Iceland water fall pic is great – I even pointed it out to the wife who is generally not bothered by such things. She was impressed.

Just like to add my best wishes to Mike and say I’ve always gone straight to his column too. Thought this last one was thought provoking, poignant and slightly inspirational.
Interested to see how the revamp turns out.

Haven’t brought the last few issues as got a bit bored of it but might give this one ago again. Interested in this months bike test of privateer racers.

I never really took to the Mike Ferentino page.

Awesome issue back to old form it’s the only MTB mag I get this reminds me why. Gutted about blame the dog always my first read. Thanks for all the articles Mike, best of luck in the future.

This is the first time in ages that I’ve actually “read” the mag rather than dipped in and out. Two sittings, both in the bath after a run/ride. Really enjoyed it, especially Sim’s Marlborough Downs write up. Having walked in the area I can see how it’d make a “nice” day out without being especially interesting riding.

Roll on the next issue 🙂

I am not buying this months as I have decided that I disagree with the moderation policy, so I’m putting the mag on a two issue ban, I shan’t be clicking any ads during this period either. 😀

I wasn’t impressed.

Mike Ferrentino – I honestly can’t see why some middle-aged navel gazing is gathering so much praise. Sure, his father’s ill. Yes, he has to make a choice between earning or riding, and agreed, we’re all a long time dead. But there wasn’t anything in that article that once made me marvel at its profundity, nor made me yearn to do as Mike has done.

The rest of it was pretty meh – same sorts of (nicely-taken) pictures, a fairly usual article written by someone whose mother tongue is clearly not English (“Then we finished our journey to Landmannalaugar to install our camp base.” – do a decent translation FFS), and some half-arsed product reviews. The ‘we went to Scotland and rode a bit’ article was very weak, unless you like to trot out the stereotype that mountain bikers are hard-livin’, hard-ridin’, hard-drinkin’ types who eat food that’s bad for you, drink loads of whisky and are still somehow riding gods.

As for the GBRS article – I struggled to get to the end. Surprise!! – Louise tells us that GPS isn’t needed, that maps are better, and hey, getting lost is better than knowing where you are……it reminds me of those zealots who tell you that steel is real, that singlespeeds are purer, and that trail centres are just the McDonalds of mountainbiking.

“We arrived home battered, muddied, bruised and bloodied, but righteous.” Really? Righteous??

Ironically, I should agree wholeheartedly with Louise’s article. I ride a British steel singlespeed, have never used GPS, and couldn’t give a toss about being lost or not. I’ll always get home. But I don’t feel righteous about it. As with anything else, it’s just riding a bike. The way I do it is no better or worse than anyone else’s way, and certainly nothing to get excited about.

As usual, I wondered why I’d subscribed. And the reality is that I only do so to ensure that the forum stays open.

If the mag disappears any further up its own backside with the relaunch – basically, if it becomes Rouleur or Privateer – then I’m off.

No more Ferrentino is great news- I’m sure he can write, if he can be bothered, but most of his pieces recently have been terrible. Toilets FFS. Whatever he was being paid was too much.

I see Matt Hart restrained himself to actual advice rather than trying to be funny, this can only be progress.

I’ll miss Mr Ferrentino’s view on life and mountain biking; written well and often provoking an insight or take on a subject I hadn’t thought about before. It’s a shame that some of the comments on here are not composed with the same lucidity, balance and perspective.

Let’s try some constructive criticism- just a thought.

not in the WH SMITHS library yet.

Reading this thread has made me wonder if I get different articles to everyone else. I just went back to issue 70 to have a look, and discovered that he’d written an article almost entirely about not writing an article. “Where, precisely, was my column”, he says? Good question.

“We arrived home battered, muddied, bruised and bloodied, but righteous.” Really? Righteous??

Yes, we did.

(-:

It is a good issue and I’d miss Mr Ferrentino’s columns but I’m unsubscribing after two years – much as I’d like to go on epic trips, in reality I spend 99% of my riding razzing round the same old trails trying to go quicker, bigger or badder, so I appear to have diverged from the target readership. Seeing two people pushing their bikes over some nice techy rocks was almost the final straw! 😉 It’s a shame because Dirt’s grasp of language is puzzling (though fine as a less regular read) and the rest, well… Still, better to have a magazine do one thing well than try to be all things to all men.

