Proposal for 2027 - The Great Canadian VI (six) Day Trial. GoldRiver ‘27. Wednesday 30 June - Wednesday 7 July 2027 (Twenty SEVEN).

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 performance, endurance and reliability of production motorcycles and their riders. There were no “specialist” machines in those days, all the bikes were production road-going motorcycles, infernal pandemonium generators that were less than twenty years on from the first bikes to be made available to the general public.

You can read a very abridged history of the ISDT here: https://www.gr200.com/post/the-international-six-days-trials-1903-1913-1913-1980-1980-2025

And here, from where the old photos come from: https://speedtracktales.com/about/

The first event, centred on Carlisle comprised five, hard riding days with the sixth day given over to technical inspections of what was left of the bikes and riders after 800 miles of unfinished mountain roads.

Over the subsequent century-and-then-some the format evolved from a “reliability trial” to a long distance, cross country race and the venues rotated around various European countries before coming to the USA. The title of the event also evolved into the International Six Days Enduro to better reflect the nature of the courses and the durability of the bikes and riders.

Fast forward to the present day and the capabilities of modern bikes and riders at the highest international levels have vastly exceeded those of their forebears and also exceed the capabilities of most common or garden motorcyclists - but the capabilities of motorcycles available through high street retail sales is higher than ever.

Over the past few years there has been somewhat of a renaissance in motorcycle “culture” and events staged to cater for amateur riders seeking recreation and leisure opportunities on their bikes. There has also been a “trickle-down” interest in high level motorsport, aided by social media and video that has brought exposure to the general public of world level events leading to sentiments of “could I do that….?”.

In British Columbia, Canada, Vancouver Island Motosports Events (VIME) and proprietor Jonathan Binnington (author) have been developing an accessible, road legal genre of motorcycle motorsport aimed at what might be termed “grassroots motorcycle enthusiasts” that leverages smartphone apps, off-road capable motorcycles that are road legal (dualsport, adventure and rally replica) and the status of gravel logging roads on the Crown Lands of the north of Vancouver Island (VI) as public highways.

The GoldRiver events are not RallyRaid events in the eyes of the Rallyista cognoscenti - AND they are not intended to be! RallyRaid is a very specific (but high profile) sub-genre of rally motorsport more generally and is a race/speed event that is only appropriate in geographic areas of very low population density or over stretches of road that can be managed to the extent of keeping spectators under close supervision.

Sadly, such venues do not exist in Canada, nor most of the United States. There are many people in the accessible locations and the inaccessible locations are not suitable for motorsport.

Vancouver Island Motosports Events-developed GoldRiver Rules: https://www.gr200.com/post/goldriver-rules-2026-draft-comments-invited

have been developed as a framework to enable a competitive motorcycle Motorsport that combines roadbook navigation (borrowing from RallyRaid) with strict speed monitoring over timed course sections (borrowing from Regularity Rally), riding backcountry gravel roads that are directly comparable to the rough mountain roads that were the original ISDT routes.

The VIME events have been envisioned, developed and produced with the intention of bringing roadbook navigation to a new wave of motorsport enthusiasts and providing an accessible (cost, location, simplicity) motorsport that would attract new people.

Building on the achievements and successes of previous VIME events around Vancouver Island and the forthcoming events for 2026 - The Great Canadian (motorcycle) Roadbook Rally and Les 24Heures du GoldRiver, it is reasonable to ask if the motorcycling community of the Pacific NorthWest is ready for a six day event.

Without a hint of modesty, let’s call it GoldRiver ‘27 - The Great Canadian VI Day Trial.

The event would follow the established VIME genre of navigation by roadbook and Gaia (for non-competition riders), using a straightforward smartphone GPS rally timing app (Richta) to time and score competing riders around the courses.

The routes would run over highway-designated gravel roads, passing through the forests of the north of Vancouver Island, over mountain passes and past rivers and lakes. Expect the total distance to be of the order of 1000 mi/1600 km

All bikes and riders MUST BE road legal, that is licenced, registered and insured to ride on public roads in BC. Transferable insurance, registration and licences from home jurisdictions are acceptable. The routes will comprise public highways (even if it doesn’t look like a highway). Off-highway registered bikes ARE NOT acceptable as they are not permitted to be used along highways.

There would be two divisions of entrants - Sporting, the competition class and Touring, the non-competition class.

The Sporting division.

• Riders complete and compete all six days.

• Navigate by Roadbook PDF distributed 24 hours before each route.

• Timing by Richta.

• Depending on entries received, the division would comprise separately, Dualsport bikes (less than 650cc), Adventure bikes (651cc and up) and Rally Replicas (450cc rallyraid replicas e.g. Kove 450, KTM 450 and others). Depending on the entries received, the Rally Replica and Dualsport classes may be combined.

The Touring division.

• Riders complete three days of their choice. They may spectate the other three days.

• Navigate by Gaia, with or without Roadbook.

• Their progress WILL NOT be tracked by Richta

• There will be just one Touring class comprising every type of bike.

Bivouac centre will be in the Village of Gold River.

Provisional event programme:

• Wednesday 30 July 2027 - event opens. Sign-on, scrutineering, technical inspections

• Thursday 1 July 2027 - Shakedown test route (morning). Prologue night stage (scored). 100-150Km

• Friday 2 July and Saturday 3 July 2027. Day-night-day. 800Km

• Sunday 4 July and Monday 5 July 2027. Moto Malle (bike packing - camp away overnight) 500Km

• Tuesday 6 July 2027. Regularity Raid. 200-300Km.

• Wednesday 7 July 2027. Event closes.

The ethos behind VIME events has always been to bring motorcycle motorsport within reach of “the ordinary rider” - motorsport that doesn’t require licencing, permits, sanctions and approvals beyond that which is required for legal road motoring. The Great Canadian VI Day Trial is intended to further that intention while paying respects to what has been described as “The Olympics of Motorcycling”

If you think you would like to participate in this event, you might like to consider using one or both of the VIME 2026 events as preparation.

I would like to invite you to join me in this exciting 2027 event.

Jonathan Binnington. Proprietor Vancouver Island Motosports Events

Jonathan@GR200.com