[Closed] which bike mag is the best?

I find em all crap.

only so much can be written about bikes, hence why they are all repetitive boretastic.

Is this going to be a weekly question?

Genuinely, it's Singletrack for me.

I find that it has much less of a focus on products and much more on inspiring riding stories. I do occasionally buy the others (I like What Mountain Bike and MBR), but I do feel that I "need" some new stuff after having read those. 🙁

Used to love DIRT magazine until they ruined it and made it into an MBUK copy!

Probably Singletrack- rarely brilliant but consistently not terrible 😉 Dirt can still be great but not often.

MBR's had the best writing I can think of in recent years, their combined ride/interview/article things with Guy Martin and Crawfy were outstanding. But they've also had most of the worst.

Singletrack by miles. Looks/feels good. Apart from MTB (and football) I also enjoy photography, so Singeltrack uniquely ticks two boxes.

It's well written and tells of rides I can [mostly] only dream of as well as articles that strike a chord. The latter most epitomised by a piece titled 'Loose Talk Costs Rides', I never did explain to the not-quite-wife what I was laughing at with my head in my magazine!

None. They're all contradictory and probably get paid to write good reviews.

I stick with Dirt because I've been with it since issue 1. It's my kind of riding i.e DH and gnarly radness as oppose to STW's boring old mincers. Most of the time it misses the mark badly though. I find I get everything I need online now.

Is / was Privateer 🙁

Got to say it's Singletrack tbh. Appreciate it more the older I get!

[i]having had my own centre spread in mbr you would think I'd choose that.[/i]

swoon

ton - Member
I find em all crap.

only so much can be written about bikes, hence why they are all repetitive boretastic.

POSTED 10 HOURS AGO # REPORT-POST

There's so much to the biking scene than just bikes themselves ton, I think you need to open your eyes to it.

nickc - Member
having had my own centre spread in mbr you would think I'd choose that.

swoon

POSTED 8 HOURS AGO # REPORT-POST

Haha, yes, this was back in the day when I did most of my guiding, I was approached by a member of the mbr team, it was kind of like a mini biography encompassing some of my great expeditions

Anyway, keep your answers coming in, infact ask anybody you know that's into biking what they think about the best biking magazine, perhaps they use to buy them but now don't due to the recession, or perhaps they stopped buying them since online websites came along, whatever, it all helps toward my survey, thanks. 🙂

MBR. Good writing and the bike reviews have some reasoning behind them rather than pure subjectivity.

MBR is pretty good at the moment. Some months are better than others, their month by month skills thing was pretty good. Some months look like they've struggled to find the content while others are a bit dull. Either way, usually a good balance of reviews and columns.

the albion is my fave

Singletrack.
The Albion is good.
The rest seem to me, to be adverts and promotions.

I enjoy Singletrack but not always as much as I have in the past.

Occasionally I buy the US mag Switchback too. It depends on if I see it / if there is an article or two that capture my attention.

Probably Dirt for me, followed by ST and then MBUK. In a few years it may be ST but it seems to be aimed at a demographic older than me (despite being 38). I really like the imagery in Dirt and the stories are often more insightful than the mag is given credit for. MBUK is a dirty pleasure and an easy read.

Singletrack..

Just cancelled my sub to What Mountain Bike which probably had 1 or 2 good issues in 12 months of subscribing. It does seem to be aimed at an older rider, but picking up MBUK now and again in Tesco I struggle to see the difference. MBR is probably the best of the traditional monthlies (i.e part of large publishing group) and would probably be the one I would buy if I was stuck with nothing to read at the airport / on the train.

I used to subscribe to the (motor)bike mags and they suffer the same problem of recycling articles. You probably only ever need one buyers guide to pre-war Norton's, rather than one every 18 months. Same kinda repeated articles in music mags too. Far easier to buy the odd issue if there's something relevant to me in it.

'Ride and 'Spoke' on Zinio are ok for around a quid an issue. Singletrack and Dirt are ok. The rest are fairly repetitive.

TBH I don't think the Cycling mag (MTB, BMX, Road or whatever discipline) that I want to read, really exists at the minute...

I actually think the way forwards for cycling journalism (perhaps any writing on sports or hobbies) probably isn't the "traditional" printed monthly magazine anymore, I think online is the way to go more and more now.

