Every bike review test with a specialized in it would have a mediocre review of the specialized but still manage to give it the top rating in that test.
Oh for quite a while it was a running joke in the industry - you'd see a list of 4 bikes on the magazine cover and if one was a Specialized, you didn't even need to open the magazine to know that it would win the grouptest.
Funny how everyone is agreeing that the demise of another print magazine is a bad thing and then in the next paragraph saying how crap MBR is. 😂
Reckon the two might be connected...?
Does anyone remember Maximum Mountain Bike? Was the first mag I ever bought, but can only remember there being 2 or 3 before vanishing? Would have been around the time Paul Lazenby started winning trailquests on a Marin Mount Vision (Pro?)
. Unless eMTBs dont count as MTBs in which case they are on a hiding to nothing if the biggest growth area in MTBs aren’t considered MTBs…
Well, kinda yeah. Adding a motor and then it sort of doesn't really become the same sport. But ignoring that argument, someone else was saying that they got fed up with it saying how they needed a 150mm bike etc. and I think the issue with the magazine was always it was so focused on one particular part of the sport. Mountain biking should cover a very broad spectrum of bikes, from XC races bikes to big travel downhill bikes and it fails to effectively do that. (And it currently over focuses on bikes with motors, which hold absolutely zero interest for me and my buddies)
But I do miss print magazines. In days gone past, you would have had seperate magazines for mountain biking and one for e-biking.
Also a bit torn between standard and e-bikes which meant quite a bit was of little interest if your not into e-bikes
This goes for any mag. One reason I don't bother subscribing to ST is the number of Ebike articles I'm genuinely not interested in.
I dropped them a note to say please ensure that my subscription is cancelled / no more funds taken after finding out that November was the last print copy. I was surprised when they replied that December will be my last magazine.
Seemingly MyMagazine didn't realise it had come to an end either.
I rang up earlier, getting a refund of £11! Seems like subscribers are being charged full cover price for the issues they have had.
Dirt magazine was great when it was full size with a glossy cover and had a few bikes tested per issue and a good fresh products section, then it changed size and you only got one bike tested per issue and the fresh products pages got less and less, down to none at all if I recall correctly, I stop buying it shortly after the change of size and lack of content, no doubt a lot of people did the same.
I take back my STW digital only comment. Just killed two hours in the pub waiting for my son and been chipping away at the previously unread 149 and 150.
Print is nice, the lighting in the pub could use some work for an old bloke reading small print though.
@garage-dweller glad you found time to read some print. Any highlights? (Or low lights, though tbh today could do without any more).
Mountain biking should cover a very broad spectrum of bikes, from XC races bikes to big travel downhill bikes and it fails to effectively do that.
September MBR:
Traws Eryri
Trail Advocacy
Skills
Hardtail of the Year £600-1000
New Bike Park
Obviously it's sunk without trace so wasn't what a large enough group of people wanted but it didn't come across as that narrow focused to me.
Sad to see another print mag go.
Danny and the team were always mega enthusiastic about stuff I contributed and the mag (as demonstrated above) has always had a strong mix of stuff, not just e-bikes. To be fair, the coverage of e-bikes is probably because that’s where the major development in biking tech has been in recent years, so that’s the new kit that manufacturers want tested and have sent to the mags.
Yes it was pretty Surrey focussed, but that’s because that’s where they’re based. Having said that, lots of the features were set elsewhere, with Sim Mainey (formerly of this parish) being a regular contributor covering the north and Wales, along with Mick Kirkman, myself and others. <br /><br />
In other news, I caught a glimpse of the latest issue of Singletrack over the weekend, and it looks bloody ace. Strong mix of features, and Amanda has done a fantastic job on the design 👌🏻
Bought the first ever MBR when it appeared in the shops, read it on and off for a while despite the writing feeling almost condescending at times but I think the last copy I bought was probably 15ish years ago when they tested a Trek Fuel (I think), it snapped at the chainstay and yet still achieved a 7/10 during the test. Zero loss to me but I could say the same about just every paper magazine I've picked up in the last 10 years... not read STW for 5+ years at least as it just became totally uninteresting to me, I have a copy of Performance VW sat next to me on my desk which is absolutely woeful these days and the few VW camper magazines I used to buy (and have had my van featured in) are similarly crap these days. Weirdly the only magazines I still enjoy a read of at the odd model railway magazine I pickup and Hayburner, a formally free aircooled VW magazine but which there is a pretty nominal charge for these days. The internet at your fingertips on a phone seems to offer what a magazine can offer + more for nowt...
