Seek Travel Ride

Juan Pablo's first bike trip was a huge solo journey over 16 months. Then he came home to Chile, met Paula, they got married and six weeks after their wedding they both got on bikes and started bikepacking together.. 
All up they hope to spend two years on this adventurous version of a honeymoon.
We discuss:
Bikepacking as a couple: a newlywed honeymoon covering 20,000km
Solo bike touring: 19,000km across Turkey, the Middle East, and Africa
Bikepacking Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia: expectations vs. reality
Route planning and gear for long-distance cycle touring
Relationship and communication tips for touring as a couple
Bike mechanical failures and storm survival on tour
Juan Pablo's 104 tips for bike travel
Check out Old Man Mountain for the perfect way to carry gear on your bike.
Support the show
Buy me a coffee!
I’m an affiliate for a few brands I genuinely use and recommend including:
👉  CycPlus– ePumps (enter code STR for 5% off!)
👉 Zorali 
👉 Helinox 
👉 Ombraz 
Follow us on Social Media!
Instagram - @SeekTravelRide
Facebook - Seek Travel Ride
YouTube - @SeekTravelRide
Seek Travel Ride Newsletter
Leave me a voicemail message

Seek Travel Ride Music Playlist available now on both Spotify or Apple Music

This week's episode is dedicated to Heinz Stücke, who passed away on July 22 aged 86. Heinz is a legend in the bike travel community, the holder of the world record for the most travelled person in the world. He spent over 51 years cycling to every single country and territory in the world. 
In Sept 2025, I visited Heinz in his home in Hovelhoff and spent the day chatting about this adventures. This episode features excerpts from that conversation. 
You can listen to the original episodes in full here - Part 1 and Part 2.
RIP Heinz. I like to think you are still out there travelling now.

Support the show
Buy me a coffee!
I’m an affiliate for a few brands I genuinely use and recommend including:
👉  CycPlus– ePumps (enter code STR for 5% off!)
👉 Zorali 
👉 Helinox 
👉 Ombraz 
Follow us on Social Media!
Instagram - @SeekTravelRide
Facebook - Seek Travel Ride
YouTube - @SeekTravelRide
Seek Travel Ride Newsletter
Leave me a voicemail message

Seek Travel Ride Music Playlist available now on both Spotify or Apple Music

Marielle Jauring has ridden roughly 89,000 kilometres across the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Europe and Asia since her first tour in 2017.
This interview was recorded midway through her current ride from Poland to Sri Lanka. The conversation ranges from lighter moments (a turtle sanctuary in Malaysia, blue lava in Indonesia, petting a bear in Canada that turned out to be drunk, not dead) to genuinely hairy ones (heatstroke in the Australian outback, a car accident with her sister, and getting stranded cashless at the Russia–Kazakhstan border before hitchhiking 750 km back into Georgia with two truck drivers). 
Marielle also opens up about grief, and how cycling has become a form of meditation for her.
Follow Marielle's adventures via her instagram - @_the_biking_viking_
This episode was first released in Nov 2024
Check out Old Man Mountain for the perfect way to carry gear on your bike.
Support the show
Buy me a coffee!
I’m an affiliate for a few brands I genuinely use and recommend including:
👉  CycPlus– ePumps (enter code STR for 5% off!)
👉 Zorali 
👉 Helinox 
👉 Ombraz 
Follow us on Social Media!
Instagram - @SeekTravelRide
Facebook - Seek Travel Ride
YouTube - @SeekTravelRide
Seek Travel Ride Newsletter
Leave me a voicemail message

Seek Travel Ride Music Playlist available now on both Spotify or Apple Music

What's the best country to take a bike adventure? I put that question to the Seek Travel Ride Instagram community, and the answers poured in, from expected favourites to a few genuine curveballs. This episode is dedicated to running through every single one.
It comes on the back of a scorching European summer and a roadside afternoon spectating the Tour de France, which got me reflecting on how the race first brought me to France  and ultimately to the Pyrenees back in 2013, where I now live.
Countries featured in this episode:
Most votes: France, Turkey, Spain
Mountain destinations: Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Bolivia, Norway
Off the beaten path: Tunisia, New Caledonia, El Salvador, Saudi Arabia
Classic bike-adventure countries: New Zealand, Thailand, Japan, China, Peru, Iran
The philosophical answer: "Wherever you haven't been yet" (and "any country" will do)
Got a country to add to the list? Get in touch and let me know your pick for the best country to take a bike adventure.
Mentioned in this episode
Slauka' Macurak's Norway episode (recently re-released)
Leonie Katekar's episode on cycling solo from Antigua to Ushuaia
My YouTube series on crossing the Pyrenees coast to coast

Support the show
Buy me a coffee!
I’m an affiliate for a few brands I genuinely use and recommend including:
👉  CycPlus– ePumps (enter code STR for 5% off!)
👉 Zorali 
👉 Helinox 
👉 Ombraz 
Follow us on Social Media!
Instagram - @SeekTravelRide
Facebook - Seek Travel Ride
YouTube - @SeekTravelRide
Seek Travel Ride Newsletter
Leave me a voicemail message

Seek Travel Ride Music Playlist available now on both Spotify or Apple Music

In 2022, German psychologist Rieke Schmees swapped a desk for a bike and cycled 12,000km through 16 countries. This adventure took her from Germany to Turkey, via Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Italy and the Balkans. It was the first type of adventure like this she'd taken with almost no camping experience prior to setting off as well. 
Rieke shares the reality of taking this adventure as a solo female, the toughest weeks in Morocco which also became teh most rewarding, and how it came to be that she rescued a puppy in Bulgaria. 
This episode originally aired in June 2024.
Be sure to follow Rieke's future adventures via her instagram - @riekeschm
Check out Old Man Mountain for the perfect way to carry gear on your bike.
Support the show
Buy me a coffee!
I’m an affiliate for a few brands I genuinely use and recommend including:
👉  CycPlus– ePumps (enter code STR for 5% off!)
👉 Zorali 
👉 Helinox 
👉 Ombraz 
Follow us on Social Media!
Instagram - @SeekTravelRide
Facebook - Seek Travel Ride
YouTube - @SeekTravelRide
Seek Travel Ride Newsletter
Leave me a voicemail message

Seek Travel Ride Music Playlist available now on both Spotify or Apple Music