Mmm, a couple of £1k XC oriented hardtails and a £2.5k FS trail bike.
Guess what wins as the best bike for trail riding?
And yes, yes, yes, I know you don't have to read the mags, it's a free world, blah blah blah.
It might help if you could tell us the bikes. 🙄
😆
Didn't know WhatMTB was still in print. Are they still filling up 1/3rd of the mag with that idiotic "buyers guide"?
I bet it's not a "Clown Bike."
The only reason I still bother to read it is that I can get it free from Tesco with the loyalty points thingy. It's bearable for the length of time it takes to squeeze one out in the toilet.
Saracen?
I have given up reading all bike mags.
I bet they're gutted.
Do you really need a bike magazine to tell you what to buy?
I get WhatMTB to shows me the pretty kit, without being drowned in the "bike lifestyle" crap of other magazines..
It's not a S*********d is it? Oh, sorry...wrong magazine.
What mtb= Orange fanbois
I remember the so called "Adventure Bike" test a while back, the winner was an Orange Five, 😉
I've nothing against Orange bikes BTW, but I tend to treat bike magazines with disdain these days. Whatever I'm thinking of buying, someone here has ridden it/broken it/dismantled it.
PJM1974 - MemberI remember the so called "Avdenture Bike" test a while back, the winner was an Orange Five,
That was total genius. "As long as your idea of an adventure is riding at trail centres, this is a perfect adventure bike!"
Still not as bad as MBR though. "The brakes don't work. The rear end is flexy. It's too expensive. And the rims are too narrow. 10/10" and "This is a £2000 bike test, so we've taken the £1900 Five and spent £450 on extras to take it over budget, and now we're going to give it a good mark specifically because of those extras".
Id rather read the yellow pages !!
WMB and MBR are proof that the mountain biking community need their own version of Sniffpetrol.com
I've seen some MBR tests that just don't make sense. It's obvious which hitherto niche manufacturers have poured a lot of money into their marketing budgets...
Maybe they should bring in a system of peer review for magazine reviews.
No need. Every month someone at WMB always phones their opposite number at MBR and says "next month we're doing a big feature on cranks/saddles/handlebars/etc. Make sure you don't do exactly the same thing as us, that would be really embarrassing".
What MTB is just a dumping ground for all the tat that gets sent to the future publishing office to get some coverage and keep the advertisers happy.
And your review rating is a direcet correlation on advertising spend - FACT!
so when you read reviews anything that is distributed by the CRC family will get a good review as they pay their wages.
END!
bland - MemberAnd your review rating is a direcet correlation on advertising spend - FACT!
so when you read reviews anything that is distributed by the CRC family will get a good review as they pay their wages.
Brant got upset when the Nukeproof lights got a slagging, and CRC/Hotlines were the biggest advertisers in that month's mag. Certainly not the only CRC product to have got a poor review.
Tsk, wake up.
Where do you think the revenue comes from to run this forum?
They'll be writing the October issue now, which is an ideal time for a summer tyre grouptest.
Lets each do our own version then.
Each persons bike would of course get 10/10 though, since we spent our hard earned cash on it and dont like to admit we bought a crap bike, or that our riding style is crap 🙂
And the winner is the Orange Five! 😉
If your cycle commutes involve a certain amount of trail centre riding then this is the perfect bike for you.
[edit - I've never actually ridden an Orange Five]
And the winner is the Orange Five!
Don't get me started on that old WhatMTB test - "what is the best allround bike?" - must have all braze ons, mudguards, racks, easy to fix in Outer Mongolia, etc. etc. so they had various 26" touring type bikes (Thorns etc.) and a random Orange 5 - funnily enough the Five own because it was most fun on the trails even though it failed almost every measure of what constituted an 'all-round' bike.
This months test IIRC was an On One Whippet, Exotic Carbons frame with some stuff stripped from a Trek, a Cube (all around the grand mark, proper XC hardtails, barends etc. with 100mm travel forks) and a Scott Spark at £2.5k. Think the test was entitled something like "is cheap carbon frame any good". So no, as the expensive carbon bike won...
So it was the Scott that won then?
So it was the Scott that won then?
Yes, the full suss Scott at twice the price was declared better than the cheap XC hardtails. But I'm spoiling it all for you now. Get yourselves into WHSmiths....
was there an advert for said brand on the opposit page or anywhere else in the Mag? i'll bet there was!
It's up there with "MBUK in excessive use of the word 'stoked' shocker".