Mountain biking should cover a very broad spectrum of bikes, from XC races bikes to big travel downhill bikes and it fails to effectively do that. (And it currently over focuses on bikes with motors, which hold absolutely zero interest for me and my buddies)
I think the danger is if you have 12 different bike group tests a year, you dilute the potential readership. So if you add e-bikes, 180mm bikes, dirt jump bikes, 27.5 bikes, etc to the list then that's half the year covering stuff I've no interest in, and probably going to lose subscriptions. Even worse if there's fewer issues/year.
At least MBR picked it's middle of the road <150mm niche and mostly stuck to it. It meant that each HT/100/120/140mm travel niche got 3-4 tests a year at different price points so even if a specific £2000 Trek Fuel wasn't covered, there was a £4000 one on the same frame, and some other £2k bikes with the same fork/dropper/group set/brakes to infer conclusions from.
Dirt on the other hand seemed to know it's readers and tried to sell them why they wanted an XC bike (there was a winner obviously, but it was a foregone conclusion that it would be the least-XC one), or an enduro bike, or a park bike etc.
If I was coming up with a fantasy magazine, it'd be Dirt, with more niche stuff. "Steve Jones goes bike packing with Sam Hill and Nigel Page", you'd have no idea of the hydrostatic head of the tents used, or the weight of the sleeping mats, but you'd at least get some rambling, unfiltered real-world opinions of them!
Dirt was absolutely brilliant - of all the "lost" magazines, thats the one I do genuinely look back on and miss having a trawl through, despite its tendancy to have tiny, dark blue text on black backgrounds at 90 degrees to the page etc! Maybe it was because it was around at the height of 4X and emergence of dirt jumping becoming a big thing - the early days of Identiti, DMR and Curtis etc... just all created a perfect storm.
I'll miss MBR. It was the first magazine I started reading back in 2001 - MBUK was a bit chaotic, What Mountain Bike too kit focussed and Singletrack hadn't quite come into existence. I can't say I've read any of them for a while as online content has improved, but MBR struck a good balance between day to day riding and interesting features, while MBUK felt like reading Max Power.
Dirt was by a long way the best, despite the reviews being useless, but MBR was always the one I came back to. MBR were also the first magazine to publish some of my work - they were friendly, approachable and open to new ideas. I'd approached Singletrack with the same idea and they said something to the effect of "as we have no idea who you are, we don't think your work will be good enough - go get published somewhere else then speak to us again". Which was a surprise, as their articles always felt the most homemade.
The language in MBR was always weird though, as crazy legs mentioned. In my article they inserted the phrase "back to Blighty" which made me sick in my mouth. Having said that, I bought the last issue of Singletrack and that used the word "dinky" three times in one review which had the same effect.
@munrobiker - whoops! Guess I shouldn’t have referred to the South Glen Shiel Ridge as a dinky wee hill in Scotland, nor my drive home as my return to Blighty 😬🤦🏻♂️. In my defence, I did ask if you wanted to read the words before I submitted them, but no, you wanted a surprise 🤣
😱🤢
You're welcome
I got into mountain biking in 2002. I remember buying an issue of MBUK around that time (after all it was the one mountain biking magazine that would be on every magazine rack in the country) and found it impenetrable, too full of in-jokes, jargon and seemingly more about dirt jump, free ride, downhill and almost anything that wasn't like the hardtail with 80mm travel forks I'd bought. It did make me wonder a little whether the whole MTB scene might not be for me.
Not long later I found a copy of MBR and I was quite relieved by its contents. It seemed to be written far more comprehensibly and reviewed bikes that while I couldn't afford them I could see myself wanting to own one at some point. The articles seemed to be about things I could relate to the sort of bimbling riding I was doing at the time.
