VI Motosports Events for 2026. The Great Canadian (motorcycle) Roadbook Rally 1st - 6th July (Canada Day and weekend) and The 24 Heures du GoldRiver 3rd - 7th September (Labour Day long weekend).
- Jonathan Binnington
- Oct 22
- 7 min read
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 hopes faint on a warm hearth-stone –
He travels the fastest who travels alone.
One may fall, but he falls by himself –
Falls by himself, with himself to blame;
One may attain, and to him is the pelf –
Loot of the city in Gold or Fame
Plunder of earth shall be all his own
Who travels the fastest, and travels alone.
Wherefore the more ye be holpen and stayed,
Stayed by a friend in the hour of toil,
Sing the heretical song I have made –
His be the labour, and yours be the spoil.
Win by his aid, and the aid disown –
He travels the fastest who travels alone.
Gehenna = hell. Throne = paradise. Pelf = reward. Holden = helping.
“He (or She) who travels the fastest, travels alone…”
This blog post will concentrate the VI Motosports Events calendar for 2026, comprising
The Great Canadian (motorcycle) Roadbook Rally and
The 24 Heures du Gold River.
In keeping with the established format and intended entrant-throng, both events will be open to road legal riders of plated and insured dualsport and adventure bikes.
Both events will be multi-day, roadbook regularity-raid events with GPS timing and tracking, using the Strathcona village of Gold River as the event locus.
The events will be set so as to be accessible to motorcycle motorsport novices (note: an intermediate level of off-road motorcycling competence will be required) while also providing a genuinely competitive environment for riders who are familiar with motorcycle roadbook navigation and wish to test themselves against their peers.
The events ARE NOT Rally-Raids! These ARE NOT race-speed events! Riders will be required to ride within the details of BC road traffic regulations and share the roads with other road users.
For the legal framework within which these events run, please see https://www.gr200.com/post/vime-events-the-bc-legal-framework
These events are, however, a serious test of rider’s abilities and diligent attempt to detail is required from beginning to end if the events are to be completed with success.
All readers are invited to read the GoldRiver Rules for 2026, all entrants are required to read the rules…
So how do these events work?
VI Motosports Events are intended for grassroots, amateur motorcycle enthusiasts seeking genuine competitive backcountry riding that doesn’t require significant financial commitment. These events also serve as accessible entry-level/escalator events for riders wishing to “have a go” at motorcycle rallysport, building familiarity with navigation and competence in the backcountry.
The event format, developed over the past five years, is a fusion of motorsport genres to best exploit the opportunities presented by the environment.
Navigation is (primarily) by roadbook - taken from rallyraid
GPS maps of the route are also provided for riders who are new to rallysport
Timing is by smartphone-driven GPS app, drawing on tarmac Regularity rally principles
Roads are “gazetted” public roads - that are between two-lane FSR mains and twin-track backcountry byways
All bikes and riders are fully road legal
All routes are appropriate for intermediate level dual sport and adventure bike riders
All required riding is within the terms of BC motoring legislation
From the outset it is obvious that race-type rallyraid simply cannot be staged over open public roads and despite the popular belief that Canada is a land of vast open spaces (which it is), it is all owned, often fragile ecosystems that are frozen solid in the winter and not passable by wheeled vehicles in the summer.
However, there are many thousands of gravel backcountry roads that have been built by the logging industry. These roads (on Crown land) have the motor-traffic status of Public Highway and are open to road legal private motorists (ie us…), riding in a legal manner (not speeding or racing…) while participating in a “navigation trial” (roadbook regularity rally…).
The degree of difficulty posed by these roads to riders of dualsport and adventure bikes ranges from straightforward gravel highway to steep/loose/narrow/exposed dual-track. A One to Three on a 1-6 scale where 4 represents boulder/log obstacles, 5 represents yet more difficulty and 6 is for trials riders, enduro experts and pro-level riders.
These routes can all be ridden with both wheels down at all times.
Both The Great Canadian (motorcycle) Roadbook Rally and the 24 Heures du GoldRiver are roadbook events. The routes are published as PDFs for loading into your preferred app and tablet. As an encouragement to newcomers, the routes for the Great Canadian Rally are also provided as Gaia tracks to those riders who do not wish to participate in the competitive element of the event. Timing and scoring of the competition is handled by a smartphone app called Richta that uses GPS data to monitor rider’s progress around the course and report their position every time the phone encounters cellphone signals.
The 24 Heures will be a roadbook-only event due to the extra degree of difficulty that a long distance will pose with night stages and remote locations.
There has been much detail omitted from this brief description, all of which can be found in The GoldRiver Rules 2026 document mentioned above.
The event outlines - The Great Canadian Rally and the 24 Heures.
The Great Canadian (motorcycle) Roadbook Rally - Gold River, Strathcona, Vancouver Island. 1st - 6th July 2026.
