Meet the GoldRiver riders - Mr. Owen Partaik
- Jonathan Binnington
- Aug 20
- 3 min read
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VIME: Owen Partaik, thank you very much for having this conversation. As Mr. Everyman of motorcycling, winner of this year’s Great Canadian (motorcycle) Roadbook Rally, can you tell us a little about your motorcycling career to date please?
OP: Started riding dirtbikes as a weee lad on a honda 50, then a ttr125 just puttin around. Not really doing much more than learning the basics. Didn’t ride between about 11 to 16. Then grabbed my street license the second I could.
Started riding a duke 390 and the hooliganism almost immediately started. Upgraded to a Duke 790 and the hooliganism progressed even more! Sold the 790 after some trouble with the rozzers, switched to hard adventure riding and have never looked back.
Ridden many different bikes and always seem to settle on the KTMs, current garage is perfect with a 2022 890 Adv R, a 2024 FE501 and a 2001 200 exc.
VIME: You tell a very engaging story. Can you tell us more about your adventures with the rozzers (a British English term as well) without besmirching your reputation or self-incriminating?
I’ll tell you my rozzer story too, 115mph on a Z1000R in a 70 limit, they sent a motorway patrol Range Rover from a different part of the motorway network to ambush me but didn’t know how fast I was actually going. “85mph” quoth they. “Done!” I eagerly said, as anything more than a ton lost you your licence. Thirty quid and three penalty points on my licence and that was that!
OP: Very similar to mine!
On the 790 duke, about midnight on sea to sky with a couple friends and 1 stranger. Keeping a good pace, around 220kph in a 80. Light behind us and the stranger runs, us others pull over. Cop decided to bless us with 39kph over. instead of the reckless, impound of bikes, and suspension of license they could have done.
Was already thinking of selling the street bike for something slower and that only solidified it. I cant work without a license so that took priority!
VIME: Bwaaaaahaaaaahaaaaa!
Speeding is like a game of cat and mouse. Sometimes you are the cat, sometimes the mouse….
I remember you had a bit of an adventure riding up to the Arctic Circle….?
OP: Yeah i did a 45 day solo adventure to Tuktoyaktuk in North West territory and then Prudhoe bay in Alaska.
VIME: And…….?
OP: And it was awesome. Almost all camping, relatively uneventful bike maintenance wise. My exhaust fell off and was being held on by some bailing wire for about 10,000km though 😂
Spent my 21st birthday solo in the arctic circle on that trip. Now every year i do a solo camp trip for my birthday.
VIME: So three days in the north of the island is a bit of a walk in the park? Do you have any plans to take your rally career to the next level?
OP: Yeah the riding on the island is nice and relaxing at this point, but still very enjoyable.
I would love to compete in other events and broaden my horizons, trying something like Sonora would be very cool. Maybe one day do something like Baja, although that’s less rally and more race.
VIME: The wise advice is to get someone else to pay for your Motorsport…. Let’s see if a sponsor reads this and contacts you…
JDB 20/8/25
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