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Have to say that I agree with a lot of what SFB has said. As I mentioned in an earlier post I will reserve final judgement until I see the next issue but from what I have read so far I'm not holding my breath!!
just have to say, whatever simon said about the new comic has no interest to me.
i no longer buy bike comics.........they are all dire as far as i am concerned.
i was just commenting on simon saying he had no interest in bikes........which he obviously has....... 🙄
I'm willing to bet that he won't know the make/model of half the components on his own bike
not exactly true as I have to know what to buy when they wear out. But this is pragmatism, not interest.
i suppose you dont like ladies arses either
it's just your day for being wrong isn't it [b]ton[/b] ?
So the new magazine is shite then?
Could it be that there is a really small pool of folk that write about mtbing and we have reached saturation point for their output?
So the new magazine is shite then?
it's not as simple as that. It's nicely produced (once the smell goes). I would say a lot of effort went into making it, but perhaps they got so wrapped up in the mechanics of production that they forgot about the content and kinda sleepwalked into doling out simultaneously condescending (to us) and sycophantic stodge. Brant was entertaining in a scatty way. Jenn's Megavalanche may have been good but I didn't read it. The retrobiking held a kind of grim fascination, reminiscent of "Embarrassing Bodies" - I read it with incredulous raised eyebrows...
I don't really notice what bikes people ride either.
I think folk confuse bikes and biking. For me at least, riding is about what happens between your ears and the people you ride with, the kit is secondary to that - I find a lot of current magazines unsatisfying because they seem to put things the other way round and everything is about upgrading parts and finding 'the right bike' that will 'transform your riding'.
Of course it's much harder to write well about riding and I don't think it's easy to write well about anything to start with, so I guess it's not that surprising that really good mountain bike prose is in short supply. I kind of hope that Privateer will fill that gap. But I haven't read it. And it does seem quite expensive.
I sometimes think that the deeper people are immersed in an activity, the harder it is for them to see the big strokes. One of the best books about climbing I've ever read was actually written by a non-climber. It's called Summit Fever and it's by a Scottish poet and novelist called Andrew Greig. He has a head start because he writes quite beautifully to begin with, but what makes the book, is that he's far enough outside climbing and the whole mountaineering community to see the big picture and the things about an expedition that the participants now take for granted.
The end result is an incredibly perceptive dissection of the social physiology of a group of ultra-competitive climbers that tells you more about mountaineering than any number of 'classic' expedition accounts.
Without that perspective, you're just lost in a mirror.
Anyway, not saying that people shouldn't write and read about kit and kit history, but for me the bike is integral and coincidental at the same time.
Hmmm... I think I'll go to bed now 😐
but for me the bike is integral and coincidental at the same time.
fantastic! Well said!
Here's my analogy. I like to **** women, but at least as much I'm fascinated by them, the way the look and move and think their own ideas, often in marked contrast to my own thinking, they surprise and enthrall endlessly, and they can be kind enough to return the fascination. A bike is nothing like that. It's a lump of inert stuff, it has no thoughts, no preferences, it doesn't care if I live or die, the best I can expect of it is that it totally efface itself from my awareness so I can concentrate on the experience, shared with other people. People matter, some people anyway, things don't.
But actually I love my bikes because they're what enables me to ride and I have real affection for them because of that. But it's because of places and people and feelings - they can be inanimate things and repositories for emotion at the the same time.
It's like the whole of people obsessing over scratches and dents, they're just war wounds, tangible memories of rides. Shininess and perfection sucks. It's an illusion. Reality is broken and shaded and has scratches on and I wouldn't have it any other way.
the best I can expect of it is that it totally efface itself from my awareness so I can concentrate on the experience, shared with other people.
So do you not ride alone, ever?
Oh, and women are just people...
also quite true 🙂
So do you not ride alone, ever?
in the last 5 years just once, before Xmas last year when no one would risk driving in the snow:)
[url= http://www.bogtrotters.org/rides/2009/20dec/DSC_0618_.jp g" target="_blank">http://www.bogtrotters.org/rides/2009/20dec/DSC_0618_.jp g"/> [/img] [/url]
Reading SfB's essay ( 😉 ) I have to say that the fears I posted above (about Privateer being an expensively produced version of ST) appear to be true.
Could it be that there is a really small pool of folk that write about mtbing and we have reached saturation point for their output?
I think so, coupled with there not being enough for these people to write about.
in the last 5 years just once, before Xmas last year when no one would risk driving in the snow:)
Still, at least you found a friendly tree. I like both, all three in fact - solo, trees and people.
Reading SfB's essay ( ) I have to say that the fears I posted above (about Privateer being an expensively produced version of ST) appear to be true.
Maybe you should read it yourself before jumping to conclusions based on someone else's preferences? This is a man who seeks out trees when he can't find people to ride with after all 😉
BWD - I have it and fully intend to read all of it.
My comments above about it's closeness to the sixth form lite of ST appeared to bear some truth in a quick skim, so it's interesting that SfB's iconoclastic approach would seem to align with this impression.
Your contribution is also interesting - I'll check out that book.
