Scottish star Ewan McGregor’s ‘Long Way’ bikes revisited

Ewan McGregor is a well-known motorbike lover and boasts an impressive collection of his own. He’s also showcased his passion for bikes when travelling the world with good friend Charley Boorman in three separate editions of the popular Long Way series.

For each season, the pair relied on motorbikes to traverse multiple countries and tens of thousands of miles. The show appeals to both motorbike enthusiasts and travel fans for its portrayal of adventure, camaraderie, and the challenges of long-distance riding.

Researchers at Bikesure, a specialist bike insurance broker, have cross-referenced the bikes identified in each series with licensing figures from the Department for Transport to reveal which models have the most enduring and declining levels of ownership in the UK today.

Ewan McGregor's motorbike from Long Way Down is now on display at Glasgow's Riverside Museum.

Long Way Round (2004)

Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman were originally due to ride bikes provided by KTM — the LC4 640 Adventure and 950 Adventure show up early in the series as options. However, the Austrian brand pulled out of the project due to fears that the pair wouldn’t be able to complete their 19,000 mile journey from London to New York.

Instead, BMW showed faith in them by providing three R1150GS all-terrain motorcycles to complete their journey on. According to Bikesure, the number of UK owners for this model has declined only slightly over the past 10 years, however there are still 2,227 remaining overall.

Ducati 748 and 999 RS models also make an appearance in episode one. While there are over 1,100 of the 748 models registered in the UK, no 999 RS models have a licensed owner according to the most recent year of published data.

Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman relied on BMW R1150GS motorcycles in Long Way Round (2004)

McGregor and Boorman pay a visit to Orange County Choppers (OCC) in episode seven, where viewers are treated to a selection of iconic custom-made bikes, including the one driven by Will Smith in the movie iRobot (2004), and "Little Red", which was the inaugural custom motorcycle built by Paul Sr. of OCC.

Long Way Down (2007)

For this season of the show, the two stars began in the village of John o’ Groats at the north east tip of Scotland and travelled through eighteen countries en route to Cape Town, South Africa.

They rode the BMW R1200GS Adventure as the successor to Long Way Round’s R1150GS Adventure bikes. Versions of the R1200GS Adventure are rarer among UK owners, however, with just over 4,500 registered here. Ewan McGregor’s version that he rode in the show is now on display at Glasgow’s Riverside Museum.

Although they were only involved in minor scenes, two more BMW bikes make an appearance in this season: a 2006 BMW G 650 Xcountry in episode one, and a 2000 BMW F 650 GS in episode eight.

Episode one also gives us an insight into McGregor’s larger motorcycle taste and collection. One famous bike brand that the actor owns a piece of is a 1952 BSA Bantam D1. The Birmingham Small Arms Company (BSA) was the largest producer of motorcycles in the world during the decade that this model was manufactured.

There are no registered license holders for this model of bike. McGregor’s version is estimated to be worth £3,000-£4,000.

Long Way Up (2020)

The Internet Movie Car Database identifies ten unique motorcycle models in the starring cast for Long Way Up, where Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman ride from Usuaia, Argentina to Los Angeles. Most of these models appear early on in the show where viewers are treated to more of a peak of McGregor’s personal collection.

For this journey, the pair chose to ride electric with custom Harley Davidson LiveWire Motorcycles — representing a shift in technology from the previous version of the show.

While the bikes ran smooth, with technicians much more readily available on this journey, the lack of charging infrastructure meant the film crew were knocking on plenty of doors to ask if they could plug in during their journey. At present, just 82 LiveWire motorcycles have registered UK owners, as Harley-Davidson’s electric offering hopes to grow further from its relative infancy.

Elsewhere in the show, we see McGregor’s 2008 Triumph Bonneville and a 2016 Triumph Bonneville T120 (custom) by Down & Out Motorcycles.

Triumph Motorcycles Ltd is now the largest UK-owned manufacturer of motorcycles in the world. It has reinvented itself over the years under various forms of ownership. Among the eight versions of Triumph Bonneville models manufactured between 2008 and 2009, only 44 bikes that McGregor’s is based on can be found registered to UK owners.

It is common for motorbikes that were once popular on UK roads to eventually fade into the personal collection of passionate bike fans like Ewan McGregor. You can discover which other motorcycles are closest to extinction via Bikesure’s research https://www.bikesure.co.uk/.