Quad Riders Association of British Columbia

The Felske Family was, and still are, very avid outdoors riding enthusiasts. In the early 1990s, they rode three months of the year sledding and wanted to continue riding throughout the rest of the year. They bought three off road motorcycles everyone took turns riding, Mel and the girls had no problems, but Bev seemed to have no coordination and kept falling off the machine or driving into the bushes with it. The last trip, Bev walked the machine home half a mile, kicked it and proceeded to say “I need something with four wheels.”

Mel made the mistake of saying “no way they’re two expensive”, (1992 $4,000.00 for an ATV versus $1,000.00 for a dirt bike). The next weekend, Bev had a new Yamaha 250cc ATV to go riding with the family. The following year, Mel bought a new Suzuki ATV.

It was at that time that we looked around for an ATV club to ride with. After all, we had been members of the sledding club for years and shared all the events and social gathering with our friends and neighbors. None were organized at that time.

In 1998 Bev asked BCCOM—the Provincial motorcycle group who had an off road rep—to develop an ATV division. After waiting for two years with nothing happening, Bev went off on her own. At that time she was serving on the Provincial body of BCSF and asked that group at a Board of Directors meeting in Winfield if they would consider starting an ATV division as part of the BCSF.

NO WAY was the reply. That Board of Directors would not even consider an ATV division within the BCSF. They did however lend me $600.00 to start a separate Provincial body for ATVers. This was repaid within three months.

Thus ATV/BC was born in 2000. Bev used her snowmobile connections by asking Bob Orr, President of Prince George Snowmobile Club, Ron Leroy, President of Revelstoke Snowmobile Club, and Norm Boulanger, President of Quad Squad Club to help her start an ATV Provincial Body. At the time only Quad Squad founded by Norm Boulanger was an ATV club. Bob and Ron started ATV clubs soon after.

The only way to start a Provincial body was to have a meeting. Now we all know that no one will drive hundreds of miles just to go to a meeting so, after consulting with the guys, Bev decided to have a Jamboree with rides for people to participate in and to have a Meeting to explain what we were about and what we hoped to do. Funded by the Felske Family, the first Jamboree was held in August 2000 with 50 people attending the Green Lake site. The jamboree was run by a committee of 8 people! This Jamboree had two rides, a wine & cheese party and a meeting. Bev made the posters, registration forms and sent it out to anyone and everyone she could think of to ask people to attend. No one at the time had any idea of what was the main purpose, they just came to ride.

The main purpose of starting a Provincial organization was to protect our right to ride as environmentalists were having many areas closed down and no one was looking after or protecting the interests of ATVers.

At that time only one of seven invited manufacturers, a Honda representative, came to the meeting and he sat in the back of the room listening to our purpose. Only then did he come forward and gave us Honda’s support for our organization. The other six manufacturers took a wait and see if this group is for real approach, as they had been approached by other people wanting to start a Provincial body and it never came to fruition..

Our growth was spectacular:

*This was the year the insurance rates tripled and people refused to buy it thus we lost a lot of members (600 to be exact). The positive side of this was that the people who remained are our loyal base of 1100 members).

During 2001 the Grasslands Conservation Council wrote in their newsletter an article, which ATV/BC found offense as it blamed all ATVers for destroying the environment and the grasslands of British Columbia.

We requested a meeting with this group, attending were Bev Felske, Norm Boulanger, Bill Hinde, Ron Leroy for ATV/BC and Bruno Delasalle, plus four or five other environmental persons.

We came to agreement that not all ATVers were irresponsible, and that because there were no rules other than the MOF insurance rules for Forest roads some should be developed. The Conservation Groups wanted registration and licensing for all off road motor vehicles.

We agreed to that if we could have a Trust Fund developed with all off roaders paying in and a portion of that Trust fund returned to the Provincial Bodies for Snowmobilers, ATVers and Off Road Motorcyclists.

All agreed this to and the Coalition for Registration & Licensing of Off Road Vehicles was born. After five years of work with the Provincial government the report indicating our needs and wants, for both the off road world and the conservation world has been submitted to government in January 2006. Legislation is expected in 2009.

In 2008 we now have 40 clubs with over 2400 members and are still growing. Our purpose is still the same - to protect the right of ATVers to ride in our Province. The Provincial body is doing all it can to provide benefits to its members by working with industry and government on an on-going basis.