Charley Boorman talks Long Way Up

When actors Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman travelled around the world on a pair of BMW R 1150 GS’s in 2003 for Long Way Round, no one predicted they would inspire a whole generation of dual-sport motorcyclists.

Now, thirteen years after their last journey, Ewan and Charley are at it again,

We spoke to Boorman in Sydney back in March, but we were strictly instructed not to ask about Long Way Up. Now that the publicity machine is in full swing, we sat down with Boorman again (albeit virtually in these COVID times) to talk Long Way Up, electric bikes, South America, and the possibility of a fourth installment, Long Way Down Under.

Related Reading:
Charley Boorman on his tour of Oz
Long Way Up: electric motorcycle adventure details announced
2020 Harley-Davidson LiveWire Launch Review
Give electric bikes a chance, says Boorman

You know, I was doing an interview with Ewan yesterday, and one of the journalists said it’s been 13 years since Long Way Down. We both knew it had been a long time, but I think we forgot just how long it had been. So much has happened since then. When we finished Long Way Down, Ewan moved to Los Angeles and I stayed in London.

We didn’t see each other that much for quite a long time. Ewan said that it’s crazy we’re not seeing each other enough, being old best mates. I had this big crash in 2016, and I really smashed myself up badly. That sort of reconnected us a little bit.

Because I was stuck here and Ewan was over here making a movie, he came and stayed for a while. We kind of got together and decided we should make another one. We got Russ and Dave, our producers, over and we said let’s do this.

And you thought you’d change it up by riding electric bikes…

Russ asked if we’d thought about electric – no one has done it before. It wasn’t really based on environmental – it was sort of the idea that electric hasn’t been done before and it could be something slightly different.

But we thought, actually, there is this big wave of electric that is going on, and wouldn’t it be nice to be part of that. Wouldn’t it be nice to give it a go, because no one has done it, and then with you carbon footprint, and the future, and pollution. So it kind of ticks a lot of boxes and it was a new challenge.

I think with this TV show, the level of production value is much bigger. When we first did Long Way Round, there were no GoPro’s or anything like that. There was no Instagram, Twitter, Facebook – it makes me sound really old.

Now, Claudio von Planta, our cameraman who has been on all three, he came with a camera, but he came with a drone as well. In the past, you would rent a helicopter for a couple of hours at a vast expense. Ewan and I would go down the same road and film it for half an hour.

Now, with this drone, Claudio can sit there, with Ewan and me riding off, and then it pans across and reveals where we are. For the audience, it takes them off the bike a little bit and shows them where we are. Previously, you’d have to have a few minutes of TV to explain that, and Claudio would have to walk to the top of a hill to show where we were.

The Harley-Davidson LiveWire is a street bike. How did you set it up for adventure riding?

Harley-Davidson had been developing the LiveWire for about six years, and we also had a brief look at Zero. They were the only two with a realistic distance. Harley seemed the right choice, and we asked them to beef it up a little and make it into an adventure bike. Not only did they get on board, but they went above and beyond.

When we came back a number of months later, they wheeled out this bike and it was an adventure bike. They used the front-end of the new Pan America adventure bike, they beefed up the back, put on a new sub-frame, put panniers on, raised the handlebars, put a screen on – all the things we had asked them to do. And not only that, but they got an ex-supercross rider to take it out into the desert and tune it in for us. They did just the most incredible job.

It still makes me laugh that people bring it up, and I always give KTM a bit of a hard time when I speak about them. They missed a trick for sure, but none of us knew if we would finish or not, and I don’t think any of us realized it would be so successful.

A journalist friend of mine interviewed the head of KTM and asked him about the Long Way thing. And he said: ‘well, in hindsight, that was probably the biggest PR fuck-up we ever had.’ But no one knew the success of it – we certainly didn’t know that.

I’m just putting it out there, if KTM wants to give me one of its new 300 two-strokes and an electric pedal bike, I would forgive them.

Can you tell us a little bit about what life in South America was like?

The motorbikes are a big part of what we do, but they are really just the forms of transport we’ve chosen to take us home. The rest of it is about the places and the people, and the food and culture and how people live.

In the western world, we have a tendency to look down at other countries in Africa, or South America, or Central America, and make assumptions. But really, they’re all the same as anybody else – they have children, the kids go to school, they want to work, they want to have a slightly better life.

All these countries are incredibly culturally rich, and have amazing histories, and I think we kind of judge and make assumptions, having never been there. I think when you get out there and look around, you realize that these places are not that bad.

We were doing a project with UNICEF in Guatemala with kids who get involved with gangs. UNICEF is there to try and make safe houses for these kids, so they can just be normal kids and play and do normal things that kids do. They get ex-gang members to talk to these kids and show them that there is a life outside of these gangs.

I asked one of the ex-gang members where the most dangerous cities in the world were, and three of the top five are in America and one is Europe. I said, ‘what about South and Central America?’ And he said that in the last 10-15 years, there has been a really big turnaround.

Shows like Narcos don’t help. People say, ‘you’ve seen Narcos – that is what Columbia is like.’ But that was in the 80s and 90s – it’s totally changed now. And that’s why travel is fun – you realize that the world is a much safer and more interesting place than we are led to believe.

You know, when we did Long Way Down, in Africa and most of the places we travelled, they were just busy living life, so not really. But in big towns and in big cities, there is always the chance of it.

We were in this place, and someone saw Ewan, and there was this Star Wars social media thing, and then suddenly we're in a hotel and surrounded by all these people. They weren’t pushy or anything, they were just excited. And one of them said, 'the truth of it is that not many A-listers head down to this part of the world and certainly not to our town'. So they were enthusiastic and excited. So you get the occasional person, but on the whole, not really.

Obviously there is a commercial element to these projects, but the main premise is two best mates going for a ride. Is that still the main driving factor for you?

Yeah, for sure. Ewan and I have been mates for 25 years and everything we’ve ever done has been motorbikes. And then one day we decided to do a longer journey, and that’s kind of how it started.

We live busy lives, and the older you get, the busier you are. It’s just nice, whether it’s a long weekend, or a few days, or a couple of weeks, to go out with your mate. I think it’s good for the soul and it’s good to get out and talk rubbish and share experiences.

Some people like to do solo trips, and that’s super cool. But for me, I’ve never really been someone who likes my own company, so I would never really do that. And Ewan is the same.

I feel very lucky and very honoured to have a friend like Ewan, and be lucky enough to take the time out to do this. And we speak to a lot of people who were inspired by the show to travel, not necessarily on a motorbike, and that’s really nice.

I think, you know, we’re not that old, so I think maybe another one. When we finish a big trip, Ewan and I would always talk about another one. I think all of your adventures and holidays have a lifespan, and when you get towards the end, you start to be happy about the thought of going home, but at the same time, you’d be quite happy to turn around and ride back down again. We definitely did talk about another one, and one we spoke about was actually Long Way Down Under.

I was going to pitch that to you. Looks like you’re a few steps ahead of me…

Riding from London to Australia would be fun. I’d love to do that with Ewan. And then Scandinavia is a beautiful place – so you go to Holland, and up through Sweden, Norway and Denmark, and then back down to Poland. That would be lovely as well. So for sure, there’d be some more. But I think we have to hopefully get people to like this one so that we can get somebody to let us make another one.

Hopefully! And listen, tell all your friends to watch Long Way Up so we can do another one!

Long Way Up premieres September 18 on AppleTV+.