Personally I want to read a more "eclectic" Cycling Magazine, I want to read about racing (of all disciplines) I want to Read about peoples trail building projects, I want to read about big touring adventures and BMX or DH road trips, I'd happily read a bit about peoples commuting experiences.

And of course I'd be happy to read a few kit / bike reviews...

But I think in an age where most of us can read about new kit and the latest news from around the cycling world on Bikeradar/ST/Pinkbike/RideIO/MTBR, etc instantly a publication which was put out as a smaller mag but more frequently would make sense a fortnightly, online only "e-zine", (formatted primarily to be read on 7" tablets?) and not limited to any one form of cycling, accepting contributions from just about anyone, anywhere in the world, so long as it relates to cycling... That would be just my cup of tea TBH...

Such a thing would not be easy, Printing and Distribution costs might be less/nil but I don't think it would work without good quality editorial control.
You read some of the current online "e-zines" and many are prone to just chucking everything in to a 100+ page pdf file, that actually bores you within the first ten pages. That is not the way to go, that's why I like the idea of one that publishes less volume, but better quality, and more frequently...

Probably on my own with these thoughts though.

WhatMTB for my morning toilet break 😀
Though I'd hardly suggest it was the best, and I haven't bothered look at any other in years. All I want is info on new kit, not interested in life interest stories (Sorry STW), and I know it's so marketing lead it's embarrassing (FFS, 650 are apparently the best thing this year.. really?). Really disappointed they dropped Steve Worland as a staff writer, but need some sort of bike related reading matter, even though they loop the same themes year after year (I like a magazine not a tablet to read, they aint the same).

MTB Pro

BunyanVelo is the only mag that appreciates the true nature of riding. The rest are merely consumer catalogues and 'how to play with your new toy for a couple of hours'.

: )

The Albion is by far the best. I don't get any magazines any more though, they're all full of the same crap most of the time, can get everything on the internet anyway.

None. I don't know which I hate more awful un-informed reviews, or some tw*t waffling on about whisky in a bothy and fat bikes.

The Albion is actually by far the best bike mag out there. How they can put out such a quality product for free while Privateer goes down the tubes at £9 a pop is a mystery. Or maybe not...

I sometimes get confused by the Albion. It can be a very dark read. Lots of stories of broken homes, drugs, sex and jail. Then I see a picture of a trick on a BMX and remember what I'm reading. Gaping disparity between the immaturity of the main subject and the reality of the people involved.

It's tough, all have things that annoy me. The big monthly magazines are so repetative, with the odd interesting article, and I can't stand ridiculously posed 'action' shots with people gurning and hanging off the bike at strange angles. I still enjoy singletrack, but not so keen on the recent focus on enduro racing. Although I like to read about people going on rides, I've rarely read a piece that is well written. They are generally very formulaic and packed with innuendo and boys jokes.

Best article I read was ST's own Jenn Hopkins writing about the Tour Divide in WMTB and then ST...not enough articles like that from her these days.

richmtbguru - Member

Haha, yes, this was back in the day when I did most of my guiding, I was approached by a member of the mbr team, it was kind of like a mini biography encompassing some of my great expeditions

That sounds really interesting, I have most of the backissues, what issue was it in?

DIRT

I still subscribe to Dirt - mainly because I have done for years and am too lazy to cancel the subscription. It's generally OK although Steve Jones is doing my head in at the moment with the whole wheel size thing. A fair few of his articles are pretty hard to read.

I subscribe to ST digitally because quite a lot of stuff doesn't really interest me and I do find it a bit repetitive with the 'epic rides' and travel features. Some of these do appeal but others don't. I also download the odd copy of IMB on my tablet - it's a pretty light read but I hate the skills section because I find the chap who writes it a bit annoying (I'm sure he's a loverly chap but for some reason his article annoy me so get skipped).

Other than that I hate MBUK, What MTB and haven't looked at MTBR in years.

I read a fair amount of stuff online and quite like Bike Magic. Pink Bike can be OK too but some of it is too rad for me bro. The main issue I have with a lot of bike content is that I don't really fit into a category as a rider - I just ride bikes. I prefer descending to climbing but I'm not really brave enough or talented enough to be a DHer, too much of a girl for freeride / big dirt jumps and not fit enough for XC. I just like mucking about on bikes basically.

Occasionally I buy the US mag Switchback too. It depends on if I see it / if there is an article or two that capture my attention.

