Charley and Ewan, together again!

A couple of days ago, the announcement was made that Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman are now embarking on their motorcycle trip that is and will become, The Long Way Down.

It all started with The Long Way Round. These two actors, both successful but only one famous, and who are best friends, decided to take a trip from London to New York, The Long Way Round. And amazingly, they did, with no crass commercialism. They sold the video footage of it as a reality series, with the help of one extra rider/cameraman and a small team of support, to Bravo (US) and Sky1 (UK). They sold it as a book, which became a bestseller. They gave the profits to Unicef, and highlighted Unicef efforts as they did the trip.

Mostly, they were just two guys on a trip, and let us come along. It was way cool. Even my parents liked the video, foul language, brief nudity, and all. Rent it, y'all! Put it on your NetFlix list.

Now, they're doing it again, from Scotland to Cape Horn. Check out the quick video at http://www.longwaydown.com/.

Anyway, a couple of days ago I saw an announcement that they would be leaving in a couple of weeks. Which means they probably left two weeks ago. They had a few problems with advance notice of their trip last time (even in Kazakstaan) so I'm sure they're just bamboozling us. Whatever.

Here's what I wrote in 2004 about the first trip:

A couple of weeks belated, I will comment on the Bravo TV channel series, The Long Way Round. I mentioned it last spring, when my number two obsession, Ewan McGregor, was embarking on a motorcycle trip around the Northern hemisphere.

I'll be the first to admit I both under- and over-estimated the team on this venture.

Though I read about the trip as it evolved on their web site, it didn't quite strike me as difficult until I started watching the television series. I really should have known better. I've been on a motorcycle before (admittedly riding bitch) for days in a row in my previous life.

The extent of my personal experience was almost exclusively one- or two-day trips with frequent stops to be touristy or drink beer or some other noble American pastime. The hardest trip I ever did was to ride around Lake Superior (granted, the largest lake in the world) in four days, on the back of a Honda V65 Magna.

It was both wonderful and horrible. The most interesting it got was when we were going through Michigan's Upper Penninsula (check out a map, people) in the middle of several thunderstorm and tornado warnings.

We were on a schedule, so we pressed on. However, I started to understand the biker bitch, fuck y'all attitude when I took off my rain pants in a nearly deserted restaurant and the waitress gave me crap about it. Like I was supposed to sit there in dripping wet waterproof pants for 45 minutes while I enjoyed the house special.

Oh, nevermind. Quick conclusion: I don't know what it's like to ride on a motorcycle for that long, but I know that after four days on a bike, my ass was numb for weeks, and I should have known better than to assume.

You never know. But now ya know.