This is a man who seeks out trees when he can't find people to ride with after all
didn't the tree find me ? I'm fascinated by the way a single xmas tree grows in a blasted wasteland, and every year some hardy souls climb up there to decorate it 🙂
And I never said don't read it and form your own opinions. The stuff that left me cold might suit you to a tee. I wanted to be challenged and surprised - and perhaps that's asking too much. I did get surprise, but not in a good way 🙁
I also thought it was interesting that it's slated to become fetishised itself, just like the retrobikes. Crazy-legs told me to be sure to keep my copy as issue one of Rouleur now sells at £200 due to its rarity value. Of course, my copy is already foxed as I had it stuffed haphazardly in my pack, and I plan to loan it out to anyone interested...
I don't feel strong attachment to physical things. If I lose or break things, there is momentary woe and then I soon move on. But there are some exceptions - bikes for one.
[i]In fact one might posit an inverse relationship between number of books about a topic and its inherent interest[/i]
or an inverse relationship between the number of opinionated comments and the worth of that opinion.
or an inverse relationship between the number of opinionated comments and the worth of that opinion.
or your opinion of my opinion?
I felt betrayed, but here's the thing, anyone else can post their review or rant too 🙂
[url= http://i419.photobucket.com/albums/pp271/repackrider/avatar235.jp g" target="_blank">http://i419.photobucket.com/albums/pp271/repackrider/avatar235.jp g"/> [/IMG][/url]
[url= http://sonic.net/~ckelly/Seekay/mtbwelcome.htm ][b]2retro4u[/b][/url]
Marin County, Cali
Sorry if my bit didn't meet with Barnes' approval. Tym asked me to give him 1000 words on...something. Try it sometime. WTF is there to say about mountain biking that hasn't been said a million times?
I went with a thought I had while riding the first trail I ever tried BITD, now some 35 years later and I'm on an amazing piece of machinery by comparison to that first day, with the name of the guy I rode with that day on the frame.
It's the kind of experience everybody else hasn't had, and it's connected with mountain biking, so that's what I wrote about. I'm sure the magazine will be happy to take submissions from anyone else who has a unique point of view on some aspect of the sport. All it takes is 1000 words.
Be original.
Repack Rider
my apologies RR 🙂 Any one bout of nostalgia would have been fine, just not an overdose!
Ace website Charlie.
Not read Privateer, but I can certainly see the point of slightly more expensive magazines with higher production values and fewer adverts. Normal monthly mags are mostly knocking on for a fiver these days, paying a few quid more for something you're going keep and refer back to in years to come seems OK to me. Or you can flog them - my back issues of poncey music mags like Wax Poetics have fetched more than enough to justtify the walk to the post office when I've stuck them on eBay.
In the past I've never had much time for stories about mountain biking's history either, then earlier this year I bought a copy of [url= http://www.amazon.co.uk/Richards-Mountain-Bike-Charles-Kelly/dp/0946609780/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0 ]this[/url] in a charity shop for a quid, and was utterly riveted. When you realise how richly mixed the heritage of mountain biking is - you've got motocross, clunkers, BMX, rough stuff cycle tourers, motorbike trials riders like Geoff Apps - it's potentially just as interesting as any other sport. Certainly a bit more fascinating to me than a 50-page spread on Eddy Mercx's arse pimples.
Ultimately we all have limited attention spans for any subject matter, if you're bored of reading about bikes it's not necessarily an indication that the writing's bad.
, if you're bored of reading about bikes it's not necessarily an indication that the writing's bad.
very true! I wasn't able to form an opinion about the writing because I was so irritated about its content - however, does shovelling bucketloads of nostalgia, however well written, form an adequate basis for a thrusting new magazine ?
I was talking to my wife about the difficulty of producing a monthly magazine the other day. For most subjects - bikes, cars, relationships, s3x advice, interior design or whatever, everything that can be written has been written. Each month is essentially a rehash with, in the case of biking (and may the other categories) some showcasing of new technology offering increasingly diminishing improvements.
I'm not dissing writers and publishers, quite the opposite as trying to keep recycled stuff feeling fresh must be a he'll of a challenge but it does explain why I no longer subscribe to magazines
... and of course, this new venture isn't monthly but bimonthly, so it's not obliged to be topical, though one might hope this didn't mean it had to be instead celebrity-stuffed nostalgia...
Kind of agree with SFB, I do like the history stuff and so far there's not a single article I've not found intesesting, but there's a [i]hell[/i] of a lot of it, and I'm already feeling a bit over-retro'd.
Some mags are about bikes, some are about riding, Singletrack and Dirt manage to be a lot about riding, I think this one has ended up being a bit more about bikes. Which is fine but all the blurb I saw suggested it was going to be the other way round. And certainly it feels odd for the newest magazine to be the most backwards-looking.
Still, I'm enjoying it and not regretting subscribing. I'm just going to take it slower, read an article every so often rather than going cover to cover the way I usually do with mags as I think I'll OD and stop enjoying it.
Nostalgia or history?
