Six weeks after their wedding, Juan Pablo and Paula got on their bikes in Marrakesh and they haven’t looked back. Now, Sixteen months later I got to sit down with both of them to record this episode and hear about their experiences so far.

Something you should also know is that prior to this journey Paula’s longest ride was 24 kilometres. The idea to take this kind of active honeymoon came from Juan Pablo, who himself had extensive bike travel experience having already done a solo trip of 19,000km.

Their joint adventure started in Marrakesh. The first 40kilometres nice and flat adn easy. Then followed a 20kilometre uphill which to Paula felt like absolute hell and quickly triggered a sense of humour failure. A rough start but what I learnt from speaking with both of them was that being both flexible and adaptable is the key to carving out a great experience.

Juan Pablo admist that cycling as a couple is very different to cycling solo, bu the also woudln’t change it up to go back to adventuring on his own. The journey is all the more richer now he has Paual to share it with. They’ve also learnt that setting out defined roles for each of them makes for a more ‘seamless’ experience. Paublo is in charge of plotting out the route and setting up the tent. Paula is responsible for food the resupply planning.

If one of them falls behind on a climb, the other one stops and waits. It sounds simple written down like that, but I think that’s the whole trick. Learning to adjust to each others moods, and physical capabilities, is key to making the journey feel harmonious.

We also talk about the places they visited which didn’t live up to the hype and why it’s made them try hard to not build up an expectation of what a certain destinatio nwill be like. For example, Kyrgyzstan looked incredible on Instagram and mostly was, minus the traffic and the off-road sections nobody posts about. Barcelona used to be Juan Pablo’s favourite city in the world and isn’t anymore. And then randomly the best pizza they enjoyed in all of the trip turned up in a random shop in Shangri-La. Not Italy.

Many of my questions to Juan Pablo and Paula stem from an article which lists out 104 tips for bike travel. Juan Pablo wrote this a few years ago so it was fun to put some questions to him from it and hear how perhaps he has evolved since he has added even more layers of experience into the trip.

Check out the full list here. (it is in Spanish, but it translates fine). You can also follow them both on instagram via @OutdoorPaula and @Juan.Pablo.Toro_ and I pulled a good chunk of my questions straight from it. Link’s below.