There is a disclaimer that whatever is advertised in their mag as no influence on the result of their test. So are you ready to sue them then?
highclimber - Member
was there an advert for said brand on the opposit page or anywhere else in the Mag? i'll bet there was!
To be fair (on STW!) that's pretty standard advertising practice irrespective of review impartiality.
It's a little more subtle than that I think. A certain mass market manufacturer of front wheel drive hatchbacks who habitually wins Eurpoean Car of the Year has a reputation for blacklisting journalists who slag their products off and ensuring that they don't get to test the supercars that are built by an closely related group business.
was there an advert for said brand on the opposit page or anywhere else in the Mag? i'll bet there was!
Funnily enough a couple of pages after there was an exclusive low down two-page spread about the 'new' Scott Spark frame which for all intents and purposes is a double spread advert on how good Scott are....
That test of the "adventure" bikes was the last straw as far as I was concerned - not bought an edition since.
Strangely however they don't seem to have noticed as there's been no grovelling apology or anything. It's almost as if they don't care...
Next week it'll be another manufacturer who all of a sudden pops up with a bike that will turn you into Julien Absalon. I reckon they'll be niche and French. We've done Sunn, Lapierre and Commencal (yes, I know they're Andorran, but the bloke who owns them is French). There's room for another Gallic brand.
They'll also proclaim that £950 Fox forks are a "bargain" and will predict that not only will your wife/dog/employer ditch you but that your friends will no longer acknowledge you in the street unless you're riding with ten speeds and a dropping seat post.
Funnily enough a couple of pages after there was an exclusive low down two-page spread about the 'new' Scott Spark frame which for all intents and purposes is a double spread advert on how good Scott are....
Shock Horror!
There is a disclaimer that whatever is advertised in their mag as no influence on the result of their test. So are you ready to sue them then?
I don't believe a review can be completely unbiased when a big company like Scott pay you for a large advert and you have one of their products on test.
I believe if a brand does not pay for any advertisement in any mag, that brand will die. If you do an ad, the flasher, the better.
edit - I've never actually ridden an Orange Five
Pretty sure that could be said by some of the reviewers in some magazines; not sure it relates to whether you can award it "Bike of the month for riding down your stairs at home".
breatheeasy - MemberThis months test IIRC was an On One Whippet, Exotic Carbons frame with some stuff stripped from a Trek, a Cube (all around the grand mark, proper XC hardtails, barends etc. with 100mm travel forks) and a Scott Spark at £2.5k. Think the test was entitled something like "is cheap carbon frame any good". So no, as the expensive carbon bike won...
You must need a run-up to miss the point that badly 😕 They all got decent marks, and the article concludes "Is it worth buying a hudget carbon frame? Yes". But don't let that get in the way...
The scoring includes a value consideration so the Spark didn't just take the win by virtue of being most expensive. The comparison throughout was with metal equivalents, it wasn't a 4-bike head-to-head. The On One and the Exotic both got the "value" prize as well.
And what do you mean "the expensive carbon bike won..."? The Spark's a budget carbon full suss, £2300 for a complete build is not an expensive carbon bike by any means.
I stopped reading What Mountain Bike when they started writing about "bikes you should aspire to own".
The Spark's a budget carbon full suss, £2300 for a complete build is not an expensive carbon bike by any means.
Well considering that 'cheap' Spark only has an carbon mainframe and an alloy build out the back for suspension duties it's pushing the boundaries of exactly what a 'carbon' bike is anyway.
That's a fair point. Though they do make it clear in the article.
Similarly i stopped reading MBUK when they told me i should be eating beans on toast and this is how to cook them....
Since the content never seems to change much I just keep a copy of June 2009 WMB in the bog which I skim through once a month. The money saved pays for my Razzle subscription.
I might start doing the same with MBR and spend that on malt loaf.
Edit: Or maybe Haribo.
Going back a few years I recall a letter to WMB from a lady reader, new to off road biking who asked for advice on a beginner's hardtail. The response was a walll of jargon:
[i]"...a manipulated M4 frame with curved seatstays..." [/i]
*facedesk*
Bought MBR a couple of weeks ago, *hangs head in shame* and was quite pleasantly surprised, the format seemed to have changed and quite surprisingly Specialized was beaten by 4 of the 5 bikes it was up against!! 😯
Well considering that 'cheap' Spark only has an carbon mainframe and an alloy build out the back for suspension duties it's pushing the boundaries of exactly what a 'carbon' bike is anyway
My Genius is like that (as was the Strike I had before it). Seems to fool lots of people that it's a carbon bike.