Cycle Tourism initiatives on the Central Island

Hello All

The 2014 BC Cycling Coalition Conference and AGM is set for October 17, 18 & 19th 

in Victoria. On the Friday there will be a session on the Bike Sense Manual Review. 

Saturday to be filled with the same and other topics, Sunday the AGM. I am sure we 

can incorporate a bike touring workshop session.

 Secondly, one of my tourism contacts put me in touch with a person in Calgary, 

AB. She is with one of the cycling organizations and  has brought a cycling groups 

for a circle tour of Sunshine Coast/Vancouver Island every year for the last 9 years. 

As a consumer, she could be a good contact for your research/deliberation and help identify 

opportunities/barriers. I hope to talk to her next week.

I received information on The Capital Regional District Bicycle Map that I left with 

James. Information on the cost how it was developed all the technical bits etc. 

Information will be posted on our mutual blog. 

 Leo Boon
chair GNCC

**************************************************************

Sent: Thursday, June 19, 2014
Subject: Circle cycle Tour-Sunshine Coast-Vancouver Island


Hi Everyone, thanks for coming over to talk about this opportunity. A special 

thanks to Leo for the vegetable cake!  


I didn’t take minutes but the take away message I heard was that everyone 

thought the idea of organizing a workshop was a good one and that we should 

move forward with the idea. I believe the thought was that holding a workshop 

in Victoria would be the best first step. Depending on turnout, a more local 

workshop could be held but the overall goal is to connect the communities and 

brainstorm as a larger integrated group. I thought I would email some action 

items so that we could move forward with this. Let me know if there is anything 

missing or incorrect. 




Action Items: 


1. Explore if the workshop would work best during the BCCC AGM in October in 

Victoria - 

Leo will communicate with Richard Campbell and Jack Becker ; 


2. Nanaimo/Parksville/CV to communicate possibly via the blog set up earlier 

for the VI group best routes - routes for the experienced fast & focussed; 

routes for the slow & easy; spur routes for those that might want to stay in 

a community and explore it further— John will as Jim if he can add those in 

this email to the blog group 


3. Each community will explore what spur routes might be worth adding to the 

package— Sue will followup with this in the CV; 


3. Donna McMahon, Executive Director, Gibsons Chamber of Commerce - was the 

person that wanted to move forward with this plan. She may be one person to 

speak at the workshop from the business perspective - Leo to investigate what 

information/knowledge/influence she could bring to the workshop from a cycling 

economic development/tourism/travel perspective, perhaps she can share her 

excitement about the concept and be a motivational influence at the workshop; 


4. Willy Van Kemenade - has cycled the route a number of times, exploring the 

route himself and as a tour guide cycling with the slow and easy rider type - 

he is willing to share his routing of the circle route with the group. 


5. Who to invite to the workshop - cyclists from Vancouver Island, 

representatives from economic development, destination BC, rotary clubs, 

chamber of commerce, local council, active communities (i.e. active CV), 

regional district (comox valley may want to consider asking Mike Z to link 

in transit possibilities); Cycling Task Force; - each group to start to 

“chat it up” to spark interest within their community ; 


That is all I can remember. I am attaching the summary from the Gibson’s 

workshop. It seems the purpose of the workshop is to get people thinking 

about and excited about building this route with the long term goal of 

improving the infrastructure and amenities to attract people to the area. 


QUESTION : Does anyone know if there is a group in Powell River that 

would be interested in becoming involved. I know if more people wanted to 

cross via ferry, Powell River residents would be very happy as their ferry 

services have been cut back recently. 


Talk soon, 


Sue