Bike Magazines
 

In my quest for info as I'm a bit new to all this I've bought a few different mags in the last couple of months. I wondered what peoples preferences were and why ....... TWO .... Bike ...... Superbike ...... MCN ...... etc etc?

Bike is the one for me. Seems to be written by people who know how to ride and write! The other mags just seem to irritate me (esp Fast Bikes). Haven't read MCN in years ... why is that?

NB I am not affiliated with any magazines, motoring or otherwise. :)

Yes .... I quite like the issues of Bike I've read ... also TWO. Ended up somehow getting Superbike by mistake. What an awful mag that is!

I always read BIKE cos it's well written and intelligent unlike some of the mags on the market. For me, T.W.O. RIDE and Performance Bikes would be best of the rest.

I get Bike every month cos Lynn got me a subscription for my birthday. I buy Ride every month myself. PB is better than it used to be, Superbike is just rubbish but had some good free stuff this month!

I dont buy any of the others.

I read PB for about 18 years, during which time it went from the dullest, to the funniest, to the worst bike mag on the planet.

At it's peak (the Steve Burns Spondon Turbo era :)) it was funny as ...... Unfortunately it followed FB down the lads mag on two wheels route and now barely scrapes in above MCN.

Ride's definitely the best of the bunch at the mo (imho), but it's a bit close to CAR mag for my liking, and tends to over do it on the ".05kg lighter and 1.0bhp more powerful" front. That's the problem with owning a duke, everything else looks s%&t by comparison!

I've given up on bike mags, spending my time reading Twist of the Wrist, dyno charts, fork re-valving FAQs and the obligatory parts manuals. :cool:

Ali

No questions - Motorcycle Racer.

If you've never seen it you're really missing out.

Other than that I'll pickup a copy of something that either looks interesting or has a decent freebie. I might read Bike occasionally - I used to subscribe - but I've kind of lost interest. I'll read Classic Motorcycle & Mechanics (or whatever it is that Mr Murray writes for) as his articles are usually quite funny.

I like biketoo...and Ride coz it's not limited to race bikes and bhp!:P (oh and also less women with larger chest's than me!):lol::lol::lol:

Racer, Classic Racer, and Bike-the rest are generally crap.

John

I gave up reading bike mags a while ago; when I realized that they were all biased. Maybe I’m just am old cynic but one only has to look at the amount of advertising space the jap4 spend between the covers to see why they get the extra %.
Ps. I used to work for a very large publishing house.
Rant over

I must confess that I get scootering every month too ......................... I've got a 1964 Lambretta for poodling about on.





[Edited on 5-7-2004 by hipshaker]

BIKE on subscription... then maybe one of the others if theyve got a useful freebie, but generally they're editorially awful. Bought SB this month as they had a bunch of freebies and a review of the MVF41k... ;)

generally go for the superbike/fastbike/performance bike route, against most people on here it would seem, but do like to keep up with latest bikes/gear etc even if im quite happy with everything i have.
naked women drapped over bike do tend to sway me too.
shallow? moi ?
:D

AAaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhh hhhh

:lol:;)

Never shallow ;)

I get annoyed with FBs, etc. If by some chance they somehow manage to take a decent photo of a bike (doesn't happen that often), there has to be a naked girl draped over it. I've no objection to this as such, but I like to put bike posters up at my office, to cheer myself up. In a multi-gender working environment, naked girl posters are a no-no (although that doesn't seem to stop the naked blokie posters going up). I've got a FB calendar up at the moment, with labels stuck over the critical areas. How ridiculous is that?

So, I'm now ranting about second-rate photography, sexism in the workplace, poor literary content of magazines, even worse editorial policy ... blimey, how did I get off on one this morning? Maybe I need a nice bimble and a pub lunch, instead of going to work.
:eureka:

MCN most weeks, dont know why its always the same! TWO most months, as it seems to offer the best all round info for me. Had a few others recently, with FOC dvds etc and found them absolute pants! And all they do is rehash MCN from previous weeks! I would guess most of them are owned by the same people, as they seem to have very similar writing and photographic styes.

We normaly just get toilet paper from Tesco as the magazines are too shiny and MCN leaves print in the bog.

Another MOTORCYCLE RACER fan here.
As for most mags, well I just can't be bother to read how good/better the latest R1 etc is over and over again.
Ali's comments about PB are dead right.
I do tend to read MCN, but don't thinks it's all that good.

Bike, MCN and Superbike. Bike because i feel gives a good bias report, more than most, we all know no mag will say a blade is rubbish, because honda will pull their adverts, i believe summat CAR did in the early 80's about a ford, and ford pulled their adverts, serious cash. Superbike, because it's funny, light hearted and not serious as the others. MCN, because sumat to read at lunchtimes. All except mcn delivered by postie. :D

Fast bikes has gone down hill big style, so has PB, TWO same as Bike.

All the above (apart from MCN) spend their life on the bathroom and cloakroom floor for quality reading time on the......... :D

Mags
 

Subscribe to T.W.O. and RiDE and buy MCN for the sport reporting each week.

