Editor Note -
While this is a look at Charley working Long Way Round - we have gone with pictures from what
Charley has been doing since then. So we have more of a reflection from the 2004 to today.
There can be no denial, the man has been busy promoting motorcycle travel around the globe.
M
y focal point on the BMW stand at the NEC was Charley Boorman. He and his close
mate Ewan McGregor had recently returned from a much publicised two wheeled, high tech trip
around the world. Sky channel had been showing the film made along the way, and Radio 4 had
the tale in the airwave’s version of flashing lights. Many a newspaper had printed glossy rave
write ups about the two of them and their trip.
I remember very well that I’d not long returned from my own trip, and that I was somewhat
suspicious of this man. Film star? Movie maker? All the hype that surrounded the two of
them simply felt odd; about as far from the world of overlanding that I related to as I could
possibly get. But I was curious.
Charley stood next to his well worn BMW R1150GS Adventure; before him stretched a 50 metre
long queue of fans. It was an interesting first sight of the man. I’d read and heard a fair few
critical comments about the duo’s trip. I wanted to see whether the pair are as scuttlebutt said;
‘typical film stars who have made what is a greatly admired and epic achievement into
something sullied by the world of movies’. Or, had the two actors really set off on this trip
because they are quite simply blokes with a passion for bikes and a dream that so few of us
actually make come true? As a ‘Round the Worlder’ myself, I was looking forward to finding out
if it was a living dream or just a dollar led fairytale. Charley gained a few bonus points when I
realised that in a decidedly relaxed and friendly manner he was treating each person in the
queue as just that; a person. He looked a tad tired but showed respect and interest in those who
had waited so patiently.
His agent tucked us away in the boarded off staff area of the BMW stand and with a steady
flow of BMW crew floating past us with cups of coffee or chatting quietly into mobile
phones, we got to talking. Above us the open roofed compartment allowed the noise, hustle
and bustle of the motorcycle show to float in and land on us. Soon even that distraction
faded as I started to roll my carefully prepared questions at him.
Charley told me that he had been riding bikes since he was 7 years old when he’d learnt to ride on a
Monkey bike, and that he had moved on to a Mako 500 next. That had been too tall for him and his
childhood friend Tommy had had to start it up for him so that he could leap on and ride off; his
current steed is a Ducati 748S. His hairiest moment on a bike before this trip had been on a Sunday
run from London to Bognor when he didn’t make it around a corner. ‘I wiped my bike out and
pulled a whole load of ligaments in my shoulder when I landed with my back against two wooden
sign posts; I deserved the pain!’
By now any hint of tiredness had slipped away and Charley had a gleam in his eye. ‘I love the
freedom and the feeling that you are part of the environment rather than just passing through;
when I’m on a bike all my senses are working.’ I asked him what the maddest thing he had ever
done on a bike was and he laughed, ‘Riding around the world!’ Charley told me that he was in
fact quite well set up with mechanical knowledge for a trip like this but that in the end modern
bikes are so reliant on electronics that, ‘if something goes on a high tech bike you are buggered;
thing is they don’t often go wrong if you’ve chosen the right bike for the job.