Doing our bit

Is Chipps not on message then?

I think the point is, the term itself is meaningless bobbins – as a structure, a frame has both an amount of lateral stiffness and an amount of vertical compliance (you could equally talk about lateral compliance and vertical stiffness and that still tells me exactly the same amount of sweet-FA about the performance of the frame)

Actually it’s far worse than that. Any normal hardtail (which includes a Jones) has a huge amount more vertical than lateral stiffness and a huge amount more lateral than vertical compliance. The phrase is actually deceptive by implying it’s the other way round.

“grabs the trail by the scruff of the neck” (and/or) “with an alacrity that borders on contempt” 😆

I think some people don’t like these words as they are unfamiliar…
Body english is just an American term for body language (watch the motorcycle movie “on any Sunday”), so it’s ok for a yank to use this term.
Quiver comes from surfing, who took it from archery, and it works for me.
Session comes from bmx and skateboarding, focussing on one spot to see how far you can take it.

Actually a lot of them are words crossed over from more sick rad gnar bio sports.

Crikey…too many angry people, chill out dudes

It is a subjective job writing about bikes and I don’t like all of it so metaphors will always play a part.

Quiver is a recognized surfing term, body english is just a comedy (!) version of body language to lighten the mood.

…to the original post carbon does reduce buzz but only a full frame will really make this noticeable…first time I rode my carbon road bike I thought I had flat tyres, I had come off a horribly stiff alu spesh though.

Can I use ‘spesh’ or is this a weak journalistic term? (They don’t sponsor me or advertise on me)

Why use a metaphore when a real quality description will do just fine.

Journalism should not have to resort to marketing terms to do its job of informing, educating.

Why use a metaphore (sic) when a real quality description will do just fine.

Because a good metaphor or simile can simply be more evocative and entertaining than a dry as dust ‘real quality description’, whatever that might be? Because telling someone that a certain bike, oh, I dunno, accelerates like whippet scenting a discarded steak scrap is arguably a little more interesting than some guff about it ‘appearing, though this may of course be a purely subjective impression, to pick up speed enthusiastically from a standstill’.

I’m not saying, by the way, that mountain bike journalism is high art or that some of the tired old hackneyed phrases that get trotted out are anything other than the literary equivalent of potato peelings, but would you really want to read a magazine written with pernickety literalness?

And you can’t spell metaphor correctly either… 😉

Exactly what ‘BadlyWiredDog’ said

A phrase that boiled my p1$$ when I read it in the latest ST mag which arrived yesterday was “the classic first proper mountain bike £2000 budget”.

These journos who get given free bikes need a serious reality check!

charlie the bikemonger – Member
bio sports

Ambassador, you’re truly spoiling us

The common and incorrect usage that I hate comes from event reviews, when they give days of the week human features. Even the BBC website does this. For example:

“Tuesday saw the first race in the Blackpool Surf Lifesaving Championships.”

No it didn’t. It doesn’t have eyes. Lazy sentence construction. Try harder please…

“Tuesday saw the first race in the Blackpool Surf Lifesaving Championships.”

Positively lucid compared with today’s lunchtime radio weather forecast
“Temperatures are responding nicely to the warmer weather”

I wish there was a spell check button on this forum 🙂

From the most recent review on BikeRadar…

” evergreen high-speed hellraiser proves that, sometimes, less is definitely more.”

” with just enough pliability to keep the tyres glued”

“the Fox dampers worked hard but kept us informed and ready to react to any cry for help from the tyre”

“With just 100mm of travel there’s never enough shape change to totally lose track of what might happen next.”

Flowery prose, but doesnt help you decide whether or not to by bike X or bike Y. Ultimately bike reviews are pointless for most of us, other than to affirm something we’ve already bought.

Much as I hate “steed”, can I also add “rig” to the list please?

Aircraft grade….. That’s another bit of window dressing which means very little!
CNC’ed….. Everything was held up in lights as being CNC’ed at one time. It just means it was made on a computerised milling machine to increase speed of manufacture and reduce cost. Ok so quality is improved but its a rare component in any machine these days which isn’t made on a Cnc machine of some sort.

flossie – Member

CNC’ed….. Everything was held up in lights as being CNC’ed at one time. It just means it was made on a computerised milling machine to increase speed of manufacture and reduce cost. Ok so quality is improved but its a rare component in any machine these days which isn’t made on a Cnc machine of some sort.

True dat- “CNC’d” in journo terms seems to mean “Looks cool and machined” Call it the Hope Effect- make something well machined and smooth and it’s boring. Leave a bunch of lines and milling marks in it and everyone says “it’s machined, cool!”

or you could say it has a larger area for heat disipation 😉

See the DVO rear shock with cooling fins, have always wondered why this hadn’t been done before on MTB shocks, especially air ones.

Glad im not the only one who knows that front centre is a proper term relating to frame design

What MTB has always been a bad one for this. I stopped reading it when it started referring to bikes as “Race weapons” and “trail hammers”. Who the hell talks like this?
Worse, though, is when manufacturers’ marketing guff gets recycled as copy. eg, last week’s Cycling Weekly explains how the new Sram Force groupset “…through a choice of materials and finishes manages to reduce the cost greatly without compromising the longevity.”
Well, excuse me, but if it’s only just come out, how the hell do you know anything about its longevity? What? Sram told you so? Ah…

“Proper” seems to turn up a lot.

The thing is, magazine editors know most people don’t read the articles.
They look at the headline, pics and conclusion. On average,only 12.2% actually read the full article !

What I tend to do is a form speed reading. Look at the article backwards reading only every third or fourth paragraph.
If there is anything of interest it stays logged in part of my brain. The article can be dug out again at some later date and read fully.

“Proper” seems to turn up a lot.

