All smiles at the Vancouver Flat Track Club’s table. Photos by the author.
Rocky Weinstein stands beaming by a 1939 BSA Gold Star, an entry in the Show & Shine competition. Officials walk around with clipboards and look studiously at the rare motorcycle.
?Six weeks ago it was in a box,? he tells me. ?Look at it now.? Weinstein took it upon himself to restore his father?s motorcycle.
Ralph Weinstein, Rocky?s father, died four years ago. He was a member of the Royal City Rockets in New Westminster, British Columbia, and bought the motorcycle new. It was one of only three Gold Stars brought into Canada by Fred Deeley. This year?s Classic & Vintage Motorcycle Swap Meet and Show & Shine is something of a tribute to Deeley?s influence on motorcycling in British Columbia, and across Canada. Rocky Weinstein, who restored his father’s 1939 BSA Gold Star.
This year (2017) marks the 100th anniversary of Harley-Davidson in Canada. In 1917, on Vancouver?s Granville Street, ?Fred Deeley?The Cycle Man? branched out from selling bicycles and began importing motorcycles, becoming Canada?s first Harley-Davidson dealer. The 1917 H-D Model 17-F, displayed at the entrance to the event?s cavernous venue, is a timely featured motorcycle. Joe Drociuk painstakingly restored the Renault Gray, 1,000cc four-stroke V-twin, and it stands as a motorcycling connection between the United States and Canada.
The featured motorcycle…a 1917 Harley-Davidson Model 17-F, the first H-...