Best friends take road trips together all the time – it’s nothing unusual to see a pair of Beemers traveling down the road together. Travel mates taking a trip from London to New York through 12 countries for 115 days on largely unpaved barely passable roads is a bit more uncommon. Particularly when one of them is a movie star and the entire process is documented by a professional film crew.

Ten copies of the series on DVD will be door prizes at the BMW MOA Vermont Rally!

For nearly 4 months in 2004, Ewan McGregor and his friend, Charley Boorman, did just that on a pair of BMW R1150GS Adventures, resulting in a 7-esisode series called Long Way Round. They met on the set of The Serpent’s Kiss in 1997 and kept up a friendship that largely evolved from a mutual love of motorcycles.

The trip evolved from suggestions of a holiday in Spain or South America to a full-fledged corporate-sponsored fully documented trip around the globe.

“Somehow, Ewan rang me up one night and said, ‘Hey, Charley, instead of going to Spain, why don’t we ride around the world?’” Boorman said.

McGregor and Boorman survived river crossings, cracked frames, car accidents, black bears and a world full of deteriorated Mongolian and Russian roads. They made it safely past the Russian mafia, threats of bad weather and spider bites. The series covers everything from the planning stages of the trip to their reunion with their families in New York after about 20,000 miles of riding. From their headquarters in London, they debated over what sort of bike would be best suited for the trip.

“In terms of a bike that was built for it, there’s only one,” McGregor said. “My first reaction to the BMW was that it’s the only bike for this trip.”

After several days of practice runs, fumbles and dropped bikes, the men departed from London and took the Chunnel across to France and began their trip east. A camera man accompanied them, and they received backup support from support crew in SUVs loaded with supplies and camera equipment. They had cameras on their helmets and bikes, and microphones inside their helmets.

“When Ewan and Charley came round to see me about the project, I thought they were totally mad to take on such an epic adventure,” said Russ Malkin, director, “but when I knew they were serious, I was certainly up for the challenge.”

“It wasn’t until I met with Ewan and Charley and figured out how legitimate their passion for motorcycles was that I figured I had to do it,” said David Alexanian, director.

At several point in the series, it begins to look as though they will fail in their mission. They lose the sponsorship of KTM, they face mechanical failure, fatigue and several seemingly impassable rivers in Russia. Each time they are challenged, the locals wherever they are come to their aid and help them repair the bikes, find shelter and food and even take them across rivers in large trucks.

“I hope it inspires people that it is possible,” McGregor said in reflection on the last day of his trip. “There are a lot of things in life that people don’t do because of the what if’s. It stops us from doing things. In actuality, [the uncertainty] are what makes it so exciting. Every time we got in trouble or our bikes broke down, we met people who helped and it’s given me a very optimistic view of the world. [They were] all incredibly generous, nice people.”

“Primarily, we did it just to ride a motorbike every day,” Boorman said. “We’ve enjoyed it all. When I got on my bike yesterday morning, it felt like I was a boy getting on my first bike.”

Long Way Round features footage of everything from the great cities to the untouched places in Europe and Siberia, all the way across to Alaska, Canada and back down to New York. The scenery is breathtaking, particularly the places that have been largely untouched by humans.

Perhaps the greatest part of the series is the depiction of friendship between McGregor and Boorman, and the love of motorcycling they share. Their camaraderie and hilarious banter make for a lively and entertaining glimpse into the trip. “A holiday doesn’t have to be lying on a beach,” Boorman said. “It can be exploration and adventure.”

“The passion in my life is motorcycles,” McGregor said. “I started taking motorcycle trips after movies. For me it was a way to get out on my own and gather back my own decision making process.”

At the end of it all, McGregor checks his phone messages and finds out that he has missed 28 calls, many of them from his agents.

“The whole business thing is kind of cropping into this trip,” he said. “I’ve had a chat to my agents, but when you’ve been through Kiev and met the kids who suffered from the Chernobyl disaster…and the little kids in Mongolia, suddenly multi-million dollar movie seems like a complete farce.”

McGregor’s bike was auctioned off to charity in 2005. Long Way Round features excellent music as well with songs by Blur, Radiohead, Coldplay, Stereophonics and Massive Attack. The 2-disc set includes bonus features of unseen material and a post-trip interview.

Ten copies of the series on DVD will be door prizes at the BMW MOA Vermont Rally this month!