Original subtitles

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so this is something i never expected to

see in my lifetime

a a zappy charger on the wall there

plugged into a motorbike

this is the harley davidson live wire

and we're going to meet someone who has

ridden

one of these bikes from tierra del fuego

to los angeles it's a short afternoon

trip of about 13 and a half thousand

miles with no charge points all the way

so we're going to find out all about

that so this is the harley davidson live

wire

that is a zappy charger and this is

fully charged

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so charlie thank you for a start to

finding time to

chat with us about this because it's

very it's been a very exciting thing to

hear about because i've watched you

riding all around the world and going oh

my god that's terrifying and i mean what

is

i think always been good about what

you've done is you start out all kind of

capable and roughly tufty and basically

[ __ ] goes wrong

i mean for real you know people fall off

like bikes breaks stuff and you then you

have to get that that's been what's made

those adventures you've been

on really interesting when we did long

way around you know

it it it that came from yoon and i

wanting to do a long

a longer journey right then one day you

and said lord got this idea and so i

went to his house and he had this map of

the world and

and he said look what if we go to you

know i know we were talking about maybe

china but what if we just carry on and

go to new york

yeah and so that seemed like a good idea

little did we know

what yeah what you're actually actually

doing and so when we did that we did

that then we did long way down through

africa

yeah um and then and then we've just

done long way out

and and you know it's been a long time

since since we

uh yes it's been a long gap yeah longer

it's been like um

i think there's been i think it was 12

years or something between them

and then in in 2016 i had a huge

um motorcycle crash and smashed my legs

into pieces

and um and that sort of brought us back

together again and we started talking

about doing a long way up

and then russ and dave who are business

partners and the two producers who are

in the

who are in the rivierans right as backup

vehicles for

for for this trip because they're

electric as well um

uh they came over and and

and then russ because he likes doing

things for the first time and he likes

all sorts of

stuff like that and he goes look no

one's done it before but what why don't

we

have we thought about electric and we

were yeah that's a great idea

and then it's cut to us and the bottom

of argentina in the middle of

well there's not a lot of plug sockets

there's no plug sockets in south america

central america or mexico i'm gonna get

dressed fully in everything that i have

to wear

because it's so cold outside okay so

here it goes

i'm under there long johns t-shirt socks

puffer trousers jeans

cardigan half jacket

it is the beginning of the adventure for

us we're not experts on electric

vehicles

we don't know the ins and outs of how to

make it work at the best

but we're going to learn gloves

waterproof trousers

with a proof jacket so we found

ourselves down there in the middle of

winter

and and one of the worst winters since

1974

or something like that so you really we

had to cancel it before we had to

phone it for like four days because of

blizzards and snowstorms

and then you and i then we came back all

this the cables these all these cables

how do you

plug them in if they were so new these

weren't for sale yet the rivians

had not barely been announced we had one

and two

first one wow the one two that kind of

ones that were

probably made and then uh and so that

was a steep learning curve for electric

because you know you know that electric

it doesn't like the cold so much

um you know batteries don't perform as

much and so we go yeah we're going to do

this we're going to do these miles and

we get out on that first day and we've

done like two thirds less right

then we've done a third less than we

thought and then we thought you know and

so was a

massive learning curve about all the

electric and

and not only that but we we'd have to go

to the end of each day

and and and asked someone to plug in

yeah and you know would you mind and and

you know and and we were thinking we

have to explain to them how much it was

going to cost and

you know all this kind of stuff but

really every single person we asked

you know was okay with this yeah

could you take a charge from them if you

were really desperate because they've

got obviously much bigger batteries

well we we developed a uh along with

rivien and harley davidson

we developed this thing so you know

riven to bike

so we had a box that that could do it

and fill

the bikes in about an hour just over an

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hour

it's quite useful me being supremely

ignorant about

combustion motorbikes so if you've got a

tank full of petrol in a bike that's

roughly this sort of scale and power

yeah

i don't know how far you can go on that

i mean i don't know yeah well i mean

if you if you if you have a uh an

adventure bike

um you know you can put enough fuel in

it to do

you know to do you know 500 kilometers

right or you know 300 miles right and

and so you know that gives you

whatever scope was this is you know with

the charge in the middle of the day

uh you know you're going to get a you

know getting 150 miles

or so out of it so you had to change

in the if you if you you ride it charge

it ride it that's 150 miles right yeah

so you so so what we would do we would

go along it was good when it was

hilarious or sometimes because

you go along to find some restaurants

you're not hanging out in petrol

stations anymore

you're hanging out in at cafes and

restaurants and

businesses yeah like we would say we've

got lights

yeah we see a garage and say can we plug

in because they're there

we've got power would probably be

stronger and then not only were we sort

of

plugging into these different people but

we're kind of plugging the bikes in but

we're plugging into their lives

yeah as well so suddenly you know we

would be in someone's business well

you're going to be there for much longer

yeah for coming up in three minutes and

then and then you would um

and then say oh listen come for some

lunch or we'd be invited to the house

and

and then suddenly you're you're sitting

there having this amazing conversation

with people and they go look look if

you're heading this way you've got to go

and see these people

you've got to go and stay there or

you've got it so so there was this whole

sort of

perpetual thing that went on that was

that was very cool because that's the

other thing i wanted

because you've got so much experience

riding bikes like combustion bikes so

that you know to

i don't know what that how it feels

different to ride an electric one i mean

i know i know about cars but i don't

know about

bikes yeah i mean i think i think i

think you know because you haven't

gotten an engine you haven't got the

vibration

you you there's more you feel more

connection to the road or different

connections in the road

um and one of the things we noticed as

well is when we were going along we

would pull over and there'd be a whole

herd of llamas just on the side of the

road and

because there was no noise you would

turn up they wouldn't they would go

anywhere right

and they would just sort of look at you

with those very voluptuous eyes that

they have

the big eyelashes your big eyelashes and

you're just looking you're blinking away

not quite sure what was going on but um

and then

so it's different you can you drive

through you ride through

through towns and villages and you can

hear everybody yes

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so i've been thinking you know just i'm

