So I guess Charley and Ewan are planning another ride. I suppose that’s a good thing, even though I thought the first ones were kind of contrived. I mean, really, you have two rich kids riding around the world on their own with corporate sponsorship, followed by a caravan of chase vehicles, spare parts, tool chests, mechanics, and camera crews. Two dilettantes confusing their income with their abilities, making a movie, complete with photos like the one above vaguely suggesting a combat mission somewhere in the mountains of Afghanistan. Give me a break. Maybe I’m being hypocritical; after all, I sort of did the same thing on the Western America Adventure Tour and the China ride. We even had a chase vehicle on both of those rides, too, although I managed to convince myself that chase vehicles are a net negative and I never used them again.
You want to read a real adventure story? Turn to my all-time favorite…the story of Dave Barr’s solo ride around the world.
Dave Barr is a guy who lost both legs to a landmine while fighting in Africa. Undeterred and unbroken, after a lengthy recovery he finished out his enlistment, came home, put an electric starter on his beat up old ’72 Harley (which already had a hundred thousand miles on the clock), and with no sponsorship, no chase vehicle, no film crew, and nothing other than a strong will, Barr spent the next four years riding around the world. He’d ride a bit, run out of money, find a job wherever he was, work a bit more, and get back on the bike. That, my friends, is a real adventure, and you can read about it in Riding the Edge. Trust me on this: Riding the Edge is infinitely better than the long way whatever.
Absolutely could not agree with you more. This reminds me of the “Reality TV” era.
On the plus side “Riding the Edge” is readily available and I picked up a copy for less than $10.
It’s a great read.
I think you’re being a little harsh on ‘ole Ewan and Charlie Joe. I thought it was good entertainment. Charlie’s got some pretty decent riding under his belt, include a go at the Dakar.
If you want a good laugh however, search youtube for “Ewan and thingy”.
Cheers,
Dan K.
I do enjoy watching people rid around doing crazy stuff or adventures if you will. As for these two…it’s only a movie, it’s not real.
Former Reality Star and maker here…
While I fully understand why you’d feel the way you do, Joe, there is another perspective to look at their project.
First of all, while I enjoyed Long Way Round and Long Way Down. Both impacted the moto industry in a positive manner not seen since Easy Rider or Then Came Bronson. Those two series spawned the entire “adventure” motorcycling segment and may have saved the industry. Frankly, I doubt we’d have an RX-3 had Ewan and Charlie had not done those shows.
But I never felt I was there in either. I was a voyeur watching someone else do it. Like watching someone climb Mt. Everest.
Compare either series to Gaurav Jani’s Riding Solo to the Top of the World. Now Jani did a real adventure. Alone.
That said, few understand how a product intended for TV works from an investment or technical perspective. I am developing a series here in the DR and have had to learn the industry from a naive outsider’s perspective. Why do such projects require huge crews and back-up everything? Because the outlets and investors require it.
The outlets mandate the technical standards which necessitate large production and post-production crews. They simply will not buy or produce some random riders with GoPros for numerous reasons, regardless of how great the adventure. And to do it right costs a pile of cheese. A. Large. Pile. Just the color correction and matching required for an hour show can run into the 10’s of thousands of dollars or more. And that’s just one small piece of post-production major networks and streaming services require.
Unfortunately, Jani’s excellent work is not seen by the masses because he videoed his adventure in a format that is not compatible with network technical standards. If he had only known…
Then there are the investors. Investors will require completion insurance to protect themselves in case something goes awry, and that insurance alone can run 5% of total production costs. Then the insurance company will mandate certain production standards be maintained. Those standards may include extra equipment to keep the production moving. Why? If a bike craps out in BumFuck Chile, the costs of maintaining the crew alone can far exceed the cost of a couple of bikes. We saw this in LWR.
I was shocked at what it costs to do a series. When I started planning ours I had a number in mind which was a WAG. The actual cost to do it, even cutting fat where possible, was 5 times my WAG. And what we can produce here in the DR is about 1/4 of what it would cost with North American union crews. For the record, our budget, even with much lower costs in the DR, is around $1.4 million. I have a high school friend with 40 years behind the camera in the film industry in the states who projected a budget based on costs there, and the number is north of $5 million…which he says is cheap.
This is the harsh reality of TV production. No outlet will buy a program with inferior production values so regardless of how awesome a show might be it won’t get seen.
That is not to say there isn’t a market for GoPro adventures. There is, but not on major network or streaming services. So those shows will most likely never recover their production costs. Maybe there is a niche for a streaming service focused on adventures the networks won’t buy, you know, two guys with GoPros and some video editing software.
Just sayin’…
Good inputs, Robert. Thanks for taking the time to comment.