Can you cancel my sub issue for that one too, Mark 😉

lol sure.. 🙂

printing on lower weight paper won’t decrease the price that much – perhaps a few pence per issue. The cost of printing comes from the printing process, trimming, collating and delivery. The price of the paper is a fraction of the whole cost

A few pence per issue would be a start – how does it manage to be that much more than other mags? (ok only 20-30p, but quite a chunk on an item of that price)

Cheers Mark – that issue will fill me with even more anger than clown bikes and road bikes off road. 😉

As for the person who suggested I submit some ideas – I might just do that. Chipps/Mark/Matt etc – expect a mail off me sometime!

I enjoyed this months mag – even though it’s bi-monthly its still the only mag I buy. WMB/MBUK are just a rehash of whatever shite the other one put in the previous months/years issue and so to a degree does MBR.

Keep it highbrow

As an idea, why not try some of the DIY stuff that come off the forum, Ghetto tubeless v Stans/UST, homebrew/Trout LED’s v something stupidly expensive.

“Road bikes off road? Heresy! Burn them at the stake, I say! Road bikes shouldn’t be on the road let alone off it!”…….An angry Daily Mail reader wrote today.

I like the cyclo cross stuff but then I use my crosser for off road riding a lot and often in preference to my mountain bike. Cross has been an occassional visitor in the mag and featured in issue 1 if memory serves in an article by Chris Duncan, now of Endura.

I’m looking forward to the look of terror on Mark’s face when he rides a recumbent off road on some of the more “interesting” trails which are close to Ben’s shop…………..Hee! Hee!

I bought this months issue for the first time in 2 years and I loved it. Stories were great, I liked the -40 one especially. Who would I contact in particular about ideas?

Please print it on cheaper stuff and make it cheaper to buy. £4.25 buys a whole book. (although Singletrack is not as bad an offender as D1rt or MB*K are at this)

Disagree strongly, I think the price is fair and I like the quality paper.

I think MBUK has loads more content than any other bike mags, and covers the whole sport better than any other. It’s just not really aimed at you lot.

So anyone ridden any of the alternative Cwmcarn (area) routes yet?

A few pence per issue would be a start – how does it manage to be that much more than other mags? (ok only 20-30p, but quite a chunk on an item of that price)

The paper cost is a bit more than a fraction of the cost. About 37% of the total print cost so the 11% paper price increase we’ve just absorbed is pretty significant. The reasons we are 20-30p more expensive than the other mags are many.. here’s a few of them..

The other mags are printed by large companies with a portfolio of mags they can send to the same printer and therefore they can command a larger quantity discount on printing. We are a company that prints one mag.

Our paper is far superior to ALL the other bike mags. It’s part of our USP (Unique Selling Point) and we don’t want to give that up.

We have a policy of no more than 33% of the mag to ever be held over for advertising as compared to between 45 – 60% in the other mags.

Our paper is FSC approved (from renewable and environmentally managed forests) and that makes it more expensive. See our ‘Not Easy Being Green’ link at the bottom of the page.

In light of all that dropping the price to equal or less than our competitors would do very little to our sales figures but would have a disproportionately large and negative affect on our revenue.

£4.25 is the price of a decent innertube

Loved the mag, but now I’ve read it (thoroughly) so today I bought MBR. Oh dear 😥

£4.25 is the price of a decent innertube
I run UST.

Roly Lambert stuff is sh1te, sorry.

Used to like reviews of kit, so I could think “what would I buy next if I had any cash?”. But now it seems I’m more interested in stories about people than stuff. OK, there are differences in bikes and if you’re spending lots of cash you don’t want to waste it, but there isn’t much really bad kit around these days, so I get a bit bored with “this bike has a soul!” etc.
…but people, especially when they are trying to buy food whilst eating dandelion leaves, are far more interesting.
…and John Stamstad, a legend – he was asked about training food, in the days when endurance racing was even less of a lucrative career move. “Donuts” was his reply, “they’re the cheapest source of calories you can buy!”
Can we have a full article on his career with an interview please?

I think its now reached the point where there are NO bike magazines I (thats me, not you) like.

I think this is a phase or state of mind rather than a reflection of the magazines. There is a limited amount of things to write about, and any individual has a limited amount of interest in reading about the same thing repeatedly. This is not too much of a problem if the individual is intent on buying the latest new thing, you can read endless reviews of tyres if that’s what floats your boat, but when it’s basically discussions about the nature of the activity then there is limited mileage.

I used to enjoy MBUK, then went through a ST and Dirt phase, then had a couple of Rouleurs. I haven’t bought a mag for months, but have read a book on African history or politics every couple of weeks in that time. The mags haven’t (pretty sure!) got any worse, I’ve just read of most of what there was to write about mountain-biking once over for the moment and am having a breather!

🙂

So suggest something.

I have reached similar conclusions to those of Mr Dummy (although quite independently of his, I might add).

ST has improved in my eyes recently – I have previously been an outspoken critic. However, i find the best thing to do is to pick and choose articles. Magazines are there to be dipped into – that’s why they and their articles are short. Just diping in and out of the odd thing makes the experience more satisfying.

It also makes me happier ignoring some bits altogether (Ferrentino), and focussing on the arrticles that capture my interest – chipps’ CX article. He consistently shows himself to have a better writing style than most other contributors.

It’s no Rouleur or Ride, but I’m happy for it not to be. In fact, I’d be more than happy if it openly came out as a magazine about more than just mountain biking.

Well, I really like the Ferrentino column. Ok, he got one fair point and try to stretch it over 2 pages, but I enjoyed it. I like the guy from Torq article’s but somebody has to tell him that he’s not funny and he should stopped using too many parenthesis with bad jokes in it.

I also thought it was one of the better ones – enjoyed what I have read so far. Couple of articles to go still.