Who Is Charley Boorman?
Who Is Charley Boorman?
In the words of one Australian rider on the tour, “a tubby little Pom.” The former child actor was a struggling painter and decorator (“I couldn’t even hang wallpaper”)
when The Long Way Round, the TV series of the trip he made with friend and film megastar Ewan McGregor, splatted him on the world’s windscreen. Since then, he’s grasped every opportunity to ensure that he never has to paint another skirting board. He has presented his own TV travel shows, crashed out of the Dakar—with two broken wrists—hooked back up with McGregor for Long Way Down, become UK TV’s go-to adventurer and motorcyclist, and raised 100,000 pounds for charity. He also is a charismatic tour leader who waits to ride some of the less-confident riders’ bikes through deep sand.
Virtually everyone in motorcycling has an opinion about Boorman, and he knows it; but spend time with him, and it’s hard not to love the tubby little Pom.
—Gary Inman
