It was an even better magazine back in the 70's and 80's. Besides all the usual articles for beginners, and in the early 70's that was nearly everyone, they actually did testing of equipment. Frank Berto built a drive train testing system and would tell you how derailleurs shifted (late or early) and what impact that had for you and what it meant with indexed systems. He would produce tables to show you chain wrap, cog range and cog upper limit a rear derailleur could handle. When was the last time anyone has seen that? He wasn't afraid to point out problems no matter how much advertising that maker had in the magazine.

They used to have identical frames built of different tubing and leave off any identification and have the testers see if they could tell any difference between the rides.

My favorite bike magazine now is Bicycle Quarterly. It's head and shoulders above all the rest.