Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman are riding specially equipped Harley-Davidson LiveWire electric motorcycles with dual-sport tyres and wire wheels.
Last week we confirmed that their third travel documentary, Long Way Up, from Tierra del Fuego, South America, to Los Angeles would feature the electric bikes.
Now Instagram photos and ADV Pulse show the bikes are equipped with wire wheels and dual-sport tyres for the many kilometres of unpaved road ahead.
It must be cold, because they also have handlebar gauntlets to keep the chill off their hands.
We wonder how that cold will affect the LiveWire’s 150km of highway range.
Other modifications for the trip include: windscreens, engine guards, highway pegs, bash plates, auxiliary lights, saddlebags and fender bags.
They also seem to have removed the rear guard and plate holder.
They are being supported by two electric Rivian R1T pick-up trucks which have 650km of range.
Charley and Ewan are also supported by two Mercedes-Benz Sprinter 4WD vans and a Ford F350 pickup truck, so we suspect they are carrying DC fast chargers with them.
Mobile DC fast chargers at workHarley claims their Fast Charge (DCFC) technology will recharge a flat battery to 80% in 40 minutes and full in 60 minutes.
The trip may just do for electric motorcycles, particularly the LiveWire, what Long Way Round and Long Way Down did for adventure riding and the BMW GS range.
Long time coming
The long-awaited third Ewan and Charley travel documentary has been a long time coming.
Charley has been telling us they have been planning their Long Way Up America trip for about 10 years.
The problem has been that Ewan has been so busy with Hollywood movies he could not afford a few months off.
There was also the fact that Ewan is ambassador for Moto Guzzi and Charley is ambassador for Triumph.
The pair rode BMWs in their 2004 Long Way Round and 2007 Long Way Down.
In 2015, Ewan said he may ride from California to the tip of South America on a Moto Guzzi Stelvio. That never happened and the Stelvio was retired a year later.
Charley told us last year that Ewan’s relationship with Moto Guzzi would not necessarily foil their plans:
We’ve been talking about it a long time and if the stars align we will do something like a Long Way up from Tierra Del Fuego to Alaska in the next couple of years. It really is close now. Ewan’s always had a loose relationship with Moto Guzzi so there’s no conflict there.
But rather than Moto Guzzi and Triumph, the pair have opted for the new Harley-Davidson LiveWire.
While it was thought they would go all the way to Alaska, Charley recently said the ride would go from Argentina to LA.
Maybe they don’t want to cover the same territory through Canada and Alaska that they did in the Long Way Round.
Long Way Back
It’s been a long time between trips for Ewan and Charley.
From 14 April 2004 to 29 July 2004, they rode across Europe and the USA in Long Way Round and from 12 May to 4 August 2007 they rode from the top of Scotland to Cape Town in South Africa for Long Way Down.
With Ewan becoming increasingly busy with Hollywood movies, Charley squeezed in the 2006 Dakar rally for his series, Race to Dakar, and has produced several other travel shows.