+1

singletrack - whilst it may well encompas the riding I do, it's chuffing boring reading about yet another "3 blokes went for a ride, camped halfway round and rode back" article. The last artice I liked was a bivi one about 5 years ago where they listed every bit of kit they took between them with a mini review. It was actualy usefull having all the reviews for all the kit in one magazine. Rather than a review of a stove in isolation, great, but a) how does it copare to the other 5 or 6 options? b) I now have a stove, what about a bivi bag (wait 2 months for the bivi bag review issue). That and I just don't think it's that well written or the photographs that good.

Dirt - better than MBUK, not as good as it used to be (peaked just before/after the re-launch at issue 50)

MBR - repetative, articles seem recycled on a yearly basis. And their reviews are very all or nothing, there's always one stand out winner, no ambiguity or personal preferance, I've heard brands complain that their sales nose dive after getting 8/10 (and the inevitable spesh got 10/10) because there's no "buy this bike if".

I've stopped buying them regularly. I bought the anniversary issue of MBUK but that's about it in the last 5 years I think.
I have the following favourites on my browser bar:
http://enduro-mtb.com/en/
http://www.pinkbike.com/
http://dirt.mpora.com/
Along with stw, retrobike and the EWS site.

I think they're all up-and-down which is hardly surprising. The ones I read most often are Singletrack and MBR. MBR went through a poor phase, imo, under their last editor, but has improved considerably under the present one. Singletrack, conversely, I've not enjoyed as much the last few months as previously. I'm sure it will all come back round though.

I'd agree with the recycling of content though, particularly MBR on technical (maintenance) and route guides. And sometimes they're pretty lazy and haven't really got a big feature, just a compilation of small stuff, it sort of reminds me of those tv series like Mock the Week where the six part series is five plus an offcuts episode - like they'll run features through the year on trail centres, reviewing one per edition and then at the end of the year run a "big feature" on UK trail centres with a little summary box on each. Then I feel cheated.

At least MBR seems to have moved slightly away from the predictability of every single group test being about which bike is going to be runner-up to the Specialized.

Singletrack is the only one to which I subscribe, but I'll pick up some of the others if I'm bored. None really hit the mark for me though. In theory I like to read about new gear, but the total lack of any objectivity in gear reviews makes most of them unreadable.

There is a real gap in the market for a magazine that takes a more skeptical view of the latest trend. Not just rubbishing everything for the sake of it, but not leaping on every bandwagon that rolls past either.

There is a real gap in the market for a magazine that takes a more skeptical view of the latest trend. Not just rubbishing everything for the sake of it, but not leaping on every bandwagon that rolls past either.

MBR made me laugh with this - very skeptical of 29ers other than as a niche thing right up until they did a complete volte-face and declared them to be the future about five minutes before seemingly the entire industry did their volte-face and decided that 650B was the future and 29er was niche...

Magazines do have a hard job though, with their key stakeholders being the industry (advertisers) and the readership, and the interests of the two often being divergent - explains why the magazines seem to think that lights for riding at night have to cost many hundreds of pounds, and also why in the next edition they'll have a few letter from readers saying that's ridiculous, what about the cheap Chinese jobbies (that don't get advertised in their mags)?

Definitely Singletrack*. I've explained why on countless threads on STW over the years 😀

*but don't get cocky, it's still not perfect 😉

Actually, thinking about it, I'd have to also nominate the CTC mag (Cycle) as the one that comes closest to objective gear reviews. I might not agree with them but at least I can't always predict exactly what they'll say without reading them.

Singletrack for me - it has the most in-depth articles & photography. Not over-focussed on glam shots of products and bikes like many mags.

An analogy would be to say it is the Hugh Heffner publication of the bike world. MBUK now that is more like a Paul Raymond number - good for 5 mins & a quick read on the bog...

roverpig - Member

There is a real gap in the market for a magazine that takes a more skeptical view of the latest trend.

I'm always suspicious of advertiser influence - I like to see sites/mags that will give bad reviews from time to time. Simply not enough of that.

Would be fascinated to see a JD Power style reliability survey too - some kind of record of frame/component failures and the like, to gauge if the perception people have of some brands matched the reality. (I wouldn't buy a Yeti or a Trek, for example - but that's based one me encountering broken ones - my be that they break no more than others, but I just happen to have encountered more of them).

