Anyone who read my review of Ewan Macgregor and Charley Boorman’s book Long Way Round, will know I thought it was crap. And I still do.
What I now know is that the book was crap because obviously Ewan and Charley just cannot write an interesting story in words.The DVD movie of their circumnavigation of the world is just so much different.
I loved it and I hated it, but in the end I can honestly say that I was wrong about them. They might be actors, they might have loads more money than I will ever have, they might even be wankers on a regular basis, but they are Adventure Bikers. I see that now.The book just didn’t do justice to the trials and tribulations of their journey. It was actually three of them, the unsung hero being Claudio the bike riding cameraman, who was with them every inch of the journey.
The first four episodes of Disc One were the parts I hated. When you watch it take note of the fact that they did not pay for any of their equipment or the BMW GS 1100 bikes they ended up with.Ewan begged the lot. The bikes, the clothes, the touring gear, the helmets, I am guessing they got the support 4×4’s and the camera equipment for free as well. The reasoning behind this; Ewan needed to make the trip pay for itself by producing a book and a movie at the end of it.
I know many riders who, (like myself) have travelled around different parts of the world, buying their own bikes and gear and paying their own way. That a guy who’s rolling in Hollywood cash reckons he could not afford to do this is fuckin’ laughable.It’s just an insult to the rest of us in my opinion.
My second big complaint is that two VIP’s of the motorcycling world got barely a look in. Ewan and Charley go to the BMW Off Road Training School in Wales and have their off road instruction given by Simon Pavey. I know Simon personally, he used to race with my good mate John Rigoni for Caringbah Motorcycles in Southern Sydney.
Simon is hugely famous in the UK, he is their number one contender for the most dangerous and demanding race in the world; The Paris Dakar. Simon can boast that he got to Dakar the first year he ever raced in the event. Few first time Dakar competitors can say that. He has competed in several Dakar’s now and reached Dakar each time. That’s a truly tremendous record. And you see Simon in the DVD for all of thirty seconds, and neither Ewan nor Charley bother to introduce him or tell anyone who he is.
Much later in the movie they do exactly the same to Ted Simon, the most famous British Bike Adventurer in the whole fuckin’ world. This after admitting their journey was inspired by Ted’s book Jupiter’s Travels. Ted gets less than two minutes airtime. What was it? Did Ewan and Charley think Simon and Ted would detract from their own status? Beats me, but boy it pissed me off big time.
You never really get introduced to anyone at all actually, until they get to New York and meet the guys from Orange County Choppers.Letting the cat out of the bag the movie producer was heard to say he thought Long Way Round would go down big with American audiences. So I am guessing they had to do something with someone the general American public would recognise.
I found the first four episodes quite boring, so much so I almost gave up watching the damned thing. But as my mate Linda had just bought the DVD for me for Xmas, and she was sitting right next to me, I thought I had better make an effort and continue to struggle on with it.
And I am glad I did, from episode five to episode eight everything improves remarkably. Ewan stops gobbing off and whining about stuff. You see the bikes on the roads and tracks and taiga of Russia and Mongolia and the whole movie suddenly becomes something you really want to watch.
It’s obvious that for the first half of the movie Ewan is way out of his comfort zone. He complains about so many things that most of us would shrug off with a “when in Rome” attitude. He looked nervous, scared, anxious, a whole gamut of “ WTF have I let myself in for” mentality. But suddenly, right out there in the middle of Russia his whole outlook changes; he starts to accept the journey for what it is. He relaxes, shrugs, realises things will happen beyond his control. He understands that the bikes will get bogged, fall over, people won’t understand a thing he says. In short he eventually starts to have a good time. Charley seemed to be having a good time for most of the trip, he’s much more laid back.
So for me the journey really started in Russia at episode five, everything before then either annoyed me or bored the shit out of me.That’s OK however, because episode five to the conclusion is like two or three hours of viewing.
I admit I was wrong about their “intrepid spirit”. I got the impression from the book that the support crew was never far away, that’s far from true. Most of the time across Russia, Kazakhstan and Mongolia it’s just Ewan and Charley and Claudio struggling down horrendous dirt tracks, over marshes and wet-lands and then coming to deep, fast flowing rivers. Some of the footage of the river crossings is just amazing.
Claudio, who was a part of the odyssey in every respect hardly gets a look in most of the time, he not only has to ride his own bike along with them but he also has to go ahead and film the other two travelling around. There’s no doubt he worked a lot harder than they did.