already i haven't even seen the show yet

and i'm anxious for you

i can imagine you riding on like desert

roads where do we charge

but then i have suddenly thought that's

i'm only thinking of the bikes because

you've got to charge the rivians as well

and you plug two riviens into a little

cafe

you're going to wipe away a yeah i know

so we did so

so along with with um rivian

they they teamed up with another company

um uh

uh and and and we've we've left this

whole phase two

um charging system every hundred miles

right

from the bottom of argentina to to uh

what you

said yeah wow so so anybody now

could do that can can do that so so the

rivien's had that but then

this is ccs so this is phase three

right so um we we could although we

could charge from them but it was just

like charging from a

normal battery a normal plug yeah so we

didn't benefit from it but but later on

we benefited from the from the

system so we spent most of our time um

charging yeah

one of the most really interesting

places we went to was was was costa rica

right and and beautiful stunning

stunningly beautiful place

but they do you know that the first

light bulb ever turned on in costa rica

was on

was was charged by renewable energy

right and

and ninety percent of their power is

renewable and do you cover that in this

show yeah yeah brilliant that's really

good

and they and they they don't um

they don't have a military no so the

money that they would spend on the

military they spend on renewable energy

education and i mean the really

interesting thing about

them is and i because my geography of

that area is limited but i've

interviewed

amazing women from costa rica uh is that

they've not got oil

and their neighbor and i can't remember

which it is does have oil and it's

completely corrupted the government and

it's made them

politically unstable and there's poverty

and starvation and there's incredible

wealth and there's massive corruption

they haven't got any oil and they're

kind of all right yeah

and they do it really interesting and

one of the places we and we went past

one of these big solar panel uh these

solar farms

and uh and we thought we'd just pop in

and and say hello

and so we popped in said hello and um

uh and we said would you would you take

us around because i hadn't i don't know

how that

sort of uh farm works i mean you see

them going down the m4

or you see them on the sides of the

roads and some of them are massive

yeah and um so they said yeah yeah come

in and especially since they saw their

lecture

and then they said come on let's we'll

plug you in yeah and so we're asking can

we plug in while we when we where we

have the tour so yeah

so so at that stage we were we were

plugged straight into the sun and

straight into the bike so it was a

fantastic

feeling

but but you know what was amazing was

was when we on our first day

in uh in america we uh we kind of left

late

um and we had quite a way to go and

we're thinking you know

you know we've only got uh you know

this amount of battery power we're not

going to be able to get very far

and we'd organized to stop at one of

these fast chargers

and and they were kind of new to us you

know we'd never

ever that was the first time you first

time we've ever used a rapid charge

yeah because when we gone down when we

go down to the bottom of argentina to

start this

you know you and i looked at the bikes

got them out of the crate and we

realized we'd only

ever ridden these bikes for about an

hour and a half right

and and had never charged them and never

done anything like that

nothing no nothing and so um because you

know they're all prototypes it just

wasn't time yeah

anyway so we get to this charge and we

put it in and

and you can literally see yeah the power

going in yeah

and and and i was i was laughing with

you because i said you know

this feels like it must feel like

someone who's just walked up to

um escalators for the first time yes and

thought oh my gosh

that was the feeling we had we had this

sort of this electric

dance we were so elated and then that

day

even though we left late that day we

still did 230 miles that day

and for us that was yeah right you know

from 150 miles a day to

to suddenly 250 miles a day that was

and that's super durable yeah oh yeah

absolutely and here

and here but thanks so much that's

really i'm really pleased you're back

here

in one piece and i'm yeah no we're

listening and i love

what you guys do i think it's fantastic

it's a it's a really good um it's a

really good uh youtube

right well we might get you if we get a

really terrifying

bike there's some terrifying bikes yeah

i'm looking for tubes yeah we'd love you

to come and have a go

no problem at all uh and i've got a

charger here now i've got your zappy

i've got my zappy yeah i've

put that in and and and um and thank you

very much for coming out no it's our

pleasure fully charged is a

it's a really god that's good really

nice there you go

watch for your charge next time when i

do one of the reviews on

electric motorbikes coming up quite soon

well that was an amazing opportunity for

us i really want to thank charlie for

talking to us today i want to thank uh

harley davidson who brought this

motorbike especially so we could

stand near it uh clearly it's rather

beautiful the uh

show long way up is on apple tv starting

on september

that'll come up in the lower third it's

really soon by the time you see this

it's probably already on uh and it's

gone on for 11 weeks and

i've seen the traders you've seen some

bits of it on this show it looks

truly amazing they really do they do go

out they don't like go oh

we'll stay in the posh hotel but make it

look like we're roughing it they rough

it it's really impressive

um so that's all as always you know

please do have a look at the patreon

link have a look at the subscriptions

have a look at the youtube memberships

all that stuff but most importantly

please watch fully charged and as always

if you have been

thank you for watching

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you