What bike mags

[dirtsk8]

..do you buy?

When I first started biking, I used to get MC Sport & Leisure, then I discovered Ride, then Bike, then, as I got into proper rapid stuff, I used to buy Fast Bikes and Superbike (up until they became the same mag with different covers each month :-? ).

Then I bought nothing. I was totally disillusioned with the whole ethos of spending money each month to read about someone else's biking when I could have been out doing it myself. That and the fact that I used to get annoyed at reading negatives about the bike I bought on their recommendation 12 months earlier. MCN was always just expensive toilet paper, full of speculative scaremongering. IMHO.

Nowadays, I've started reading Ride again for the product tests, but tbh, I think the internet's a better source of immediate info. Now I have a Pocket PC, I can even read it on the toilet like a magazine.

Do you buy bike mags?

[fizzwheel]

Ride or Performance Bike.

I used to buy T.W.O but it IMHO went downhill and I havent bought it for ages.

[kwak zzr]

ride is a good mag.

[Frank]

ok I read the "riders digest"
and its usually free

[mister c]

Read Fast Bikes.
I didn't buy any, but while I was in Hospital, all of my friends bought me bike mags to keep me going. I had every mag conceivable & thought that Fast Bikes was the pick of the bunch. They were also modifying a CB500 & I wanted to see what it turned out like.

[rob13]

Bike & TWO are my personal choices, although my dad subscribes to RiDE so I read that too..

While I was in hospital, everyone bought me car mags in the vain hope that I would hate bikes!

[neio79]

Bike, ride and Fastbikes.

Ride are the most sensible all rounded appoach i feel. Bike are similae to ride and sometimes i think better written.
Fastbikes are more sprotsbike orientated but to be fair test all sorts and its written in an amusing way.

MCN well i like a good story every week.

[Foxy]

Bike and Ride for me :D

[phil24_7]

I'll read whatever mag has something that I'm interested in!

[chris8886]

I'll read whatever mag has something that I'm interested in!

porn then? :rolleyes:;) (just pulling yer leg).

my preffered mag is T.W.O and it gets bought for me as a subscription each year at christmas, so i'm happy enough :D

[Gene genie]

T.W.O. i've stuck with 'em through all the chisel. they did go downhill when harriet left and the mag was in a little dis-array, but things seem to be well on the mend now. jamie whitham should be ont stage, hes worth the subs alone.
whats harriet up to now? anyone know?

[5150]

I read:

Ride - for the product reviews and tests. It's nice to have Stuff magazine-style snippets of loads of stuff, rather than trawl through massive articles to get to the bits you might want to buy.

Bike - for the motorcycle group tests and riding advice. I'm still a newbie, so it's good to get all the info I can. And it's nice to see how bikes compare to each other, even if I've no intention of riding one of the ones they're looking at!

T.W.O. - because of the lightheartedness. It seems like they have a lot of fun producing that mag, and it really shows in the copy.

PB - for the features. I really, really love the big-read stuff they have. Most magazines (of whatever genre) only usually have one long feature a month - but PB seems to be packed with them. It's a great train read.

I'm not keen on Superbike - I bought one copy and didn't get further than the little column where they slagged off the other mags. I think that's a massive no-no.

[phil24_7]

porn then? :rolleyes:;) (just pulling yer leg).

Ah bless, some people just can't help but to go for the bait!!!:rolleyes:;)

[dirtsk8]

I've bought nearly every title at one time or another. I even bought a copy of Streetfighters at a motorway cafe, just to have some bike stuff to read.

I've always been interested in older bikes for tinkering with, so I still have a huge pile of Motorcyle Mechanics (which are free to anyone who wants to collect them from me) plus an equally big pile of Fast Bikes mags from when Shaky Byrne was the teaboy and Colin Schiller was editor and everyone hated them because they told the truth.

I have literally hundreds of other bike mags as well, but only recently did I start getting more after a long lay off. My ideal magazine would be one that assumes I already have a bike, as opposed to one that's just a catalogue for next year's machines. A publication that's not going to tell me that my current ride is rubbish, despite awarding it best in group some months before. A mag that could teach me better riding technique, better buying advice and honest market and comprehensive product reviews. All without talking down to me.