TWO has a bit of everything for everyone and Ride has good tests, but it does hack me off a bit when every radical sports bike is marked down because it's uncomfortable - horses for courses!!!

G

I think £3+ is too much too spend on something which is predominately full of adverts.
My local market has a stall which sells magazines which are one or more months old for 60p each or 3 for £1.50.
A good read can be had for £1.50.

Bikesport News on subscription (for club race coverage and classifieds)

Motorcycle Racer for the photography, mostly, but all around good mag.

MCN for the up-to-date (albeit somewaht marginal) race reports.

Not that I am into motorcycle racing, or anything...;)

Subscription to BIKE, great mag and really useful "Really Useful Section" too! :P I do like the product reviews too, and I think BIKE has the best reviews.

My girl usually buys TWO mag, so Itend to give that a good flick through when I'm on the throne.

MCN when my hands are too clean.

Felix - please tell us more about Bikesport News, there is a big hole in the sports press for club & national racing. This seems like it might be the mag I need.

Thanks
Steve

I subscribe to MSL and occasionally buy, Bike, TWO or Ride if I want to see the ads. :P

I buy all of them except Fast bikes which is plain rubbish and hard to read.....................oh yes and MCN, also have a subscription to classic bike.

Really think it depends on who's the editor of the respective Mag at the time as some have gone from brill to cack and back over the years.

i grew up with bike mag under the leadership of mark williams (excuse 1 fingered typing as wife is snuggled up under 1 arm after bbq)

bike mag in the early days was far more radical than say fast bikes under colin schiller.

bike is prob current fav follwed by pb.

bike mag articles inspired me to many escapades over the years, from the bol d'or to riding thru yugo, greece and onto africa. it was these articles that made me go 'wow' gotta do this.

i think bike mag peaked under willis and macdairmid in the 80's before declining b4 the resurgence to its curent peak.

as for journalism, i did a 8 page article on a trip to the bol on an st4s in northern biker and it promptly went bust so please don't take any notice of a 1 fingered drunk like moi:lol::lol:

as 4 upsetting advertisers i know of a few funny stories where people have have pulled advertising, or peeps have got the boot 4 upsetting the status quo by calling a **** a ****.
overall as a good alround read with a bit of everything at present it's bike mag for me, sorry to follow the herd, but tim thompson u can send the cheque to the usual address at fawlty towers:lol:

I was just looking at a few of the mags I've bought in the last few months. Bike and TWO seem to be the best to me.

If you ever wondered what happened to Mark Williams...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0...243552,00.html

Quote: "Behind the Crime: Love or Money, a documentary about Mark Williams and white collar crime, is on Channel 4 on July 8."


[Edited on 7-7-2004 by antonye]

I read RIDE, but some of their test, you know they get 'paid' to say certain things, so pointless really..

I read BIKE too sometimes, that's good, and I like T.W.O also, perhaps that's best for both genders too... needless to say I can't stand the ones that seem to be full of half naked girls, and swearing all the time.. even their news pages have nothing interesting to say, just pants...

The only problem with bike magazines in general, as I'm sure our very own Mr Murray will point out, is that copy has to be written many weeks in advance and by this time the news will have been covered in MCN and on most bike-related websites.

I always think that reading magazines like TWO and DiRE is similar to being spoken to as if you know nothing about motorcycles whatsoever and find it incredibly patronising. I understand that they have to find a common ground to fit with their very wide readership, but I just don't get anything from it.

I really rate Dan Walsh's articles in Bike as some of the best travel writings in print - not just in motorcycling magazines. Very interesting, very informative and always something to relate to.

Other than that it has to be Motorcycle Racer for their excellent photography, in-depth reviews of REAL racing bikes (not just the latest ZYXRRCBF1XXRY-SP) and interviews with racers and the series organisers themselves.

Oh dear - lightweights here

We get TWO sometimes, AK gets streetfighter sometimes, and MCN appears about once a month I think.

and I get Horse & Hound weekly:lol:

C

ha ha Charlotte, you been watching Nottinghill? :) :D

ha ha Charlotte, you been watching Nottinghill? :) :D

ha ha Charlotte, you been watching Nottinghill? :) :D

oops sorry, didn't realized i'd done it 3 times, wondered why it wasn't working.. oops :frog:

No need to rub it in Mel!

We just spend more time out on the bikes than reading about them!:frog:

C:smug:

by the way CK - you been watching Notting Hill?:D

Subscription to T.W.O. - knowing what Niall MacKenzie thinks of the latest road bikes is worth it for me. Best mag of the lot.

Bike most months - honest and seemingly unbiased reviews. Seems to be a bit more 'grown up' than the topless kids jazz mags of PB, FB etc.

MCN every week - for up-to-date news and the sports reports. Always have a nose through BikeMart too to get a feel for used prices on everything.

Where do you buy Motorcycle Racer? Don't think I've seen it in the shops..