one of the best collections in the world and you will not be disappointed!

You can find many good routes from Johnson City to Maggie Valley that will take a only a few hours. Under two if you want to take the Interstate the whole way. Plenty of good places to eat in Maggie Valley and Waynesville.

Dale Walksler, the owner is a very interesting and nice guy. I was there last year with two friends. In talking to us he learned we were BMW riders and so we walked over to see the Harley XAs he has. Then he says to me, "you want to ride it?" Hell yeah!

We walked through the rest of the museum and I kinda thought he was just teasing me. As we go out to the parking lot, out comes Dale with the XA and lets all of us ride it around the lot! Here is a picture of us. Dale could not get the bike into neutral so he held the bike up with one hand for the picture... while it was running and in gear! Freakin' awesome man!

BMWPhreak said:

Dale Walksler, the owner is a very interesting and nice guy. I was there last year with two friends. In talking to us he learned we were BMW riders and so we walked over to see the Harley XAs he has. Then he says to me, "you want to ride it?" Hell yeah!

We walked through the rest of the museum and I kinda thought he was just teasing me. As we go out to the parking lot, out comes Dale with the XA and lets all of us ride it around the lot! Here is a picture of us. Dale could not get the bike into neutral so he held the bike up with one hand for the picture... while it was running and in gear! Freakin' awesome man!

Click to expand...

Dale's son was there the day we visited (May 14) and he and a couple of other guys were riding the HD XA all over --- here's the other bike that Dale brought out for a couple of guys to try riding -- what a hoot to see this thing run.



This was our second visit to Wheels Through Time --- Dale was open for a group of riders crossing the country on their home-made bikes. This was the closest thing I saw to a German boxer at the museum that day...






What's great about the museum is that many of the bikes run -- Dale or his son will tell you something of the bike's history and how it's running at the time....and then they'll start it up.



Here's Dale zooming through the museum on this one-of-a-kind bike -- he's on the second set of tires -- the black marks on the museum floor are from the first set.



It's a great museum and Dale and his son have accumulated a great deal of experience restoring bikes they come across. There's lots of history, old photos, bikes (running and not), and even one of Steve McQueen's old cadillacs. Definitely worth a visit if the museum's open.