Jasperite looks to improve in provincial races

Many of his competitors wonder how he trains, as his claim to fame is that he’s the only competitive dirt-biker around who lives in a national park.

Jasperite Joseph Bartziokas, 26, is starting up his second season of competitive dirt biking, getting out to the trails east of the park more and more as it gets warmer and the snow melts.

When the land gets good and dry, Bartziokas will hit the trails about four times a week. The main thing he focuses on is developing his cardiovascular system, he said, but there are other factors as well. “Not crashing,” he said with a laugh.

He competes in both cross country races, which are about 40 to 80 km long and take about 2.5 to five hours to complete, and hair scrambles, which are three or four 30-minute laps on a 15 to 30 km course in the bush. 

The race season begins on May 17 with his first race and runs through to September. Bartziokas’s aim is to maintain a safe, quick pace, he said, and it requires a lot of training. “It’s hard for people to understand, they think it’s all throttle,” he said. “You have to be in running shape.”

Racers face crossing logs that are 4 ft. in the air and mud bogs they can’t see the bottom of. “If you get your bike stuck, you’re in a whole lot of trouble,” he said, referencing the suction felt when a person tries to pull a boot out of the mud. “It’s like putting a 200-lb. boot in a mud puddle,” he said.

His most memorable ride from last year was his first race, which was the hardest and most technical he would do that summer. To make things worse, the weather wouldn’t co-operate. “The only reason I pushed so hard was because I was so cold,” Bartziokas said. “I beat everyone by 5 minutes. I was back in my street clothes by the time everyone else got back.”

The levels of competition include, in order: beginner, junior, intermediate and pro. “I started in junior (last year), did really well and they moved me up automatically to intermediate this year,” Bartziokas said, adding he came in third place overall as a junior last year. 

Looking ahead, he’d like to continue to improve, and has an idea how he can do it. Last year, he had “a  couple gas experiences,” he said, adding he ran out of gas as he got into longer rides than he was used to.

Bartziokas, who said he’s always ridden dirt bikes, competes with the Canadian Motosport Racing Club in provincial races, of which there will be between 10 and 12 over the summer. 

Though competitors in the pro level can make a few thousand dollars per race, for Bartziokas this is still just a hobby. He works mornings at Tonquin Prime Rib Village and afternoons at Rocky Mountain River Guides. Bartziokas has a lot of support – he’s sponsored by KTM Canada, Riverside Yamaha Suzuki KTM, Jasper Tire, as well as his two employers, and his girlfriend Valerie Grunwald is his pit crew.

The main thing for Bartziokas is that dirt biking is what he loves to do. “I just have fun,” he said. “You make awesome friends riding bikes.”