Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman's Long Way Up may be on Harley Livewires
There are photos from Argentina of a pair of adventure-spec Livewires alongside some Rivian R1Ts and other support vehicles and we're almost too excited.
Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman pretty much ignited the world's passion for the idea of adventure touring on a motorcycle with their 2004 series Long Way Round which saw the pair set off from London to circumnavigate the globe on a couple of BMW R1150GS'.
Since that time, the two have produced one more documentary series called Long Way Down where they traveled, again on BMWs, from John O'Groats in Scotland to Capetown, South Africa. That was in 2007, and since then, both Boorman and McGregor have been talking about undertaking a ride from South America to Los Angeles, California.
Well, guess what nerds? It's finally freaking happening and even cooler, the pair are (probably) doing it on electric motorcycles -- Harley-Davidson Livewires if you can believe it -- which were spotted initially by the folks at Autoblog Argentina and reported on Monday by RideApart. Even cooler is the fact that their support vehicles include Rivian R1T pickup trucks -- something that would lead us to believe that the series is being produced for Amazon.
From the photos, the adventure-ready Livewires look like they've gotten some mods to survive the trip -- but not as many as I would have initially guessed. Specifically, we can see a skid plate, a suspension lift, provisions for carrying luggage, spoked wheels and handguards.
The Livewire might seem like an unlikely choice on the surface with its combined range of just 95 miles, but when you consider that by traveling off-road, the pair's average speeds will be down, they're likely to get much more range from the bikes. Plus with their DC fast-charging capability and relatively dinky battery size, it's possible that the Rivians could be used to charge the Harleys, especially if the Rivians are packing the rumored super-sized battery packs that it claims are good for 400 miles of range.
Imagine riding one of these from South America to LA.
Now, while Boorman confirmed the trip was happening and a bunch of vehicles have been spotted in Tierra Del Fuego, it hasn't explicitly been confirmed that these are the vehicles they'd be taking, but the coincidence is a little too big to ignore.
Harley-Davidson, Rivian and Charley Boorman's people did not immediately respond to Roadshow's request for comment.
Correction, Sept. 13 at 9:12 a.m.: Corrected statement that Rivian's battery pack was 400 kWh