With the obvious exception of Singletrack 😀 are there any other good mountain bike mags out there? I’m getting bored of reading the same recycled product reviews and articles in the usual suspects. I don’t like reading that my “great” bike from 3 years ago is now “poop”, since it makes me forget to ride it. When of course I do ride it I remember that it is great still. I do like reading about great places to take a bike though, since that always gets me on my bike. Yeah, yeah, I know I shouldn’t need any mags to inspire me to ride, but every man needs something to peruse whilst on the loo.

Also, I think *sniff* I’m too old for these young whipper-snapper mags. In my day you read an article using words on the page. Now the words seem incidental to the snazzy pics. Don’t get me wrong, I like a few good pics but I like something to actually read too (strange how this also applies to other “special interest” mags!)

DIRT, although its definatley biassed towards the pics since it went monthly.

And the columists are personalities (with a few exceptions) rather than middle aged grumpy men.

Tried dirt and didn’t really like it. (old man warning) I couldn’t tell the difference between the ads and the articles!

There are no other good magazines out there.

Hence, I assume, Chipps starting Singletrack.

Well done to you then Chipps. I guess I shall look forward to my issue dropping through the letterbox monthly one day…hopefully. Truly, it is the best MTB mag by a country mile

Try them and see what you think.

MBUK is a surprisingly good read if you can get past the baggy jeans and grimacing.

I’ve tried most of them. I read MBR for ages (free waterproof with subscription!) until I realised it was as dry as a packet of Jacobs. I still buy MBUK quite often and I do quite like it, but it and What Mountain Bike are very guilty of re-hashing old articles. If you’ve read either of them for a full year you don’t really need to bother again. To be fair to MBUK they have got better recently, particularly with the articles on biking around the world, but they’re just too short. I guess this is the “soundbite” generation we live in. Honest, I am under 40 🙂

In no particulate order:

Dirt
The Ride
Razzle
Wizzer & Chips
The Eagle

Pretty much agree, now I read STW, ocassionally Dirt some excellent articles a couple months ago on races around the world, avoid MBR like the plague dull uninformative, what mtb ditto but buy once a year and MBUK well okay on a given day. Problem is most bikes well ride like bikes, generally not many ‘bad’ designs around now, e.g klein mantra fisher level betty and so on, so you can only write so much I would guess. Oh shred online like that….

I like the US mag “Bike”, in some places here in London but not seen it for a while, it used to be at WH Smiths in bigger branches.

I read STW and MBR, sometimes bu WhatMTB if on a plane. I used to save them all and then realised I had masses of old bike mags I never really read just sat on the shelf. I recycled the whole lot and threw away a complete collection of STW from issue 1 and MBR (was MTB Pro I think before) back about 12 years.

I still enjoy reading bike reviews of bikes I will never own or ride, same for bits of kit.

I am sure Chipps won’t mind me recommending Dirtrag from over the pond.

dirtrag

If you want a free copy before subing-up to them, give me a shout, I have a old copy you can read.

my email is in my profile stilltortoise

I must admit it is nice when a “10 out of 10” bike that you aspire towards – but never ever buy – plummets to a lowly 7 or 8 in the following season when the latest, greatest spangly brand comes out. Looks very much like Lapierre are this year’s Commencal in terms of good reviews. Are bikes really getting that much better year-on-year?

VTT the french mag, is pretty good. Try to pick it up whenever i’m in Frenchland.

It covers a lot of the crazy euro stuff that we don’t get over here.

VTT the french mag

Surely that is a joke…
Test are piles of poo, the best bike being the one from the brand that sponsors Sam. The quality of the writing is amazingly poor. Plus there is no such thing as a bad product.

The “whatever they are testing” will always be one of the best or one of the lightest etc etc etc…

Plus it’s clearly orientated toward XC/jey-hey… The only races that gets good coverage are the one that have subscription inside the mags…

And I could still rant a lot about that.