The Vallee Report

I have said it in this column before, I am a fair-weather rider. I don’t do rain and I don’t do dirt roads either. The reason I don’t ride in the rain has nothing to do with a fear of traction or lack of confidence on wet roads. In fact, if you go way back...

After a forced two-year hiatus, my wife and I recently took a well deserved vacation in Mexico. After touching down the memories came flooding back such as the warm breeze, beautiful water, great drinks and oh yeah perhaps the biggest memory-drivers in Mexico are nuts! The bus ride from the airport to the resort certainly...

In 1991 there was a bit of a transition in Canadian road racing. After a six-year run at Sanair, the series saw the Quebec round move to Autodrome St.-Eustache. Although I had attended the race at Sanair the year before, I never actually got to race as I had suffered a hard get-off shortly before...

One of the drawbacks of flat track is that unfortunately if you are involved in the sport the weather will often dictate how successful your event is or even if it is able to happen at all. Every race weekend you are at the mercy of the weather gods, not only on race day, but...

The month of March usually signals the start of better weather back here at home but it is also the host month for something much more important in the motorcycle world. Every March Daytona Beach plays host to Bike Week which is a virtual carnival of two wheels for both motorcycle enthusiasts and racers alike....

Nicknames are part of our culture and I can only imagine they have been around since the beginning of time. Sometimes cool and sometimes cruel, many times they are made up because of a flaw or mistake that your buddies happened to catch out of the corner of their eye. Many times they are badass,...

For those of you keeping track, there is a Supercross competitor in the 250 class that seems to have gained some new fans. This rider isn’t on top of the podium every week and in fact he has only qualified for one main event in four tries so far. The reason Gared Steinke is gaining...

The text came from Brent Thompson shortly after my latest blog was posted. My blog had mentioned how winter now had us firmly in its grip and after reading it Thompson suggested he had a good idea for my next writing assignment. Now I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer but I am...

It seems like just a few weeks ago I was putting my bike away for the winter season. I remember at the time wondering if I should wait one more week in case I could get a couple of more rides in before ultimately deciding that the timing was right for throwing the cover on...

With the 2022 AFT season fast approaching, the powers that be have made some changes to the rulebook with many of them changing in the hopes of possibly making the field of bikes in the SuperTwins class a little more even. With the Indian FTR750 enjoying total dominance in the class for the past several...

We’ve all heard that song declaring that this is the most wonderful time of the year. Trees, lights, presents, visions of sugar plums (whatever they are) and so on as we prepare for that magical day on the 25th. While I do enjoy Christmas, I am a bit conflicted when it comes to the most...

After spending the past decade or so as possibly the fan favourite in the AFT series, Shayna Texter Bauman has now caused quite a stir in the off-season. On November 12th Texter Bauman got tongues wagging when the Red Bull Factory KTM Racing Team announced that she was leaving after a successful three year relationship....