One thing I learned from watching Long Way Round; I will NEVER, EVER, take a BMW GS 1100/1200 on an overland trip where I expect the terrain to be anything more than a tarred surface or gentle, flat dirt roads. The bikes are obviously monstrously heavy. There’s no way in the world I could keep picking one of these pigs up, time after time. When they get to really rough terrain they just want to keep falling over. When you see how they get bogged, how they struggle across river crossings, struggle up steep dirt tracks, you will know they are not the all terrain motorcycle BMW boasts about. Doubtless BMW will be most affronted about my comments, but let’s get serious here guys, could you not have made a lighter twin with an engine capacity of say 650 to 800? Riders don’t need an 1100 to 1200cc on a bike they expect to ride on dirt roads and desert tracks.
I have an old 650 Beemer, heaps of my mates do, the damned things go anywhere. It’s an oft heard opinion that the last good BMW’s came off the production line in 1996, (650, 800, 1000 Twins) when they stopped making the old style airhead and started on the new Boxer motors. Sad day for us all. I am surprised another company has not produced a copy of the old Boxer motor and just continued to make money from them. (And I don’t mean Ural, they’re just a bucket of bolts.)
So anyway folks…Long Way Round The DVD IS worth watching, even if you just skip the first four episodes on the first disc and move straight on to disc two and episode five.
Ewan and Charley (and you Claudio) proved to me they are real riders, they are real adventurers. I cannot offer better praise than that!
Long Way Round The DVD is available through www.amazon.comThe special edition 10 episode DVD is being released in the USA in the near future. I would wait for that one myself, instead of the shorter version on sale at this time.I also just discovered that Ewan and Charley have their own Long Way Round website at the address below. (Why doesn’t that surprise me?) www.longwayround.com
Long Way Sidebar: Despite the fact that Simon Pavey, the ex-pat Aussie Dakar champion did not get any airtime in Ewan and Charley's DVD movie, I now see that Charley and Simon are racing together in the British BMW Dakar team that leaves from Portugal on 1/1/2006.
New Years day 2006. It seems a film crew is going to record Charley's exploits in the Dakar as a privateer rider. If he's going with BMW you cannot honestly call him a privateer.
I will be interested to follow his adventures. It's hardcore biking. People die in the Dakar every year. Most Americans I met in the States recently never heard of this race, I fail to understand why, perhaps it's because few Americans have entered it? Everyone who is really into Motor-rally-sport, and especially Off Road motorcyclists know this race is the toughest challenge of man and machine in the world. They even race trucks across the sands of the Sahara. Stirring stuff, not for the faint-hearted.
The race can be followed at: The Last And Final Note Lin said it only felt like 10 hrs, she reckons each episode on the discs are about 40 minutes long. But there are 8 episodes with them riding and two more filmed a year later where they talk about the trip, and you see bits they had not realeased previously. Despite myself I enjoyed it. Anyone who likes travel and bikes will I expect. Now we (the Bikernet Crew) need to grab two Buell Adventure bikes, a Boss Hog back-up trike and do all the places in Europe and Eastern Europe that Ewan and Charley missed! Maybe you could build some off road Harley Sportsters this year huh? We'll go in Jan 2007 yeah? Hey, we could be there for the start of the Paris Dakar how cool! –Jaq. Sounds like a plan for 2007. Let’s kick it around. Are you coming to Bonneville?–Bandit ANOTHER SIDEBAR–DAKAR BLUES I know the majority of Bikernet readers probably won't be interested in this, but I suspect some wild men and guys like Highwayman will be..I met Chris, the only Dakar Aussie rider, a few weeks ago, nice guy, dragged up most of the money for the Dakar Race himself…a real privateer. Maybe you can link to this article until a few days after the race begins? I have included some pics..take note Richard Sainct pic, Richard died in the Cairo Rally in 2004. Fabrizi Meoni, died on screen in the Dakar last year. He was 47.Jean Brucy is still us with I think. Simon Pavey's friend and team mate John Deacon, died in the Dakar in 2004 also.Like I said International Rally biking and especially the Dakar is a tough sport!I don't think a year has gone by since the Rally started that a biker has not died. Why do they do it…I am not sure myself, but I know that I would like to, strange huh? If you watch the race you will discover how beautiful the North African countryside is, The Hoggar Mountains and the massifs (tall rock towers) are spectacular. Cheers: Jaq.
