It’s a pleasant surprise to walk into a Harley-Davidson dealership and see on display, proudly and right up front, a VR1000 sporting a set of fat Dunlop racing slicks and to see that road racer sitting right next to a land speed record-setting Buell. Those bikes greeted visitors to Trev Deeley Motorcycles in Vancouver, British Columbia, over the holidays. And they were only part of the selection of vintage road and racing motorcycles on display at the Deeley Motorcycle Exhibition, located at the site of the Deeley dealership. The exhibition hall, which opened in 2007, houses a rotating selection of the more than 275 motorcycles that are part of the collection started by Trevor Deeley. Deeley, a Canadian racer, enthusiast and businessman, is the grandson of the founder of Canada’s oldest Harley-Davidson dealership, which opened back in 1917. Deeley was inducted into the American Motorcyclist Association’s Heritage Hall of Fame Museum in 1999. Deeley was not just a rider, he was a racer who backed his passion with action. To select just one example, according to Deeley’s official biography, at one Daytona 200 race Deeley sponsored Yvon Duhamel and 21 other riders. Current collection owners Don James, Chairman and CEO of Deeley Harley-Davidson Canada (as well as a member of the Harley-Davidson board of directors), and Malcolm Hunter, Chief Operating Officer of Deeley Harley-Davidson Canada, established an exhibit space at Trev Deeley Motorcycles that was awarded the 2007 Gold Award in the Education and Institution Category by the Interior Design Institute of BC. Cool stuff at the exhibition includes an interactive map of motorcycling routes in the Pacific Northwest that visitors can view, explore via onboard footage shot by riders on those routes, and then print out route maps to take with them. On display this holiday was the exhibit “End Of Empire,” billed as “an objective look” at the rise and fall of the British motorcycle industry. Saddest, perhaps, are the descriptions of the British industry’s refusal to invest in new technology and better motorcycles, focusing instead on increasing shareholder dividends, as well as the dismissive attitude toward the competitors from Japan; the Honda CB450 was laughed off as “an interesting bag of tricks.” The Deeley Motorcycle Exhibition is located at 1875 Boundary Road Vancouver, B. C. For more information, contact the museum at (604) 293-2221, or online at www.DeeleyMotorcycleExhibition.ca . The exhibit is open Monday to Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Saturdays from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and Sundays from 11:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Admission is by donation.