Both of these things are going to be affected by the big advertising dollar in the sky though, and that's where it gets tricky. Most of these mags would be £15 an issue without adverts.

" *but don't get cocky, it's still not perfect "

LOL! 😉

I don't comment on magazines any more. Last time I commented on ST mag I got a temporary ban from STW. :rolls:

I loved MBdoddyUK as a teenager in the 90's, don't buy it or WMB or any of those advert type ones any more.

Dirt is the only one that conveys the excitement of biking for me, and trying to read and interpret steve jones' prose will soon be a school exam subject, but it has gone awfully race focussed recently, which I can't really relate to.

There is a singletrack magazine too? Nah I've bought it twice I think and both times just felt it was a bit aimed at middle aged middle class, ron hills, urge helmet and beer gut with £4k bike rider. No offence to the staff, hats off for making an independent and unique mag, it just isn't for me, but maybe I should try it again. I like the format though, good photos an ting

Digital sub to dirt, occassionally pick up a copy of MBR.
The free digital ones aren't too bad; wideopen and the IMB ones.
There's agood little paper one which I think is produced in Bristol. Shred?

Last time I commented on ST mag I got a temporary ban

That's probably 'cos Mark is moody sod, who can't accept that his product ain't all that at times. 2K for a beginner bike FFS!!

I'd pay money for a paper copy of Wideopen and Enduro but reading magazines online doesn't seem to work for me

Dirt's great if you're fluent in 'Jones'.

More recently every Jones review seems to be entirely about how big the L and XL models are. (either that or there's a load more text printed in classic Dirt invisible ink on a purple background)

Northwind - Member

More recently every Jones review seems to be entirely about how big the L and XL models are. (either that or there's a load more text printed in classic Dirt invisible ink on a purple background)

Yeah, it's annoying, they keep getting themselves the wrong size, then whining about it.

Better still = Pinkbike's Ion 16 review. 5'9" reviewer got himself a large frame, and put a 35mm stem on it, "to put more weight on the front wheel". And then complained when the front wheel lifted a bit on climbs.

I remember an MBR review when they put a 140mm fork into an Inbred and complained it felt long and tall. As far as I can tell, this was because it was either that, or they'd have to give it a higher mark than the Orange they wanted to win.

I'm always suspicious of advertiser influence - I like to see sites/mags that will give bad reviews from time to time. Simply not enough of that.

I think that's not a problem limited to mountain bikes. I used to work for a small PC manufacturer (well, assembler really) back in the 90s and the review rankings with more than one magazine were directly related to advertising bookings e.g. book the inside cover (expensive) and win the "X Mag Pick of the Bunch award".

But the mags have to walk a tightrope with this - if their reviews lose credibility with the readership, they'll lose the readership, and without the readership the advertisers won't buy, so they have to try and keep both happy, which can't be easy.

My perception is that the bias is definitely there on who gets invited to submit bikes and kit for tests (and fair enough imo) but I'm not as convinced that the actual reviews and scores are "bent".

I buy Dirt the most, but none month on month. I cant get past the purchase price for something which is laden with adverts and adverts trying to masquerade as articles to part with my dosh.

edlong - Member

My perception is that the bias is definitely there on who gets invited to submit bikes and kit for tests (and fair enough imo) but I'm not as convinced that the actual reviews and scores are "bent".

If you've ever seen Dirt website coverage of Superstar stuff, you don't so much suspect that they're bent- you suspect Fruit's writing the website. I left some comments on the review and I was getting responses literally minutes later, in the middle of the evening, "We've checked with Superstar and...".

Are richmtbarse and bikeind actually the same person?

[img] https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/5098540288/h91AC5504/ [/img]

Are richmtbarse and bikeind actually the same person?

Where's this two page spread of his?

Singletrack is good (fawn!) I have stopped bying Dirt as I am sick of paying for a book of adverts. MBR ins't bad but I can't be the only one who thinks that Doddy out of MBUK is a cancerous polyp on the anus of humanity.

Have to agree that its annoying Jones is always banging on about sizing, I trust the dirt opinion but spending a chunk of an already brief and wee bit cryptic review lamenting that his above average height isn't fully catered for by bike manufacturers

Pook - Member

Where's this two page spread of his?

Don't worry, I think he's lost his copy but I'm sure we'll be able to find it once he gives us a bit more info on it.