As time moved on I did come to feel that MBR could be a bit samey and it had some strange biases/opinions (the Specialized thing amongst them), but it did seem like a generally accessible face to the sport. While it's a pity to hear that it's abandoning print, to be fair it has been many years since I last bought a copy so I can hardly be too upset.
I am still subscribed to the print edition of Singletrack but it's the only MTB magazine I get since WMB closed its doors.
In all honesty, I'm surprised it lasted so long - there was a rumour going round a few years ago that its publishers were not making any money on it but just producing it to stop people spending money on MBUK.
In ten years time magazines will be the new vinyl, and they’ll all start to be republished again but at £20 a copy
That's now - many of the serious mags are £10+
Physical magazines are seen as luxury items rather than necessity - the internet is seen as the necessity. Honestly can't remember the last time I sold a magazine to someone under the age of 40 and over 10.
Would love to know the age demographic of those that sub to the full print stw Vs online only subs Vs no sub.
What was the trails advocacy piece in September's MBR?
I’ll miss MBR. It was the first magazine I started reading back in 2001 – MBUK was a bit chaotic, What Mountain Bike too kit focussed and Singletrack hadn’t quite come into existence. I can’t say I’ve read any of them for a while as online content has improved, but MBR struck a good balance between day to day riding and interesting features, while MBUK felt like reading Max Power.
That's pretty much sums it up for me as well. Coming to biking in my late 20's it was the mag that talked about the sort of riding I was going to do on the bikes I'd ride. I had a file full of the route cards and we did a load of trips to destinations guided by them - before there was loads of stuff on the internet they were the main source. And, to be fair, if you're riding on legal rights of way their route library still stands up. Over a few years it guided me through a few hardtails, upgrades and onto full-sus. But I think that sort of mag has always been mostly for relatively new riders and that sort of info is more accessible online now,
Yes it was pretty Surrey focussed, but that’s because that’s where they’re based
I don't remember it being so Surrey focussed back in the day but I suspect expense budgets got ever smaller so more and more stuff done from base rather than a trip away.
Manon Carpenter's move from World Cups to Trail advocacy:
https://www.mbr.co.uk/news/storm-force-manon-carpenter-trail-advocacy-film-making-430161
Would love to know the age demographic of those that sub to the full print stw Vs online only subs Vs no sub.
Cant help with the stats but for an anecdote, I'm 33 and have been at this mtb thing for about 10 years. Never purchased a bike related magazine.
Happy to pay (stw online, trailforks) or endure adverts for free (pinkbike, enduro mag) for news, reviews, routes etc but I want them now, and more importantly I want them forever.
Say there is an 2024 enduro race bike grouptest. I don't want one now in October. Maybe I will next spring. Would I rather go straight to the internet and find such a grouptest, or remember that I read about one 6 months prior, dig through the box in the spare room or loft, find the right mag, and read it?
Or perhaps there is a route in the cairngorms (that the author rode over the summer) that sounds fun, do I/can I ride it this weekend? no. I could ride a Surrey loop or trails published 3 years ago before I was a member, and also start planning a Scotland trip for next spring, all from the comfort of my mobile phone.
I had a file full of the route cards and we did a load of trips to destinations guided by them – before there was loads of stuff on the internet they were the main source. And, to be fair, if you’re riding on legal rights of way their route library still stands up.
Going back quite a few years now, I did a few routes for Singletrack and it was tough work trying to find trails that were worth riding - not just boring old bog fests around a field - and legal and could be turned into a decent day out at 3 levels (easy/medium/hard). There were, quite naturally, areas of the country that were simply better at that than others but equally you didn't want to go repeating things year in year out.
The stuff I wrote was in the very early days of consumer GPS (and certainly way before Strava) so it involved a lot of work with OS maps, finding local knowledge and so on. I get the feeling that MBR didn't bother with a lot of that; I remember them doing a route in the Lakes and commenting that someone at one of the bike shops had raised an eyebrow about their proposal but they'd done it anyway and it was shit. I think it was High Street the wrong way (north to south).
