Long Way Round: London to New York

Early in the ride the riders stopped at the Church of Bones, one of the sights the team visited on the way east. The Gothic church was built around 1400 in the middle of an abbey cemetery, with a lower chapel to hold bones from mass graves. In 1870 the woodcarver František Rint was hired by the Schwarzenberg family to put the bone heaps into order, and the decorations you see are his work. The documentary shows McGregor and Boorman stopping to see it.

The journey also promoted UNICEF, and the team visited some of its projects. In Mongolia's capital they saw an outreach project working with street children living in the heating systems of apartment blocks. McGregor was charmed by a young orphan girl, whom he and his wife adopted after production; she is named Jamyan McGregor. Ulaanbaatar was also where Von Planta's welded bike was shipped home, and a Russian-made IZh Planeta, bought for about US$1,000, replaced it.

Location precision: The sources name the city and the outreach project, not its address; the pin marks central Ulaanbaatar.

In eastern Siberia the riders took 580 miles (930 km) by train to circumvent the Zilov Gap. The gap was a stretch of the Siberian highway left largely unfinished until 2010 and notoriously difficult in the mud seasons, and covering 300 metres could take as long as three hours. Before reaching it the riders had watched Austin Vince's film Mondo Enduro and called him for advice. The highway was paved, gap included, in 2010.

Location precision: The gap is a stretch of road, not a point; the pin marks the village of Zilovo.

The road to Magadan took the riders through deep and swollen rivers, many without functioning bridges, so the bikes sometimes had to be loaded onto passing trucks to cross the deepest ones. The Kolyma Highway was built by gulag labour from 1932 until 1953. It is widely claimed that many prisoners were buried beneath it, but documented sources have yet to confirm this with evidence of remains. Today it is a frequently maintained all-weather gravel road.

Location precision: The highway is hundreds of kilometres long; the pin marks one point on it.

At the end of the Road of Bones the team visited the Mask of Sorrow, called the Mask of Grief in the show. The monument stands on a hill above Magadan and commemorates prisoners who died in the Kolyma gulag camps. Tears fall from the left eye as small masks, the right eye is a barred window, and inside is a replica Stalin-era cell. It was unveiled on 12 June 1996. From Magadan the team flew to Anchorage, Alaska.

In the United States the riders visited Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, one of the landmarks the team chose to see on the way across the country. The sculptor Gutzon Borglum oversaw the carving from 1927 to 1941 with the help of his son Lincoln. The granite memorial shows the heads of four United States presidents, each about 60 feet tall, and it draws more than two million visitors a year.

The trip ended on schedule on 29 July 2004, after a cumulative 18,887 miles (30,396 km) through twelve countries. The riders rode into the city accompanied by a phalanx of bikers, including McGregor's father Jim and the Orange County Choppers crew. Not every mile was on two wheels: the only sections not undertaken by motorcycle included the 31-mile (50 km) passage through the Channel Tunnel, a train ride in Siberia and the flight from Magadan to Anchorage.

Location precision: The sources say they rode into New York City but name no finishing spot; the pin marks central Manhattan.