I sat down to watch this special edition dvd after buying it for my boyfriend for christmas, I didn’t have particularly high hopes as it didn’t sound to appealing to me watchin a bunch of men on motorbikes. It sounded like it would be a boys and their toys documentary. I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw though, it was very interesting with a lot of information on different cultures and some comedy along the way. My personal favourite bit was during the ride along the road of bones as there were a few tense exciting moments where the team really pull together and show what they are made of, your not sure if they will make it and by this point you have gone so far with them that you really can understand their emotions at the thought of failing. The parts where they are having to cross rivers seemed to be the most challenging and caused quite a bit of concern for the team. How the locals deal with the flowing rivers in their paths is truly amazing they just plough straight into the situation take it all in their stride and off they go.
So whats this series about?
Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman document their trip of a life time where they travelled from London to New york on motorbikes. They did this successfully by using cameras, they both had a camera in their helmets and another attached to the bikes. They were also creating video diaries although this didn’t happen too regularly. Among the places they ride through
are Europe, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Siberia and Canada. Ewan and Charlie had Claudio who was a cameraman joining them also on a motorbike. There was a support team (David Alexanian, Russ Malkin and Jim Simak) who in off road vehicles would meet up with Ewan, Charlie and Claudio when crossing borders and at a few other places along the way, for example their visits to the UNICEF projects were done together, there was an orphanage in Ukraine, a climbing wall in a youth centre in Kazakhstan, and an project working with street children who live in heating systems in Mongolia. They were also joined for part of the journey, when they felt it would be an advantage to have some extra assistance for safety reasons, by Sergey and Vasily who is a doctor, at times they would be too far away to seek outside medical help. From the beginning there were problems that they had to over come with documents like visas not being given or not being completed correctly and sometimes this meant spending hours waiting to be let through borders.
The series starts with preparation for beginning the trip. We start off with a team of people assisting Ewan and Charlie to work out the best routes from and through each country and organising the visas they need for each country. They also had to decide on the bikes they thought would do the best job at getting them through this long and hard adventure. After disscussions Ewan and Charlie chose two bikes they wanted to compare, Ewan wanted the BMW and Charlie wanted the KTM. After off road tests on both bikes, the fact that the KTM is a specialist off road bike manufacturer and Charlies passion to take the KTM Ewan agrees with this bike. Then follows the dissaster where KTM decide not to provide the bikes as they thought it might damage the good name of the company, charlie took this as KTM saying they were going to fail on their trip and would then blame the bikes. Therefore the BMW becomes the chosen bike for the tour. They were given the bikes with cameras, microphones and customised GPS to assist with their trip. Before they all set out on their adventure they endured training on a variety of issues that may arise. As at times they would be in places where hostility could be a big issue they had training on how to handle it. The team also covered Off-road riding, motorbike maintenance and basic first aid. Eventually they are ready to leave London the excitement amongst the whole team is very apparent there is a lot of passion in this tour from the whole team, even those who are left in London. It was very emotional especially as Charlie and Ewan were to leave their wives behind for approxomately three months. So off they head through the first part of Europe. Obviously in some areas there were hotels about and they took advantage of the comfort as they knew they had plenty of uncomfortable nights ahead, some of the areas they visited had no hotels for absolutely miles and miles so they would find a place they decided would be safe and camped out for the night. On occasion they would also find themselves getting to know some of the locals and they were offered places to stay. This was interesting as you saw the different cultures and how people lived. They did receive warm welcomes virtually everywhere they went. Whilst in Kazakhstan they found themselves travelling with police escorts they were a little concerned about why they would need this, they quickly picked upon the reasoning behind these escorts, they found themselves being stopped every now and then to join welcome parties that were being thrown for them. The team however quickly became fed up with this as they were exhausted and needed to rest, although it was quite amusing to watch. The team make their way through each country with plenty of adventure and tense moments but eventually they find themselves in the USA for the last long stretch of the journey. They finish their amazing tour by creating a large crowd of motorbikes, which they achived with the assistance of the Orange County Choppers, to ride with them to their final destination in New York. Once again emotions are running high as the team are reunited with their loved ones and there are tears all around.
The special edition DVD of this series is ten episodes long over three discs. There are extras which include unseen material, a post trip interview and interviews with the creators.
This whole series was amazing and was helped with the true bond of friendship and the passion shared for the success of the adventure between Ewan and Charlie. I thought this series was very well made and I enjoyed it from start to finish, the end of each episode had me hooked and I always wanted to watch one more episode before turning it off, and therefore I would recommend this to others.
This review will also be published on dooyoo under the same name.
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