oVc Hosts Canadian Launch of the All-New

Royal Enfield Himalayan

Did you make it out to the massive Toronto International Motorcycle Show earlier this month? If you did, you don’t need us to tell you how exciting it was to see the various vendor displays and attractions. If you didn’t make it, well, there’s always next year.

This year, oVc, in concert with Royal Enfield North America, hosted a massive booth in the centre of the action in the main vendor hall. We were well situated near the entrance and this resulted in non-stop visitors from open to close all weekend.

oVc was especially pleased to welcome Stacy Ray Hadaway, Royal Enfield’s Regional Sales and Business Development Manager for the Mid-West US and Canada. Stacy was on hand to help oVc introduce the all-new Himalayan to the Canadian public.

Seeing that this was the Himalayan’s first foray north of the border, there was considerable interest and more than a few were delighted to finally set eyes on this new creation from Royal Enfield.

Observers were impressed with the sturdiness of the build and the fact that Royal Enfield was still able to keep overall weight just a smidge above the 400 pound mark. The new, purpose built engine also received considerable praise and has earned strong reviews since landing on the North American shores last fall.

Royal Enfield is currently finishing up the paperwork with Transport Canada to allow Royal Enfield to start importing the Himalayan to Canada. Expectations are that it will be available by late summer or early fall.

While the Himalayan drew big crowds, visitors also stopped by to see the new 2018 Ural Gear Up, as well as the CCM and SWM adventure bikes that oVc also had on display. oVc has served as a CCM (Clewes Competition Motorcycles) dealer for the past two years, and we’ve recently added the Italian marque, SWM to the lineup.

We also had the new Lees-ure Lite camping trailer on display and Ian must have opened and closed the trailer five hundred times during the course of the weekend. People just couldn’t believe the speed – a mere 31 seconds by my count – by which the trailer could be opened and ready for a good night’s sleep. That sure beats the heck out of setting a tent up in the dark, only to be rewarded by an uncomfortable night of sleeping on the ground.

Even though it was very busy at the oVc booth, we did have time to wander around a bit and check out some of the other sights. For those who appreciate custom builds, there were a number of choppers on display such as this well-designed example:

And at the risk of dating myself, the Captain America chopper induced more than a little bit of nostelgia. Of course, if you have seen the Easy Rider movie, you’ll know that this couldn’t possibly be the original Captain America, but it is still an excellent homage to the classic 1969 movie. In fact, Easy Rider served as the inspiration that got many of us into riding and I still remember the first time I saw this movie so it was special for me to see this bike at the show.

We also made our way over to the vintage section where we lost ourselves in some classic motorcycling history. Every era, and every manufacturer you can think of was represented in this display – old Triumphs and Norton’s from the 50s and 60s; early Harleys and other American makers; and the bikes of my youth, early Japanese “UJMs”.

Of course, we can’t forget the sidecar aficionados and while this rig may be a bit faster than your Ural or your Hannigan / Harley combo, it’s still got three wheels, right?

For all those that made it to the show and stopped by the booth, thank you very much for taking the time to visit. We met some very enthusiastic riders over the weekend and had some great conversations while reminiscing about past and present bikes. We truly hope to see everyone out and about this summer and we look forward to having everyone stop by the shop.

Our new Royal Enfields and Urals are starting to arrive and we still have a couple of previous year models available at special pricing to make room for the 2018 models.

Here’s to an early spring!

oVc Classifieds

2007 Ural Patrol

This one has been around the block a few times, but now sports a freshly rebuilt motor by the Ural gurus at oVc and is rarin' to go!

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