Velocette - An odd Winter gathering in the Chicago suburbs

Each winter, the Chicago Norton Owners Club hosts a gathering at Dave Smith's workshop, here in the suburbs. Since it's close to my house, and the winter is cold and terrible, I always go because, at the very least, it's something to do. Dave is a Velocette guy, and I won't even begin to pretend that I know much about him, or about Velocette's for that matter. My knowledge of the Velocette mark is limited to simply being around vintage bikes for long enough to pick up at least some basic information. I'm a Norton guy, and since the local Norton club hosts the event, I started going out for it about four years ago after having moved back to the Midwest.

I believe that Dave is quite well known in the world of Velocette's, and I believe that he's retired and has plenty of time to tinker with these bikes in his private workshop. Dave seems like a really nice guy and is obviously quite passionate about these old bikes. I always respect someone that's become obsessed with one marque and dedicated all their time and money to working on them. I think it takes a special kind of person to get that deep into it.

The Norton club here in Chicago is much like the motorcycle culture in general. And when I say that, I simply mean that it sucks. I've never in my life seen such a scattered and obscure scene based around vintage motorcycles. You'd think that with Chicago being such a large city, that it would be full of the type of people that are really well versed and passionate, but that's simply not the case. I hate to talk down on it, but honesty seems more important than niceties.

I snapped a bunch of photos to share. Dave's got a few Velocette's in various stages of restoration, a Brough Superior and a Nourish Triton. There are a lot of details on these bikes, and for the past four years, I've wanted to ask him about a lot of things, but the place gets pretty packed, and everyone tends to flock to Dave, making it impossible to even speak to him. I think I've maybe said six words to the guy over the past few years. Maybe someday I'll have to show up and enquire about the bikes, when the place isn't packed. I had planned an extensive write up about today's events, but it really doesn't warrant it. I feel that if I get any more long winded than I already have, I'll just bore you to death.

Enjoy a few random photos of the bikes and the extensive amount of very nice machining equipment that Dave has.

In my opinion, the more interesting portion of the workshop, is all the great machining equipment. Since it's near impossible to take a decent photo of the bikes, with the all the people in the way, I spent some time admiring all the equipment.