Love him or loathe him, there's no denying that Gary Fisher did play a big part in the development of the modern mountain bike. I do get a bit sick of the US-centric view of places like the MTB Hall of Fame, where everyone who held a stopwatch at Repack seems to have been inducted, while ignoring people like Geoff Apps and Adrian Carter, but that's hardly Gary Fisher or Charlie Kelly's fault.
I do find it edifying to know a bit about a sport's roots, even if it is just the realisation that an incredible amount of research, refinement and development has gone into modern mountain bikes, and yet what I do of a weekend isn't that fundamentally different from what some people were doing 30 years ago.
I think I feel a vital part of mountain biking is its undeniable immediacy. I suppose I have some theoretical interest in how it came about, but what really interests me is what happens HERE and NOW in the moment, and how we got here doesn't matter much.
Isn't it entirely reasonable and proper that a new mag should bear more than a passing nod to the history of the sport as well as its progression. It is, after all, a 1st edition!!
I would be just as interested in CK's article as one by say Steve Peat. Entirely different perspectives (or are they?) and generations but still about mtb'ing and equally valid and interesting in their own right. To be only interested in the 'here and now' would be an impossible and very boring task for a magazine and the vast majority of its readers. Quite how you accomplish the 'here and now' as requested by SFB is impossible in a quality mag - that is what t'internet is about and while no doubt 'immediate' can be largely superficial and instantly forgettable.
that is what t'internet is about and while no doubt 'immediate' can be largely superficial and instantly forgettable.
so all we are left with is the past ?
You are being silly now Simon !
I'm not about to get into a discussion with you because it will inevitably end the same way, so I'll cut out the interminably dull to'ing and fro'ing and go straight to the outcome [img] /confused-smiley-17425.gif[/img]
because it will inevitably end the same way
I lack your foresight 🙁 If things followed a script they [b]would[/b] be deadly dull...
I also subscribed to Privateer, in the hope for something a bit more substantial to read.
Being of a "certain age" it was great to be nostalgic and remember how I started riding in the 70's off road on a totally unsuitable bike. I still have my first real mountain bike (Cannondale F900) and enjoy a spin now and again but appreciate the advances which have been made in the intervening years.
The writing I thought to be varied and interesting but I was somewhat disappointed with the photography. Although the scenery was great, where were the bikes / cyclists in the "images" section?
I used to work in the States and subscribed to Bike magazine, which was a great combination of articles about WHY we ride and reviews of stuff I might actually buy. The magazine was always disappointedly thin so could be read in a day but it's quality shone through.
Singletrack magazine is very similar, but with more content, so ultimately more satisfying.
Perhaps we should allow Privateer a bit of latitude to decide what it wants to be and what it's target audience is supposed to be. A new venture is always an easy target, so some constructive suggestions may be the way forward for now.
Sorry got carried away...
Phillip
some constructive suggestions may be the way forward for now.
I wish I had some! It beats the hell out of me, which is why I'd never dream of trying to produce a magazine, but conversely, if you do make the attempt then you need to have a vision, and I would hope that was more than the floor-sweepings of history, however well presented.
I just got mine here, looks like it arrives on October 8th to stores:
http://www.alwaysriding.co.uk/privateer-magazine-issue-one-779.html
Although the scenery was great, where were the bikes / cyclists in the "images" section?
I can now really see the difficulty in producing meaningful and thought-provoking writing and images for an audience completely devoid of any imagination whatsoever. Clearly the Privateer team are on a hiding to nothing.
I can now really see the difficulty in producing meaningful and thought-provoking writing and images for an audience completely devoid of any imagination whatsoever
ah, so it's [b]our[/b] fault ? I should have realised! Bad us! Pearls before swine 🙁
so Privateer is aimed only at those able to imagine innovation and creativity, even when absent ? Surely they could save money and imagine the whole thing ? Or perhaps it was just a dream ?
FYI I have no imagination whatever (except sadly in relation to gorgeous women), however that does not prevent me from thinking or being entertained.
ah, so it's our fault ?
no. but Privateer is clearly not for you. So can you stop now?
So can you stop now?
apparently not! But issue one is nothing like the mission statement so #2 may be entirely non-imaginitive compatible and wonderful 🙂
If you’ve got mountain biking and it’s got you, a deep emotional connection exists that is agony to even try and explain: a permanent bond with the trails, the sounds, the fear, the great outdoors, the beads of sweat, the coffee and cake, the beer – a bond between rider, bike and terrain that grips forever.
What. A. Bag. Of. W*nk.
I can now really see the difficulty in producing meaningful and thought-provoking writing and images for an audience completely devoid of any imagination whatsoever
I was thinking this over again today (completely unimaginatively, obviously), and whilst imagination drives creativity, even the totally unimaginative can be moved by art, and requiring people to contribute their own imagination implies incomplete work...
Rouleur/Privateer == Apple iPod
Singletrack == Android Phone
simonfbarnes = speaking clock
repetitive, predictable, and after a day, it has nothing new to say
repetitive, predictable, and after a day, it has nothing new to say
oh, you mean like Privateer ?
surely I should have liked it then ?