As an avid motorcyclist both dirt bike and ADV in their forms and having read Ewan McGregor’s written recap of Long Way Down, I’ve always followed along with he and Charley Boorman’s motorcycle adventures around the globe.
Here on AppleTV the budget is definitely there and the videography is the best of the series taking full advantage of modern HD cameras and drone capabilities. Eye candy abounds in all the different, truly stunning locations.
Previously on much more dirt oriented BMW GS bikes and crossing much more “off piste” terrain, Long Way Up sees them on Harley Davidsons and modified, roadgoing, electric ones at that. There was a great deal of hand wringing in the ADV community over this feeling that such a choice took away from the true adventure nature of the prior trips, confining the riders to tarmac and more travelled locales.
It does end up doing so…no doubt about it. The choice also has significant impacts on the continuity of the trip as you’ll see in viewing, causing very specific decisions based upon the limitations of both the electric and prototype nature of the vehicles.
It is debatable just how different the trip COULD have been, even if on the most current big BMWs or KTMs. For one, Boorman has been through quite a number of severe accidents over the years, ravaging his lower extremities in particular leaving him with a pronounced limp, weakened legs and as I saw it, quite unable to manage a 600 pound bike in a deeply offroad environ. Even in the limited dirt oriented sections of this route he struggles in both strength and confidence. McGregor on the other hand, while healthy, does not have the skill his Dakar and offroad racing companion possesses regardless of his impairments.
Both are some 20 years older than they were in the first version of these trips and a pavement focus here was perhaps inevitable. None of this is to say it makes the trip in its TV installment version much less enjoyable. At its heart the show is still more about the relationship between two lifelong friends out on a adventuresome walkabout than it is about the choice of bike brand or knobbieness of their tires.
Seeing the great salt flats of Bolivia, mountains of Patagonia, ruins of Machu Pichu, and local people all along the route are the key memories one takes away and would have been included and visited no matter the bike capabilities and exchanged here for flat tires and mud-stuck bikes are electric range concerns, broken support vehicles and hostage taking threats. Its all good…just different.
Two items of note: 1) Mexico in its lengthy geography is almost skipped entirely. A bit surprising given the potential of the landscapes and events but was crammed into the length of a single episode largely due to security concerns real or imagined that force the riders off their bikes for extended periods of travel 2) this truly felt like the end of these adventures. Not said explicitly but in having going around the globe, from Scotland to South Africa and now from the southern tip of Argentina to LA, I’m not sure what a next trip could encompass. A circumnavigation of Australia perhaps?? But in all likelyhood given Boorman’s body, McGregor’s recent divorce, the exhaustion of long trip routes and the demands Father Time puts on us all, this feels like the end.
Its been a good run, enjoyable in all its forms and worth it for simply encouraging folks to get out there and experience all our tiny little ball has to offer, even if nothing comes of it more than dreams.