The final programme of the event is still evolving, but this is how things are looking now…
Wednesday 1 July 2026 - Canada Day. Event opens. Bivouac site open. Afternoon - sign-on, tech inspection and scrutineering. Equipment verification route open (approx 10km)
Thursday 2 July 2026. Hillclimb day and Adventure Skills Challenges presented by Wheels Guru Shahnawaz Karim. Please se www.wheelsguru.ca Separate entry fees. Details to be announced.
Friday 3 July. Rally day One. 310km - fuel range 150km
Saturday 4 July. Rally day Two. 250km
Sunday 5 July. Rally day Three. 250km
Sunday Afternoon - Results and Awards.
Monday 6 July. Bivouac closes
Roadbooks for The Great Canadian (motorcycle) Roadbook Rally are written and will be tested/proof-read during spring 2026 (after the winter storms have blown down everything they are going to blow down).
The event entry will be capped at 50 riders to keep the event manageable and will be open to riders from Canada and the US who hold the necessary documentation to ride public highways in BC. If you are legal to ride in your home state, I have it on authority from the RCMP that you are legal here… For example, in order to hold a full licence in BC you have to be at least 19 years old. Some US States the minimum age is less - if you hold a full State licence you can ride in BC.
The routes will have the character of “Grand Tours” of the mountains and forests of the North Island and not feature the technical difficulties of recent events. As such, the routes will be more “big bike friendly” although still posing a test of rider endurance, navigation skills and Regularity competition. Difficulty 1-3 on a 1-6 scale where 4 = hoisting wheels over logs and boulders.
There will be two classes, navigation by Gaia (with or without roadbooks) and the competition class (roadbook only with GPS timing).
Riders can ride the Gaia class solo or in small groups. The competition class is for solo riders only.
The Hillclimb event and the other Thursday event are new for 2026 and are intended to widen the scope of activities over the weekend. Details are still being worked out and will be announced as they become available.
Wheels Guru, Shahnawaz Karim will be presenting the Adventure Bike Skills Challenge on the Thursday event day. Do you have the skills?
The 24 Heures du GoldRiver. Thurs 3 September - Mon 7 September 2026 (Labour Day)
This will be new! Inspired by Motorsport endurance events in Europe (both circuit and rallysport), a 24 hour “Regularity-Raid” event run to the GoldRiver Rules over the 2026 Labour Day long weekend - specifically Thursday evening 3 September (event opens) to Monday morning 7 September (event closes).
The route is 815Km long (500mi). It is broken up into eight stages with a maximum fuel range required of 150Km.
The route will be another Grande Tour of the north of Vancouver Island, put together with the intention of getting everyone round. The trickier elements of recent GoldRiver rallies have not been included in this route with the intention of gauging the appropriate degree of difficulty.
The event will:
Be pdf roadbook only - the roadbook has around 650 waypoint-notes.
There will be two compulsory rest/meal stops totalling 5 hours out of the 24.
The event timing and tracking will be by GPS timing system.
All riders will be required to ride with the timing/tracking system.
The event will comprise two classes - Solo Riders and Pairs. No differentiation will be made by bike engine size.
The event will not be suitable for novice backcountry riders. If this is going to be your first roadbook event, much advice and mentoring will be made available.
The degree of difficulty of the routes will be between 1 and 3 on the usual 1-6 scale where 4 represents log/boulder obstacles that require hoisting the front wheel to get over and 6 is Hard Very Difficult expert-level.
The event schedule will be as follows
Thursday 3 September 2026. Afternoon. Event bivouac opens. Sign-on and tech inspection begins.
Friday 4 September. Sign-on and tech continues for overnight arrivals. Afternoon - Prologue. Around 100km regularity to the same format as the main event (for shakedown tests and sorting the start order). The winner of the Prologue (lowest Time Penalties) get to choose their start position for the following day. Everyone else starts in reverse Prologue results order.
Saturday 5 September. 1000hrs. First start from the carpark outside Uptown Cappuccino cafe, Gold River, then at two minute intervals.
Sunday 6 September. First finisher expected from 1000hrs. Results announced by mid afternoon. All riders accounted for. Event closes.
Monday 7 September (Labour Day holiday). Bivouac closes.
Equipment required will include
Two smartphones, one to run your PDF reader of choice, the other to run Richta Rally Timing.
USB chargers to run both smartphones.
A satellite SOS calling device or a satellite-capable smartphone.
Extra headlights for your bike for the night stages…
Tools/compressor/inner tubes to repair two punctures.
Entry for the Great Canadian (motorcycle) Roadbook Rally:
Entry for Les 24 Heures du GoldRiver:
Entries for the Regularity Hillclimb and the Adventure Bike Skills Challenge will be announced shortly.
JDB 22/10/25
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