The thing is, magazine editors know most people don’t read the articles.
They look at the headline, pics and conclusion. On average,only 12.2% actually read the full article !

What I tend to do is a form speed reading. Look at the article backwards reading only every third or fourth paragraph.
If there is anything of interest it stays logged in part of my brain. The article can be dug out again at some later date and read fully.

I did the same with your post with the result that I don’t have any idea what you said. Are you sure about all that?

I heard it was 84%.

i hate forum threads that end
“will i die”

None of the arguments in favour of “Body English” are winning me over, I’m afraid. It’s a hand-me-down cliche from another sport, it’s American, 👿 it’s still lame and nonsensical.

Even as a corruption of “body language”, it doesn’t work. Body language is non-verbal communication. What does that have to do with riding a bike, or a trials bike? Unless you’re riding along looking down and to the side, because you’re shy.

I’m sure it’s a tricky job filling a cycling magazine every month without resorting to buzzwords, cliches and pseudo-engineering gobbledegook regurgitated from press releases, but “Body English” belongs on the cutting-room floor.

Come on Singletrack, get it up there on that whiteboard along with the dog poop.

I read a road bike review in ‘Cycling Weekly’ Several years ago. Both bikes had Shimano Ultegra groupsets except one was standard silver, the other black. In the conclusion marks at the end of the test one received 5/5 for ‘groupset’, the other 4/5! That was the final straw. I threw the magazine in the bin and haven’t bought a copy since!

Sessioning… Thing is, there’s not really a quick way to say it otherwise, so it’s pretty functional. Can’t disapprove of that myself.

Oh I don’t know how about repeating or practising for starters. A “session” involves a pub and lots of alcohol as far as I’m concerned.

Now that front centre, has had a diagram to illustrate it a more meaningful term would be; bottom bracket to front axle across the centre spacing. A good example of jargon being used to confuse us mere mortals and infer a sense of superiority in the eejit coining the phrase.

And breathe

Now that front centre, has had a diagram to illustrate it a more meaningful term would be; bottom bracket to front axle across the centre spacing

Which takes a lot more words and has the potential to be confusing into the bargain. Nothing at all wrong with front centre – it’s a standard term – just because you don’t know it doesn’t make it wrong. I mean if I told you the bike had 42cm chainstays you’d know what I meant, but the average man in the street wouldn’t have a clue what a chainstay was.

The only issue I have with that diagram is that front centre should be measured along the horizontal.

Sometimes precision requires a lot of words. I agree with the requirement to measure perpendicular to the centres though, though that would require a second measurement to allow direct comparisons between frames given variations in bottom bracket height.

So if there was a mag not cowing down to big names running ads, containing quality original writing, that cost £70 per issue would anyone buy it?

“Mid stroke” – wtf is that?

“You can really tell the stiffness difference with Crank x compared to crank y”. Bollox! I’ve been riding for years on a whole range of bikes and can hand on heart say without fear of contradiction, no I bloody can’t! However, what I can detect are bottom brackets that wear out quickly and creak like hell.

I also have to question the notion that stiffness and lighter are somehow always better. These variables get bandied around by everyone, not just by journos but in the real world, do folk actually notice? Road biking is particularly indulgent in this. Every new road bike appears to be lighter / stiffer / faster than the last model but I wonder how this translates into ride feel and comfort? Perhaps I’m just shallow. Does a bike fit? Yes / no. Do I like riding it? Yes / no. Will it last more than a couple of months? Yes / no. I guess I just have simple tastes! Ha! Ha! 😀

So if there was a mag not cowing down to big names running ads, containing quality original writing, that cost £70 per issue would anyone buy it?

You know, when Private Ear – a genius name, but they spelled it wrong – first appeared, I thought it was going to be like a mountain biking version of Private Eye, but having freeloaded a few issues, I discovered it wasn’t, though it does cost quite a lot. Does anyone buy it? I guess they must as it’s still out there.

I agree there are some terrible phrases. Body English instead of Body Language is by far the worst.

However, the trouble is people think because they can talk, write and post things on a forum that means they can communicate and write entertaining copy.

If journalists did what most people on here are suggesting and dropped any terminology out of their writing you’d all be on here moaning that it reads like a Haynes manual. Journalists use these terms to add some colour and interest, the trick is using the correct terminology and slang for the readership.

A lot is down to perception, personally i think using the term cockpit is ridiculous on anything other than planes and helicopters.

The only bike reviews I read nowadays are in the CTC rag.

Shoot me now.

entertaining copy

Do you work in media recruitment or something? 😉

lol @ that ultegra review score

similar happened with one top brand of what were some of the most powerful disc brakes. reviewed by 1 guy, gets a 5/5 score. gets reviewed by another guy on the same mag and gets a 3/5 (marked down from 4/5 because “the market has moved on and there’s better out there now”). That was a whopping 6 months later, in a market that’s on typically a 2 year update cycle. I would assume that even the brand new products still in their packaging degrade?

What it actually was is that one guy was a Formula fan, and the other probably an Avid fan.

One of those guys is highly respected MTBer and Road cyclist. I don’t respect his reviews whatsoever.

As for me I get very disappointed with gross mistakes like in this article:

Santa Cruz Bronson Review

They compare one bike to the other and say that the other is worse because it has a slack 70 degree seat angle and you can really feel it. Oh my, thought I, is that other manufacturer that thick to make such a stupid geometry move on a trail bike?

After opening a manufacturers website it turns out that 70 is an actual angle, while the effective (important) one is almost 74 which is far better. But the journos feel 70…

Oh well. Should not be too worried about this since I used to work for a couple of these mags (albeit in a different country.. :)).

Just read 1 1/8 to 1 1/4 fork steerer for ‘laser guided steering’ …. FFS!!