Cousin Bryan suggested this to me on my Netflix friends list a while back and despite his picks usually being spot-on I admit I was a bit reluctant to watch this (esp. since it’s seven episodes on two DVDs). After the first episode you pretty much forget that you’re watching two celebrities ride really sweet bikes with the support of a massive crew. You just get drawn in to the story of two guys riding their bikes around the world.
There’s something refreshing about watching Ewan McGregor deal pretty honestly with the setbacks and frustrations that he encounters while crossing Russia and Mongolia. His perspective as he compares the lives of the people he encouters to the rediculousness of making movies is also inspiring.
It’s a big time investment to watch the entire series and if you’re not pulled in after the first episode you probably won’t dig it. But if you are pulled in you’ll pretty much end up watching all the episodes back to back and be inspired to get the hell off the couch and do something when you’re done. And that makes it worth watching.

Everything about this show was forced—which makes sense because it’s about making an adventure out of life. Clearly two wealthy actors with lovely families and healthy careers don’t need to travel around the world on two motorcycles… but they want to. So they do. And bring an entire film crew including two SUVs full of equipment and a third motorcyclist in order to do so. They hire a personal trainer to get them fit for the adventure, take Russian lessons, and practice “violent situation defense” in case they run into trouble.

So it wasn’t a “normal” trip around the world on your motorcycle… police escorted them through portions of Kazakhstan and the media forced interviews on them in a number of places. And, when the roads got too tough, the support crews came to their rescue.

Still, there’s something good about this series. It reminds me of Lee and Sacha’s year-long trip around the world, which recently started. I’m now thinking about what I would do with a deliberate 6-12 month adventure around the world. Maybe not motorcycles-maybe trains instead. Maybe airplanes. I have no real desire to “conquer” the world in a geographic sense either… it’s a futile and vain desire, but that’s just the thing-what would I be seeking? It would probably be something between hand-picking some major destinations and letting the wind blow me around as it did Dave Gorman on his Googlewhack adventure. Thinking, thinking.

So, since it got me thinking, I think this is worth seeing.