Our Tour Leaders
John Jesson
John Jesson is a partner with Ayres Adventures Limited and is the company's General Manager. He is based in Cape Town, South Africa and continues to be responsible for leading the company's African tours. He has been a key member of the Ayres Adventures team beginning with our first African Adventures in 2004.
John has led tours in Europe, New Zealand, North America (Alaska, Canada and the continental United States) and South America. His tour experience with Ayres Adventures includes two trips to Antarctica and multiple trips to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. His responsibilities include recruitment and staffing as well as operational standards and procedures.
John was born in Scotland and has lived in Cape Town since 1987. He bought, rebuilt, rode and fell-off his first motorcycle at the age of fourteen. Motorcycles have been an integral part of his life ever since. He has won several motorcycle drag racing competitions.
John’s experience includes work in many facets of the motorcycling business, including sales, rentals, and repair, with a focus on the full BMW line.
Claus Lazik
Claus Lazik is a partner with Ayres Adventures Limited. He was born and raised in Kaufbeuren, southern Bavaria, Germany.
After school and military service he studied Physical Geography at the University of Munich and worked in geological and geophysical offices and in the Bavarian Institute for Topographical Maps.
Nearly 12 years ago, Claus decided to change to a profession that would allow him to focus on his interests of motorcycling, languages, and travel. He became a tour leader with an Austrian-based motorcycle tour company and has led motorcycle tours in most European countries, as well as Morocco, South Africa, Dubai, Oman, China, Japan and South America. He has also traveled privately by motorcycle in North and South America, Australia, New Zealand and Vietnam.
Claus is fluent in German, English, Spanish and French and is addicted to exploring and showing the many different facets of our planet by two wheels: from the Alps and Pyrenees with their countless passes to the magic of Morocco and South Africa, from the colors of Spain and South America to the beauty of Norway.
When not traveling as a Tour Director with Ayres Adventures, Claus lives with his girlfriend Waltraud and his dog Smilla, in the little village of Mauerstetten, about an hour’s drive from Munich.
Chris Gladstone
Chris has been a member of the Diplomatic Protection Squad and was a bodyguard to many visiting heads of state and Royalty. He is also an Armed Offenders Squad Negotiator, responsible for resolving confrontations between the police and armed offenders as peacefully as possible. He has received a Royal Humane Society Award for bravery.
An avid motorcyclist, Chris has more than 30 accident-free years of riding to his credit. He and his wife Chrissie enjoy their many opportunities to tour in their "motorcycling paradise" nearly as much as they enjoy sharing New Zealand with visiting riders.[/one_half_last]
Ed McClure
Ed McClure has lived in Fairbanks, Alaska since 1980. He spent his early years riding enduro bikes, and hiking and climbing in Mt. Rainier National Park. He has always enjoyed exploring and ‘going to the end of the road’.
Ed has 30 years experience traveling in Alaska by truck, airplane and motorcycle. He has driven on the Cassiar and Alaska Highway over a dozen times, and is currently training on the Dalton Highway to qualify as an ‘Ice Road Trucker’.
He’s traveled extensively throughout Alaska by motorcycle, including multiple rides north of the Arctic Circle including one of the world’s most challenging motorcycling destinations – Prudhoe Bay. He is intimately familiar with motorcycling throughout Alaska and Canada’s Yukon Territory. The same pioneering spirit that led Ed to answer the call of the wild and head to Alaska at age 21, inspired him and his wife Pat to open a seasonal gift shop in Denali National Park featuring Pat’s original artwork and fabrics, and to build their own cabin in the woods with an authentic outhouse and a resident moose named ‘Molly’.
Axel Papst
Axel Papst was born in Cologne, Germany and has been riding motorcycles for more than 20 years. He lives in Innsbruck, Austria and has also lived in Canada.
An experienced motorcycle tour leader, Axel led tours for more than ten years for an Austrian-based motorcycle tour company before joining Ayres Adventures. He has led tours in most European countries as well as in New Zealand, North and South America, and South Africa. Before becoming a motorcycle tour leader, Axel held jobs as a marketing agent in the outdoor sports industry and as a rafting/canyoneering/hiking guide. He also taught skiing and snowboarding for 5 years.
Axel is a qualified Safety Instructor with the Austrian Automobile Association. He has studied Tourism Management, and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in business. His hobbies include skiing, mountain biking, motorcycles and travel. He is fluent in English and German.
Janis Cimins
Janis was born in Latvia and lives in Riga, the nation’s capital. He is fluent in Russian and English and specializes on leading tours for our guests from Russian-speaking countries. He has led tours for our Russian-speaking guests in New Zealand and the United States.
Janis has traveled through most European countries, as well as Asia, North America and South America. He lives with his wife Aija (a professional film director and photographer) and his two daughters on the banks of the Salaca River. The Salaca is famous for salmon fishing and provides opportunities for ice skating as well as fishing - two of Janis’s favorite pastimes. Even better, his favorite enduro trails begin at his terrace.
Jürgen Weiss
Jüergen was born in Hamburg, Germany. After an early career as a joiner and cabinet maker, and pioneering in the solar panel business in the early 90’s, Jüergen finally pursued his passion for travel and motorcycling. He has been working as a professional motorcycle tour guide for 17 years. He has guided tours all over Europe, in the Americas and in a few Arabic countries. He also teaches MFS Motorcycle classes to US Army riders.
Having recently completed bachelor and masters degree in Tourism and Entrepreneurship, Jüergen is enthusiastic about tourism and strongly dedicated to hosting people who are open-minded and curious about other cultures and people. He is fluent in four languages. Even after many years, he still considers himself a “rebel without a cause”, but with a few grey hairs now.
After residing in Barcelona, Spain for some time and then in Innsbruck, Austria, Jüergen now calls home the area of the beautiful vineyards on the west banks of the Rhine River in Neustadt an der Weinstraße, Germany.