Bike Mags - which one suits you?

Redhog14

So I have tried a few different ones over the years here are my observations:

Cycling Plus - good for raising your awareness of kit and machines, not so good for serious journalistic content about cycling and racing
MBUK - similar to a above
MBR - slighty more grown up attitude to MTB world
PRO Cycling - a bit fluffy on serious topics but good insights to the sport

Thing is I like editorial content and opinion pieces and not journo's sucking up to manufacturers, no great surprise that the biggest advertisers in the mags always get good reviews.

What I get peed off about is the similarity of the pieces to that in unrelated magazines:

E.g. 10 ways to make you climb faster! (CP) v's 10 ways to the perfect Arran Sweater! (Knitting weekly or whatever)

What mags do you read including the above and why? What floats your boat? Or pumps up your tyres...

Ben6899

I like PRO Cycling for the rider interviews and insights. But I can also get all that from the internet. Magazines are nice for the train or to take on holiday, but the expenditure is difficult to justify at the moment.

Mark Bom

I sometimes pick up Cycling Weekly, but its generally reporting on what races happened the week before that I already know about.

The rest I can't really be bothered about, all this '10 ways to do whatever' is just crap generally and the product reviews are dubious...in my opinion!

Always intrigued by Rouleur and its ilk for the atmospheric photography, but wouldn't buy it.

Nuggs

Ben6899 wrote:

I like PRO Cycling for the rider interviews and insights. But I can also get all that from the internet. Magazines are nice for the train or to take on holiday, but the expenditure is difficult to justify at the moment.

Are we talking about cycling mags or p0rn?

Ben6899

Nuggs wrote:

Ben6899 wrote:

I like PRO Cycling for the rider interviews and insights. But I can also get all that from the internet. Magazines are nice for the train or to take on holiday, but the expenditure is difficult to justify at the moment.

Are we talking about cycling mags or p0rn?

P0rn? On the train?


Yeh I suppose I can see where the confusion comes from.

jswba

Rouleur can be a bit hit-or-miss but it's had some magnificent articles in there over the years. Robert Millar's article in issue 13 was amazing, for example, and there are usually some extremely insightful pieces in each issue (the piece about Magni in the current issue is a good read, and the piece on Germaine Burton is pretty interesting). Matt Seaton's always worth reading. And like you say, the photography can be superb.

There is some guff though. I find Johnny Green a pain in the rear, and some of the fetishising of framebuilders, tyre makers etc. can grate a little.

I do like some of the writers on ProCycling too -- Dan Friebe's an excellent interviewer and always writes something worth reading -- but the magazine does have a tendency to fudge the big issues, because it doesn't want to bite the hand that feeds (cf the Contador and Vino articles in recent issues).

Redhog14

I also have read this:

http://theridejournal.com/

which I get from a cool wee book shop on Edinburgh's Candlemaker Row (forgiven for having a fixie outside..)

all essays and great photography and graphics.

patchy

If you can get ahold of a copy of Aussie mag Ride Cycling Review, do so. It's superb.

http://www.ridemedia.com.au/

thegreatdivide

Lately I've been checking out http://www.roadbikeaction.com/

rick_chasey

Pro-cycling.

I'm a fan of future publishing magazines generally, and, well, I like pro-cycling.

I think cycling + is basically a concept with limited capabilities. There's only so much knowledge they can impart, only so many ways they can review kit that is increasingly similar in quality and price.

geoff_ss

I just get the CTC magazine, Cycle. I used to take Cycling each week years ago when it had a little variety but not now. I have picked up the odd one occasionally and it's full of information about new bikes which doesn't interest me unless I'm actively thinking of a replacement. I'm not an equipment junkie. Neither am I interested greatly in sport as a fan rather than a participant so I don't bother with magazines.

One of my other interests is aeromodelling and it seems many people are abandoning the magazines as repetitive and largely irrelevant when most of the information you need about new stuff is available on line via forums and commercial web sites.

I've been involved in several activities over my life and bought the magazines. I started with motor cycles, then sailing before I took up cycling (to get fit for sailing) and now I can't cycle as I would wish I play with toy aeroplanes. After a while all the magazines tend to repeat similar articles each year and they lose interest to long-standing readers.

MountainMonster

I read Pro Cycling and Dirt Magazine as they are the only 2 english language magazines related to bikes I can get in my town. I've come to really like both of them though.

MattC59

I like C+, as I find it makes good toilet or train reading.
I used to read MBUK (I have issue 1 kicking around somewhere) but I have found that in recent years it seems aimed more at the radical dudes, and focuses on freeriding and downhilling, rather than what I'd call mountain biking.
MBR is a bit better, when I can be bothered to buy it, and What Mountain Bike is ok, again when I can be bothered to buy it.

Other than that, I read a lot of articles on the web.

PostieJohn

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Cycle Sport.
I really enjoy it's overall view of the Pro scene, with some superb photography and excellent background/historical info.

jamm13dodger

Cycling active is quite good for a change of pace.

lemoncurd

Singletrack - if you like dirt
Pro Cycling - if you don't

mattshrops

pantyhose plumpers.


works for me

morstar

I like Cycling Weekly. It has it's knockers (no, not that type!) but I think it gets the balance of content about right.
Hutch is gold dust in my opinion.

Stiff_Orange

MBUK is for 14 year olds who don't actually ride bikes off road, but use phrases such as "gnarly dude", and hang around shopping centres, hopping up kerbs, thinking they are the next Dan Macaskill.
It tells people that unless it's you've bars 2 metres wide you can't ride a bike, and by fitting such bars it will turn you into Steve Peat. That is until next year when of course all cool and capable riders will be riding 30cm bars.
If it came down to a choice between reading MBUK and the "wit and witticisms of Gyles Brandreth" I would have to reach for the tome from the man in the silly jumpers, as the lesser of 2 evils.
You can't even use it in the smallest room as the pages are too shiny.

crumbschief

I read the Aggie Annual and i'm sticking to it.

CrackFox

Procycling, NZ Road Cyclist and Bicycling Australia. The latter is invaluable for Mark Renshaw's Master Class, in which the great deliverer himself teaches readers how to point at obstacles on the road and when to break wind in a bunch.