TEAM
NAME: Sönke Bonde
BORN: 27.07.63 in Brunsbüttel / Dithmarschen / Schleswig Holstein / Germany
YOSHIMOTO: Right from the beginning in 1991 as founder of Yoshimoto
TASKS: Guiding, tourplaning, management, marketing, website...
BIKE: Husaberg FE 570
HOBBIES: Having fun in the mountains with my KTM/Husaberg, exploring new routes and countries on an enduro, developing new projects for Yoshimoto, eating well, drinking a cold Efes beer in the heat of the summer,....
E-MAIL: soenke@yoshimoto.de
MY STORY :
I may easily skip the first 23 years here, because the real story of my life begins in 1987 when I decided to make a world tour on my bike before starting university. However, my journey was to end quite differently than I expected.
Everything began with the disappearing of my Tenere in Istanbul!
Today I am grateful to that thief. Had he not stolen my bike in the night, my life would have developed quite differently. KISMET (predetermined destiny), as Turkish people would say.
That way I was lucky to be stranded in Turkey and meet my wife, Nese. A year later we were married and started to build our life together. In the winter of 1990/91 we came to Marmaris, where we opened up a bike rental under the name Yoshimoto. Over the course of the years we started to lose interest in simply making money in Marmaris, which was being overrun by mass tourism. My sense of adventure and love of travelling came through again, and so we started to organize bike tours. We had the bikes, we spoke the language of the country, and I gained my knowledge of the routes in the course of the years. Today there can hardly be anybody who knows his way around Turkey better than I do - small wonder, with 30000 offroad kilometers per year.
Even now, after 10 years, I still enjoy my work very much. That may also be the reason for our success. My enthusiasm for Turkey, nature and of course for the KTMs spreads to our guests. Therefore it is not surprising that 80% of our guests become "persistent offenders".... Many of them feel so much at home with us that they return every year. The record-holder has come 30 times so far!
It is a great acknowledgement for me to see how most of our guests, who have become friends in the meantime, get rid of their stress and find new energy on our tours. This positive energy constantly recharges my own batteries, so that I stay hungry for new adventures in spite of my often physically and intellectually challenging work.
NAME: Aydın Salmaz
BORN: 1970 in Çine / Aydın / Turkey
YOSHIMOTO: Since 1996
TASKS: Mechanic, Sweeper
BIKE: KTM EXC 530
HOBBIES: Hunting and Fishing
NAME: Ömer Salmaz
BORN: 1989 in Marmaris / Muğla / Turkey
YOSHIMOTO: Since 2005
TASKS: Tourguide, Sweeper, Driver of the service vehicle
BIKE: KTM EXC 250 2-stroke
HOBBIES: HUNTING, FISHING
NAME: Marko Barthel
BORN: 1977 in Karl-Marx-Stadt (now Chemnitz) / Germany
YOSHIMOTO: Since 2002
TASKS: Touguide / licensed Trainer
BIKE: KTM EXC 300 2-stroke
HOBBIES: Snowboarding, Mountainbiking, Internet
Website: www.marko-barthel.de , www.offroad-trainer.de, www.enduro.de
E-Mail: post@marko-barthel.de