I know for certain that they published the Bowderdale route (in the Howgills just north of Sedbergh) the wrong way round too because we were riding it the proper way (south to north) one day about a week after they'd published their route and we saw probably a dozen riders, individually or in pairs with MBR mapboards on their bikes following that route and complaining to us that they'd been climbing this amazing singletrack descent for about 5 miles. Just a complete lack of research or (in some cases at least) even a lack of riding it in the recent past.
Now of course there's no need for magazines to have routes in at all because Strava / Garmin Connect etc will generate a choice of routes for you in seconds no matter where in the world you are. No need to try and remember which issue the route was in, go through the back catalogue and cut out maps, it's all there online.
Where a magazine can work though, is in telling the story of the riders doing that route, the trials and tribulations they faced, the views they got, the performance of the bikes and kit they were using...
Speaking of routes, there was a brief spell when MBR were doing the absolute best route articles in the world- half route guide and half in-depth interview. There was one with Crawford Carrick Anderson riding in the Pentlands, there was one with Guy Martin, can't remember the rest but they were massive, 6-8 pages long, stacked with pics and detail and even if you never planned to do the ride they were still great reads. And probably relatively inexpensive to do, too.
Cant help with the stats but for an anecdote, I’m 33 and have been at this mtb thing for about 10 years. Never purchased a bike related magazine.
Happy to pay (stw online, trailforks) or endure adverts for free (pinkbike, enduro mag) for news, reviews, routes etc but I want them now, and more importantly I want them forever.
Say there is an 2024 enduro race bike grouptest. I don’t want one now in October. Maybe I will next spring. Would I rather go straight to the internet and find such a grouptest, or remember that I read about one 6 months prior, dig through the box in the spare room or loft, find the right mag, and read it?
Or perhaps there is a route in the cairngorms (that the author rode over the summer) that sounds fun, do I/can I ride it this weekend? no. I could ride a Surrey loop or trails published 3 years ago before I was a member, and also start planning a Scotland trip for next spring, all from the comfort of my mobile phone.
I get a lot of that. Its probably why I have a daily browse of pinkbike for news type stuff (but never use their forum etc) but use the forum here (but never look at the news type stuff on the front page here... which, like the example of the new SRAM motor, pinkbike were a few days ahead of STW AND included a bit of a ride review rather than just a press statement copied and pasted). And for news/reviews/articles, the internet has all those for nowt and to be fair, if I want a route idea I can ask here and within 30 minutes have numerous options. Who the hell wants to trawl back through magazines to find a single route from months ago???
like the example of the new SRAM motor, pinkbike were a few days ahead of STW AND included a bit of a ride review rather than just a press statement copied and pasted
Huh? There was an embargo on the motor, everyone had to post about it at the same exact time worldwide. And we did include our thoughts on it - it wasn't a straight copy and paste at all. We didn't even copy and paste what was provided and add our own info (which sometimes we do).
https://singletrackworld.com/charged/2023/09/srams-powertrain-review/
As for the STW mag, we're working hard at keeping it relevant. Our route guides have never been about the route - they're about the day out - and hopefully the few product features there are are more entertaining and informative than a multi-star guide to buying. Broadly speaking, the approach is that having read a product feature, you should be armed with knowledge you could use to chat about bikes down the pub - so you could hold a conversation about 160mm full sussers even if you've only ever owned a hardtail.
I don't think how bikes make you feel or how they change lives and bring new perspectives ever gets old - as long as you can bring new voices and perspectives to readers. I'm working on that! And for those that think they might have something to say, here's some more info https://singletrackworld.com/how-to-pitch-a-story-to-singletrackworld/
Umbrage well and truly taken, coming from a free member too, that's gotta smart.😀
Not a week after the demise of the mag that was "too Surrey focused" in its routes I notice there are two separate forum threads on the front page asking about riding in Surrey. Perhaps it was needed after all...
As with others here, used to love reading MBR. The first thing I ever won was a readers letter, which bagged me a Giro Helmet!
Later moved on to WhatMTB, I used to like the Steve Worland (RIP) features, but I've not read a print magazine for years.
