Charlie Boorman
 

Don't forget. That hard core adventurer (of Ewan and bloody Charlie fame) is back on his bike tonight on channel 5, riding his bike around South Africa. Outback truckers looks good on Quest, also.

long way round got me back into biking and i for one would love to have his job travel around world and get a tv station to pay for it. I for one will be watching

"Long way round" did not get me into biking BUT it completely changed my way of riding bikes. We sold the Harley´s, got GS Adventure bikes and went to Mongolia within a couple of years after seeing "Long way round".... :laugh:

Totally missed that program when it was aired back when they filmed it. Bought the DVD by mistake in -08, saw it, sold the Harley´s and ordered GS Adventure bikes and took a tour round eastern Europe within days after we had gotten the bikes and kitted them.... 20 countries on rather bad roads in 5 weeks. :laugh:

It´s sad to see how many that write bad things about Charley and Ewan on internet. They´ve done great stuff for many bikers and I know plenty of folks that would not have been out riding outside their own countries if it had not been for the "Long way round"/"Long way down" series...... My own life is great more fun now these days when it comes to bikes and traveling. They´ve inspired me and I was 42 when I first saw "Long way round".....

I read somewhere that they´ve decided to do a "Long way up" (or something like that) film. Argentina/South America/Central America/USA/Canada and up to Deadhorse. Would be great fun if they did that.

Hi hellboy
i total agree with you to many people just have a go at charley and ewan for spending 6 million on LWR so what, you only have to read some of the blogs on here to see how many people have been inspired to ride the world because of the show. I am only doing 3 weeks around europe this year but next year riding to nepal.I think charley and ewan where planning a pan america but not sure charley did hint on a tv show here last year.good luck with your future trips bierbier
Happy biking:scooter::scooter:

They had the resources, so they used said resources. I loved the shows, have both on DVD. I laugh at people when they start talking trash about Ewen and Charley for having support trucks and the like because anyone who says they wouldnt use such things...even if they had the resources available...is a lying sack of :9898:

+1 for charlie and ewan.

i was a traveler before seeing the long way down, never thought about riding a moto everywhere. now i have ridden across africa, and am planning a pan america trip.

i don't think i would have done this without seeing those programs.
yes they had a heck of a lot of support. its tv! that's how it is. they have more people filming those stupid gold mining shows and honey boo boo.

great work ewan and charlie. keep it up.

Fantastic post mate. I haven't laughed so much for ages.

A support truck? You seriously think most people secretly want to head off on their trip with a support truck? Driven by your mum no doubt so she can mend your socks and tuck you in at night.:smiliex:

I have to admit the LWR and LWD series got me interested but I just find Charlie annoying on camera. Nothing to do with his support vehicles or massive budget.

I wouldn't exactly class myself as a fan of charlie boreman, but I tried watching this new program the other night because there was f-all else on. However after the first 10 minutes it became really dull, both as entertainment television and as a travel program.


Oh, and seeing as how this appears to be a Ewan+charlie thread, I guess I'm obliged to finish by saying that BMWs are for wankers!

I love LWR + all, but I must be a lying sack of :9898: because I'd never want a support vehicle, even if I had the resources.

Well, it also grinds me when some guys say he is not real.

I have him down for a TOP BLOKE !!!bierjeiger

I have watched almost all his stuff,
Sydney - Tokyo
Extreme frontiers
LWR
LWD

Sure I damn well wish he would send me an email if I want to ride with him, or be part of his support crew. :mchappy:

Amazing guy, really is. bier

Vette

I enjoy Charley´s personality a great deal. They both seem like very friendly lads. And I do know some folks that has used support vehicle´s on trips to Africa, Mongolia etc. We didn´t on our trip to Mongolia this summer and there are two reasons for that.

1. Noone wanted to come with us in a car. :rofl:
2. We could definitely not afford to hire someone....

Would it be nice to have spare tires and stuff in a car instead on the bikes? Yeah. Sure. It´s always more fun to ride on a lighter bike in bad terrain. But since we really had no choice and it works without a support vehicle anyway for us then I don´t think much about it. But Charley and especially Ewan being who he is I would say could not do a film like "Long way round" without a good backup team and a great amount of safety thinking. Having signed contracts to work in future multi million film projects has it´s advantages. I´m in the music business myself and some of the folks that I´ve worked with are not even allowed to ride a motorcycle at all by their record companies. That sucks.

//J

Agreement About Detractors
 

'Zackly!

What did the detractors expect? That they film a large-scope, high quality, unusual international travelogue cinema on their cell phone cameras?

Not for nothing do advice columnists keep saying that denigrating others is an ego-boosting compensation with the motivation of making the speaker elevate himself and feel better about himself by attempting to lower someone else. What's the need of that?

I stopped biking in 1976 when I got married and did all the usual bits for the next 30 years,(inc divorce) retired early for medical reasons and came to live in France. Then one day a couple of year ago a friend of mine turned up on his 1953 Douglas Dragonfly on a trip from Cornwall down to the Med. This inspired me to watch the vids, and 3 weeks later I was the proud owner of an F650GStwin. It was what they did that inspired me to re-read Jupiters Travels and make comparisons. There were now bikes out there built for purpose and I wanted to have a go. You may query the choice of bike, but at 61 and not in the best of health it suits me fine, and thanks to their exploits I'm now travelling and camping all over Europe and regularly clocking up 20,000k's in the year, enjoying every minute of it, feeling much healthier for it and looking forward to Eastern Europe this Autumn.

I'm not a fan of his presentation style, but he's genuine and he just get's on with it.

Same discussion again. Roughly I would split it in 3 groups:

a) 33.3% who deeply dislike them and criticize them, some who are older and used to travel by bike intensively quite before LWD was filmed and especially those who started traveling because of them but do not reckon their influence (the laters sometimes look like "exclusive club wanabee members", those who bitterly repeat "it's a nice place, but there were too many tourists").

b) 33.3% who deeply love them, whose passion for motorcycle traveling was born or greatly boosted by watching LWR (they didn't travel much by bike before). Some are nice chaps, others ride 1200GSA (sorry for the bad joke, don't blame me, pleeeeeease).

c) 33.3% who reckon their "positive" influence, even if being a figurated documentary, in spite of the fact that they were previously motorcycle travellers or not (HUBB members would be at least halved if LWR hadn't been filmed). Some may dislike the casting anyway. BUT I guess many of them do not even bother answering these posts, since we ALL more or less know how much Ewan & Charly influenced motorcycle travelling.

[95% don't like Russ Malkin]