For me, Ride comes closest.

[W Buzz Ryan]

How long have you been working for 'Ride'?

[thedonal]

I get the occasional Bike, RiDE and even MCN. None of these of regularity though, and more dependent on the content of that mag.

Though I might start buying some of those other bike magazines. Purely for the pictures of semi or completely nakkid wimmin on chromecentric cruisers. Hubba Hubba!

[dirtsk8]

How long have you been working for 'Ride'?

LOL, sorry, I'm a magazine fan. Or I was until I discovered the immediate joys of the internet. I got carried away back there, but I meant to say that Ride comes closest to what I'm looking for, but doesn't tick all the boxes. When Performance Bikes relaunched, it was quite good, covering lots of different types of bikes, but looks to be just another sportsbike mag these days, but that may be wrong of me to asume that, having only flicked through it in Smiths.

I also collect videogames from the 80s and 90s and had more than 2000 at the start of the year. Now, I have far less (I partly funded the purchase of my SV last month through a massive eBay sell-off), but still have over 1000 magazines from 1982 to the present day for everything from Amiga Format to 360 magazine. Mags are important to me, but I'm becoming increasingly disillusioned with them all. Hence the thread on which mags do you buy and why.

[chris8886]

my one gripe with T.W.O is that there are never any posters in it!!

[ThEGr33k]

PB is pretty good and reasonably priced. Bike is generally good. Ride can also be ok from time to time.

[lukemillar]

PB is pretty good and reasonably priced. Bike is generally good. Ride can also be ok from time to time.

I never thought I would say this, but I agree with ThEFaLCoN3rd. PB is the best read, for everything. Bike is ok, but I got bored of comparing the same bikes over and over. Lost interest in Ride ages ago.

[ThEGr33k]

I never thought I would say this, but I agree with ThEFaLCoN3rd. PB is the best read, for everything. Bike is ok, but I got bored of comparing the same bikes over and over. Lost interest in Ride ages ago.

ThEFalCoN3rd.. I like. Almost like ThEGr33k sounding like ThEG33k ThEFalCoN3rd sounds like Nerd... :cool:

Ride is OK when it comes to some of the "Ride Power" things.

[glsuk1970]

I subscribe to TWO and Performance Bikes and rarely miss Bike magazine. Occasionally I'll read RiDE too and I can't remember the last time I picked up MCN.

[northwind]

I get all of them, apart from Fast Bikes which is just dismal... PB is the one I really look forward to, and TWO is next best I think. Superbikes can be quite good, too. Ride and Bike are just getting plain dull.

Not MCN obviously, I don't have a hamster so I've got no need for cage lining paper.

[MR UKI (1)]

Bike and Ride on subscription and sometimes Superbike cos it funny.

[sinbad]

I subscribe to BIKE. At first (18months ago) it was great, but recently it's not so good. Hard to say why, but I used to look forward to its arrival and enjoy the front covers, now they're a bit dreary, and bit "nice", and the rest of the mag is similar. Still well written, but not enough excitement, and it certainly isn't so nice to look at.

[Wayluya]

I used to get 3 or 4 a month back in the late 80's. I thought all long since binned - but found a "What Bike" from around 1991 which was basically a list of bikes, basic specs and RRP next to small grainey B & W photos.....sandwiched between 1 or 2 tests of bikes no other Mag had even bothered to test :p

Maybe dig it out and post a few prices up.......

Any old "Bike" readers who remember "Anything Goes" :rolleyes: "Man in leather trousers with large chopper seeks similar for hard riding" :smt058

[Camel]

PB and TWO are the best in my opinion. Although just got a few copies of Bike from a mate at work, and I like the fact their test bikes are now used bikes - more real world.

[Lissa]

MCN is only useful for lining the cat litter tray:D

Pete has Bike on subscription, and it's their fault we now have a 996, thanks to a free copy of Classic Bike we got with it a couple of months ago:rolleyes:

[STRAMASHER]

I get subscribed Bike and TWO for my addiction.

MCN is my weekly methadone.

:)