June 22, 2025
Life is an adventure. Take the long way
In this episode of the Throttle and Roast podcast, host Niels Meersschaert discusses the impact of Ewan McGregor and Charlie Borman's Long Way series on the motorcycle community. The journey began in 2004 with Long Way Round, showcasing their adventure on BMW R-1150GS motorcycles, while the latest Long Way Home has them riding some 50 year old classic bikes. Niels reflects on how these documentaries inspired countless riders, highlighting the capabilities of adventure motorcycles. He compares the series to other travel shows, like Itchy Boots, emphasizing the appeal of solo journeys versus those with support crews. Ultimately, the series promoted the idea that life is an adventure—encouraging everyone to “take the long way.”
Check out the latest in the "Long Way" series on Apple TV.
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00:00 - Intro
01:15 - Long Way Round & Long Way Down
06:22 - Long Way Up
09:58 - Long Way Home
16:20 - Wrap Up
WEBVTT
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Life is an adventure.
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Take the long way.
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Welcome to the Throttle and Roast podcast. I'm your host, Niels Meersschaert. Ewan McGregor and Charlie Borman are back with their latest installment in the Long Way series. I've mentioned these documentaries a few times on this podcast as they're one of the most high profile motorcycle films out there, but where the story is about the love of riding, not some manufactured image of what motorcycling is And nearly every motorcyclist can watch these shows and come away with something that resonates with them. As the duo's love of motorcycles and travel comes through clearly in each episode. We'll look back at the first few series and how the bikes, atmosphere and dramatic tension has evolved. And then look at the currently airing newest series, Long Way Home. As the series aims to inspire riders of all kinds with their catchphrase, life is an adventure. Take the long way.
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So it's amazing to think that here it is 2025 as I'm recording this that the very first documentary series of the Long Way series came out in 2004.
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Of course, this was Long Way Round. And this was the beginning of this entire journey of Ewan and Charlie coming together to ride their motorcycles through long, long trips. And these were typically multi-month trips. And the first one was to try to circumnavigate the globe. And they were aboard a couple of BMW R-1150GS adventure motorcycles. And of course, adventure motorcycles back in the early 2000s weren't quite as popular as they are today. So this was a new idea.
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And it did really almost invite people to understand that this is what those motorcycles were capable of doing, that you could literally ride around the world and not just on highways but really off the beaten path and get out into some of the more distinct areas that you might And this first series was just so incredibly popular, it resonated with so many people.
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And of course, BMW had gotten a huge lift with actually winning to get the bikes being used. I think the team had originally wanted to use KTM and BMW was more willing to do it. KTM, I thought was concerned about reliability is what some of the rumors are about it. And this has sort of in many ways helped solidify BMW as the leader when it comes to adventure motorcycles. And they followed this up just a few years later with long way long way down and then traveled all the way down through Africa and seeing all sorts of sites and scenes along the way. this was aboard the newer version of the BMW GS, the R1200 GS Adventure.
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Ironically, this is actually the same type of bike that I have. I have the R1200 GSA Adventure.
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Same exact bikes as what was used in that film. My bike is a 2012, so I've had it, what, 12, 13 years at this point. So a long, long time. But that bike has been, I think, what many people came to view as the archetypal image of an adventure motorcycle. of these initial films had the duo sort of heading through some really remote regions, where the challenge often was about getting the bikes through the terrain. these are not lightweight bikes. And this is, I think, in some ways it's a little bit of a disservice to people of thinking that you need this large adventure bike to be able to travel the globe. The downside of such a large bike is that when you get into the more looser terrain, it is a bit of a handful, especially if that bike falls and now you've got to pick it up. So the GS Adventure weighs about 560 pounds wet and that's without any luggage or carrying gear or the rider, of course. So it's not a super lightweight that. And if we think of the real impact of these series, these really did help launch the adventure bike success. And it's currently the most popular style of these films have provided a lot of inspiration to millions of riders for how they might be able to take their bikes on an adventure. And the collective understanding of the riding community about ADV bikes is that they are capable of trips like this, even if many of us will never have the chance to take a trip that's in the same sort of scheme as what Ewan and Charlie did in those first two films.
