The 2026 edition of The Great Canadian (motorcycle) Roadbook Rally will be based at the Sayward Valley Resort, just off Highway 19 at Sayward Junction. Their website is https://www.saywardvalleyresort.com/p/store.html The event, now in its fifth year, has grown beyond the camping capacity at Gold River and the opportunity has been taken to reimagine the event based in a new location. The Sayward Valley Resort, run by owners Faith and Frank and their staff, provides all the

Advance Notice! The Great Canadian VI (six) Day Trial, Wednesday 30 June to Wednesday 7 July 2027 (Twenty Seven) begins to take shape… The dualsport and adventure bike event of the decade will be built upon the established format of the GoldRiver events staged by Vancouver Island Motosports Events and will combine the three, day-stages of The Great Canadian (motorcycle) Roadbook event and the day-night-day event of Les 24 Heures du Gold River (events for 2026). The provisio

The founding principle of Vancouver Island Motosports Events is to provide affordable, accessible motorcycle motorsport to grassroots motorcycle enthusiasts. This blog post is intended to take readers who are unfamiliar with the Rally Roadbook Reader app through what it is, what it can do and how to get PDF roadbooks into it and up-and-displayed and therefore meet this principle. I fully appreciate that not everyone in the 21st Century is 100% tech savvy and therefore using

As one year metaphorically recedes into the landscape, a new one comes up under the wheels… (cheesy i know but). Last week in December, the scutt-end of the year. The mid-winter festivities are history again, the significance of the passing of the winter solstice has yet to become apparent. And there is snow. Sometimes it is the soft, compliant kind that provides some sideways grip for the front tyre, sometimes it is compacted, white-ice that is “not much fun”. Time fo

First, Second and Third place finishers, The Great Canadian (motorcycle) Roadbook Rally 2025. Left to right, Jonathan Binnington (organiser), Christian Pelletier (2nd), Owen Partaik (1st), Neil Barbisan (3rd). The events staged by Vancouver Island Motosports Events are specifically designed to provide accessible, affordable, competitive motorsports to road-legal motorcycle enthusiasts. The format fuses elements of rallyraid (roadbook navigation), tarmac regularity rally (time

Vancouver Island (north) As I write this, in December 2025, the longest running competitive motorcycle event in the history of the Universe is 113 years old…. In 1913 The Federation Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM) sanctioned a six day motorcycle reliability trial in the north of England as The International Six Days Trials (ISDT) - a marathon reliability event that had been running in the UK for a decade before. The purpose of the event was to showcase and challenge the

The ISDT - the original dualsport and adventure bike event? Looks like a somewhat bent Beemer to me….. The International Six Day Trials, precursor and subsequent events. 1903 - 1913. National UK 6 day trials 1913 - 1980. The International Six Days Trials years 1980 - present day. The International Six Days Enduro years It is said that whatever goes around comes around and there is nothing new under the sun.   This potted history will demonstrate how hard it is to be trul

Photo above courtesy of Full On Lights, Victoria BC. The Dark Nights are upon us! Woe!! I am investigating lighting solutions for off-road riding in the hours of darkness principally in anticipation of the 24 Heures du GoldRiver next September, but also simply to be able to get out and ride this winter. As you have come to expect, I am doing a bit of a deeper dive into this subject. The previous blog post I wrote about this introduced the three lighting systems I am com

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you will remember I have previously written about the programme developments lined up for next year, developing the event programme running from Wednesday 1 July to Monday 6th July 2026… On the Thursday before rally Friday, Saturday and Sunday there will be two new additions to the programme. Shahnawaz Karim, Wheels Guru ( www.wheelsguru.ca ) will be presenting his off-road riding Skills Challenge and the VIME team will be running

Tomorrow, winter starts… On a dark desert byway Cool wind in my hair Warm smell of colitas Rising up through the air… Up ahead in the distance I saw a shimmering light My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim I had to stop for the night. Eagles - Hotel California The powers-that-be have exercised their prerogative to mess with our body-clocks and Winter Time for those in the northern hemisphere has begun. I have it on good authority that not every day will be quite like thi

…but who is that Masked Man? The Winners - Rudyard Kipling What is the moral? Who rides may read. When the night is thick and the tracks are blind, A friend at a pinch is a friend indeed; But a fool to wait for the laggard behind Down to Gehenna, or up to the Throne, He travels the fastest who travels alone. White hands cling to the tightened rein, Slipping the spur from the booted heel, Tenderest voices cry, "Turn again," Red lips tarnish the scabbarded steel, High

VIME Event Regulations - 2025.   The GoldRiver Rules. Draft: 2/10/2025 Acknowledgement: I, Jonathan Binnington, as proprietor of Vancouver Island Motosports Events formally and respectfully acknowledge the fact that the lands through which my events pass, the oceans, mountains, rivers and lakes form part of the traditional unceded and never surrendered territories of Canadian First Nations. I am grateful for our opportunity to travel these roads. The First Nations are the Mow

Detail planning work for a 24 Heures du GoldRiver continues. To back up a little if you haven’t been following this particularly...

Work continues productively on the VI Motosports Events for next year. The Great Canadian (motorcycle) Roadbook Rally has three...

Endurance motorsports have a special place in the psyche of Motorsport enthusiasts. Not for the faint-of-heart, not for the “instant...

Today something positive popped up on my social media, an advance advert for a 24hr gravel rally in Greece…. I am a fan of endurance...

Introduction. Geo-Positioning Systems and information technology are a ubiquitous part of modern human existence. Rallysport, along...

It has been suggested that a summary of the results of previous events might be informative. I have trawled the blog to see what I...

I Owen in his natural habitat - a motorsport paddock wearing an anorak VIME: Owen Partaik, thank you very much for having this...

Regular readers of this blog will recall that I have written about a number of experimental developments I have tried with my DR650’s,...