We’ve been enjoying this thread in the office this morning, keep the criticism (constructive or otherwise) coming please.

chiefgrooveguru – If you’re referring to the picture on page 62, the ‘nice techy rocks’ are actually a bastard hard climb. We’ll let you know next time we’re down there, you’d be most welcome to come along and show us how it’s done… 😉

Jenn, as you’ve asked for more feedback….seriously, why not do a decent translation of articles which were either written in English by a non-native speaker, or have been translated poorly. It really grates when I see lines written in pidgin Euringlish – “Despite the cold nights in the tent, we really enjoyed our journey and took away with us plenty of good memories for sure.”

It lets down the author and the magazine. It’s a relatively interesting article, if you like that sort of thing, there’s some great photos, and the author is 99% of the way there. Many times with the text some help would be great, for sure.

We’ve been enjoying this thread in the office this morning

Pleasure to have started it 🙂

Ref this month’s Big Change: cover price will be £5.95!

Euringlish – “Despite the cold nights in the tent, we really enjoyed our journey and took away with us plenty of good memories for sure.”

I quite like the euringlish, but then I associate it with good times riding with euros who sprout such things 🙂

I don’t think it’s a bad translation – I think it’s english written as a foreign language, and probably in character of how the author would speak, so shouldn’t be changed.

I have to confess that I’m not a regular buyer of STW, but Mike Ferrentino’s column in Bike has long been a fixture for me. Top writer.

Like others on here, Mike Ferrentino’s column has always been the first one I read. This month’s wasn’t exactly the most thrilling read – but i feel dirty even criticising it given the context. I really enjoyed his article about not writing an article though – I think you’re missing the point, Northwind (which is fair enough – not everybody has the same tastes).

The Iceland words were supplied in English, written by a native French speaker (and it should be noted that we’ve received plenty of copy written by native English speakers which made *much* less sense…). We put hours into tidying them up, but it’s a fine line between grammatical correctness and killing an author’s tone/personality stone dead. We don’t translate Ferrentino’s work to British English from American, or Matt’s from Matt-speak; that’s one of the things which differentiates our content from other magazines, and it’s something that we’re proud of.

The Euro-style “for shure!” should always be accompanied by the hand thing, though. Maybe we need some new page furniture…

Well…I’m late as usual…just posted another thread asking if Ferrentino is actually going for good… without first searching on here

I know Mike was an industry apologist…as in….so what if it cost you two grand and it broke, you should just be grateful the product was potentially better than the old product that had the good manners not to break but was much heavier, wider, bulkier, whateverier etc etc…but the man wrote well and I’m with the other posters here who went to his article first and would happily follow it to the end even if I was not minded to go along with his conclusions.

Sad loss but things move on….Thanks to Mike though…I enjoyed his contribution.

And maybe I’m not critical enough…. but I thought it was a good issue guys.

If Jenn is still monitoring….Sometimes I loose a Jenn article…in that I know what tangent she’s tacking out on but she doesn’t manage to incorporate the location she’s been to that has invoked her train of thought…and I’m sat there thinking that looks like an interesting bit of countryside, want to go there, that looks very familiar, but where is it???? etc…but this time I thought it jelled ok. We all need to ride out under a night sky at least once a month, the remoter the better..less light pollution.

I always try to…and I was quite touched recently when my neighbour who is in the Mountain Rescue told me that he was going to initiate a Rescue Practice for the recovery of a supposed injured mountain biker on my regular night route across the local fells. That’s service for you….he did also say, if you get into trouble don’t bother phoning until the morning.
You can’t have everything!

Back to more practical matters the route guide mentioned riding Croft trail but the routes go nowhere near it. Shame as Ladder lane is the best descent in the area. And the opportunity to ride in the woods behind Nationwide was clearly lost. The Epic loop seems a bit pissed to me by missing out Smeathes ridge and riding several bits twice. But very glad to see our lowly ara of the country mentioned in such high places.

I have to say I have just seen the mag. And yes, those Iceland photos are amazing. Who would have thought it ay? Some amazing singletrack and scenery. Well done chaps.