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So we had only three years between the first two films. And this really kind of did jump start a lot of the adventure motorcycling and more broadly, the concept of having motorcycle travel as a style if you will. In fact, if you look at the very popular YouTube channel, Itchy Boots, this is where the host of that show, she's actually riding her motorcycle around the globe in all these scenes. And it's in many ways quite similar to the Long Way series. But I think in her situation, the distinction is that she's actually riding solo She doesn't have a support truck. She doesn't have camera crews following her around She's filming and handling everything herself. it does sort of demonstrate that anybody can do these type of trips, even if you don't have a full production crew with you. But there's obviously a little bit more of the drama of the imagery, the quality and stuff that you can get when you have a proper production crew And of course, Charlie Ewan had to go on to their normal careers. They did other things for quite a while.
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But then there was always a little bit of a inkling that they wanted to come back. They wanted to do this again.
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there was a bit of a revamp under Apple. Apple meaning the company that produces iPhone, the iPad, you know, the Macs, all of those type of things. They also have a streaming service with the same similar name as their set top box, the Apple And they provided the backing to restart the series back in 2020. And that was with the Long Way Up. Now, this launched while the world was still locked down in the very worst period of COVID. This is when the death rates around the globe were just insane. It was a very terrifying time for a lot of people. And this sort of opportunity for escapism by looking at this, you know, documentary and seeing these people who'd done this amazing adventure was really remarkable and gave them an opportunity.
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Now, this film also was a little unique in that Long Way Down was coming through Europe into Africa. This was Long Way Up and it was effectively coming from the southern tip of South America up to Los Angeles. Now, while South America would have had some of the same remote features that the first two films had the big push in this series to kind of create that tension, And the main theme of our original notion, if you will, that sort of challenge was that they would be riding electric motorcycles with electric support vehicles moving away from the ADV style bike, they ended up using the LiveWire, which of course was produced by Harley Davidson. And this is a little bit more of a street bike style. The real challenge for them, though, was that they had to deal with charging these vehicles in remote parts of the world. and of course a lot of people will complain about electric cars today and say oh they don't have enough range they don't have enough range well motorcycles got even less range when it comes to an electric motorcycle so this provided a challenge the support vehicles that they were using were rivians and so they also had to be charged and if you're in the us you probably know we don't really have the best charging infrastructure when it comes to electric vehicles you know there's certain areas of the country california along some major highways for example there tends to be a little bit more opportunity for it at various rest stops you might find a charging port but throughout most of the country they're kind of few and far between and they oftentimes don't end up working so doing this into more of a remote area of south america was a real interesting challenge that they had to try to refuel especially when you think of trying to ride along the backbone of the andes and i think what's really interesting about this particular series is in the original ones that had proceeded by about 15 years in many ways the films helped to cement the idea that adventure motorcycles were a viable option and specifically that the BMW GS that was featured was the archetype and i think maybe Harley was hoping that they might have that same sort of impact with the LiveWire unfortunately that's not really been the case and in fact if you look at some of the more the more recent sales numbers for harley i think the livewire last quarter sold 33. not 33 000 not 33 million 33 bikes that's it so the longevity of livewire as a brand and as a model range probably not going to be around for much longer so it didn't have that same sort of impact of jump-starting that genre as maybe the first couple of series but this sort of brings us into this new series and this started airing on may 9th of 2025 so we're only a handful of weeks into the show beginning to air and this one sticks a little bit closer to home as the duo are going to be traveling throughout europe and it provides a real juxtaposition to the first three series which were about remote areas of the world here instead they traveled throughout europe which has plenty of population density it was an opportunity to spend more time visiting with people and sites rather than slogging to complete thousands and thousands of miles along challenging roads so they needed still tension they needed something that would make this have some difficulty because if you're just oh i'm just driving a car through europe it's like oh well yeah i mean it's a fun thing i've done it many times it's a wonderful experience but it's not particularly challenging there's no drama involved in it so what they decided to do was really add the drama by deciding to ride old bikes so charlie boorman is going to riding on bmw r75 ewen's going to be on an old motoguzzi police bike and both of these bikes are from the 1970s so they're about 50-ish years old as they're riding these and this is really the drama is not just about getting somewhere but getting there on an old bike that doesn't really have the same sort of modern capabilities uh and if you're a newer rider who maybe has only ridden new bikes you're in sort of an interesting perspective because you've never experienced these old bikes so i actually have a 1972 r75 5 this is the same type of bike that charlie boorman is riding in the series it only lasted from about 69 to about 74 73 74 somewhere around there so it's only about a five-year span that that that particular model was built it was predated by the uh slash two and then you actually ended up having the uh slash six followed it And that motorcycle, when it was new, had maybe 50 horsepower.
