WATCH out for the mudcaked biker pulling into the lay-by ahead of you this week. It could be a Hollywood star revving up for a transglobal expedition.

Ewan McGregor, the Scottish-born actor, is road-testing different motorcycles around Britain in preparation for a real-life version of Easy Rider which will see him and a movie industry friend ride 20,000 miles from London through Asia and the frozen wastes of Siberia and Alaska to a heroes?? return in New York.

McGregor, 32, will unveil the route and details of his ??gap year?? venture in London later this week. He and Charley Boorman, the actor son of John Boorman, director of the backwoods survival movie Deliverance, will brave earthquakes, bandits and wild animals to complete the trip. They set off from London in mid-April.

But unlike the original Easy Rider, the film starring Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper as two hippies riding across America, each leg of the journey will be mapped from a state-of-the-art control centre in Shepherd??s Bush, west London, equipped with computer screens and satellite navigation.

The trip is expected to take four months with McGregor and Boorman pitching a tent along the way.

They have signed deals totalling ??1m for the book and television rights to the epic journey. But the money is not the motive; McGregor, whose latest film Big Fish was nominated for a Golden Globe but left off the shortlist at tonight??s Oscars, could earn much more by making another movie.

The star of Trainspotting, Moulin Rouge and the more recent Star Wars films is joining a growing trend for high achievers to take a gap in mid-career. It is becoming common practice in the City of London, where masters of the universe pause in their relentless rise to the top to enjoy their wealth.

Tim Martin, who trained as a barrister before building the JD Wetherspoon pub chain, is currently on a six-month sabbatical. He has been taking holidays in Cornwall, learning French and has even been spotted drinking in the rival All Bar One chain.

One British banker at Deutsche Bank in the City left work for a year to ride wild stallions in Pakistan, walk in the Alps and teach his daughter to speak German before returning to launch his own company.

Some have taken lessons from their children??s gap years and use the time to do voluntary work. High-flying women, in particular, take time off to teach English in India or work with street children in Brazil.

VentureCo, a company that specialises in organising gap years for teenagers, last year saw a 600% increase in bookings made by those aged 44 and over for holidays lasting more than three months.

A recent survey for Lloyds TSB found that more than a third of high earners said they had taken a year out from their career or had considered doing so. The figure rose to 60% among those under 34.

McGregor, who has also put a planned singing career on hold, said he and Boorman had been given ??gracious consent?? by their wives to make the trek.

The actor rehearsed for the venture by riding a Harley-Davidson Road Glide across America from Montgomery, Alabama, to Los Angeles after finishing filming on Big Fish.

Dust-spattered and oil-stained, he was turned away from a Holiday Inn Express in Oklahoma by staff who thought he might be a problem.

McGregor, who has been tipped as the next James Bond, said of the new adventure: ??It is a trip we wanted to do for many years and it seemed like if we don??t do it now we will never do it. There is just me and Charley and we will meet a camera crew every couple of weeks.??

He and Boorman, who played the boy kidnapped by an Indian tribe in South America in his father??s film The Emerald Forest, will also file a manuscript for a book chapter by chapter while on the road.

??I am excited about driving across Mongolia and setting up a tent somewhere and finding people who live a different life,?? said McGregor. ??I??m more fascinated about that than I am worried about any threats.??

Will he and Boorman cope if their engines seize up on the Mongolian steppes? ??We??ll have mechanic??s training, medical training and kidnap avoidance training. We??ll be trained up so we??ll be ready to go,?? he said.

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