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It's not going to be the most powerful thing out there, even though it is a 750 cc engine.
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And the brakes front and rear are cable actuated drum brakes.
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So acceleration braking aren't quite up to what a modern bike can do. In fact, my S1000R is only a third more displacement.
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It's 999 cc's, but it has more than three times the horsepower and brakes, which you can stop on a dime. So if you're comparing your modern motorcycle to these things, it's very, very, very different experience. You can't stop. You can't start.
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They don't really handle quite as well as modern bikes. And that's part of the appeal, but at the same time, part of the drama that unfolds in this series. And one of the other things that I think is really interesting with this series, as compared to the first few series, is Europe is going to be far more familiar to many people.
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Now, whether you're one of our listeners that is in the United States or North America in general, or you're one of our many, roughly half of our listeners are actually in Europe.
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This is really home. This is right in your backyard. you know, for me personally, that second episode started with them coming into the Netherlands. Now, of course, my father, you know, this is why my name is Meersschaert and we anglicize it instead of Meersschaert. it's from the Netherlands And I grew up going back and forth to the Netherlands many, many times.
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There's actually a scene in there where they go to the flower market and my family, we would often rent a houseboat just over on the Amstel, maybe a block and a half away from where the flower market was. So I'm very, very, very familiar with that area and most of Amsterdam.
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So this was kind of a bit of a nostalgia, a bit of a homecoming in some ways. And I think this is where it can appeal to a much larger audience, especially for those in Europe, because this is something that is as a trip, perhaps more achievable. It might be something that you yourself might be actually able to go on, whereas going around the world, circumnavigating it, going all the way down to Africa, coming up from South America's tip up to Los Angeles. Those are kind of a little bit more off the beaten path. It's a little bit more challenging. But if you want to ride through Europe, that's more attainable. And the beauty is it's not just about the big tourist sites. Obviously, Amsterdam is a big tourist site, but they hit some more out of the way places. So in that second episode, they even went to a campsite that's right next to windmill. They were able to go up into the windmill, see that, and then just woke up in the middle of this field with a giant windmill sitting next to you. So it still had a little bit of that getting away from the big population density, while at the same time that sort experience of camping that they'd had throughout most of the first few series, where it was really a roughing it. It was more of that you're out in the experience. And if you look at some of the other areas that they viewed, they went to some of the wilderness preserves in Denmark. These are all sort of getting a little bit off the beaten path, but you're really not all the time that far away from the population centers. So, yeah, you're maybe a couple of hours, but it's nothing where you're like days rides to get to a major city. And that's the beauty of Europe is everything is so close that you can kind of do these little off trips to go and visit these more unique experiences or sites. And this film series is sort of giving that inspiration, if you will, to what you can do. The other thing is if you happen to love really old bikes or you're even just curious about old bikes, this series is really worth watching. And of course, the series isn't done. It's continuing to release new episodes in there. So I'm, you know, a few episodes into it, but I'm really enjoying this particular one because it's it's a little bit more of I could see myself going and doing these.
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Whereas the other trips are really pie in the sky. It's very difficult for the lay person to really experience that. But traveling throughout Europe on a motorbike is a much more achievable opportunity.
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So the Longway series is now in its fourth iteration over more than 20 years since the first one came out. And while the first two series definitely inspired lots of ADV riders and helped launch BMW's GS into the stratosphere of sales as the market leader, the third series featured Harley-Davidson's Livewire hasn't had that same impact. And Harley's selling only about 30 bikes a quarter at this point. But this new series really focuses on old bikes and it's probably not there to inspire new sales, but it may rekindle an interest in perhaps buying, restoring an old bike and heading out on the open road.
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And ultimately, isn't that what the series has really all been about? Getting out, riding, exploring, seeing new atmospheres, seeing new people.
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That's been the epitome. It's really been more of a travel series and the bikes were just the mechanism through which we did it. So this is the beauty of it. go out and explore and these may be the inspiration that will maybe get you out of your day rides and into some of those more long trips. So my question for you is, what is your favorite series of the Long Way films? Was it the original Long Way Round, Long Way Down, Long Way Up, or the new Long Way Home?
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And have you been watching the newest Long Way Home? Share your thoughts through the Text the Show link in the show notes or leave us a voicemail at throttleandroast.com slash voicemail. Thanks for listening.
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I'll talk to you next week.
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