puddin' legs

I'm older...it's still a stinker.

Barcelona rider

I would buy this magazine from 1989-1993ish. It was great. Now it is utter ****e!!!! I mean it has always had loads of ads but now it is like paying to read advertising and yes it is like a MTB mag. I read it on the shelves just to sneer. Utter ass wipe paper on a good day.

classic1

The paper is too shiny for that.

flatlander_48

For all the trashing of Bicycling, there has been very little said about what people were actually looking for. Any comments on that?

trmcgeehan

Agreed, they are ad-heavy. But occasionally, they have excellent in-depth articles like the one they ran about six months ago about a legendary Italian cyclist who died of a drug overdose. At my advanced age, I can't remember his name (I think it starts with a C), but I thought the article was so good I cut it out and saved it.

flatlander_48

Marco Pantani, Tour de France winner in 1998, Il Pirata

lotek 

flatlander,
I'm 53 and I think I have a good idea of quality articles.
Yes the bikc town articles are good, as was the big guy
on a bike but for the most part the magazine is pap it's
more filler than substance.
Find an old issue of bicycling from late 70's when Jim Cutheberson (?) was
editor and Nina Rowe reported from DC monthly (advocacy). When you could
read articles by Fred DeLong. There was more substance and less filler.
Read Bicycle Guide from the 80s, any issue of Asphalt (yah I know it's
sketchy when it comes out), cycling plus from UK. they all have more
substance.
I've been reading bike magazines on and off for 30 years and the current
incarnation of bicycling is severely lacking,
cover to cover read in less than an hour.

yes I know the content is limited (how many times can we
train for a century or adjust a derailleur) but there are
better ways of filling the pages.

marty

jyossarian

I remember reading this story from Dave Zabriskie's website here.

Then I went to San Francisco. While I was there I did one of my favorite rides in Berkeley, the locals call it fruit-stand. I know some of you have seen a story being circulated about me getting two flats and getting help from a dude named Bill. It's all true, thanks again for your help Bill and Sharp bicycle for the extra tubes to get home.

Dahon.Steve

I would pay if Bicycling put together a CD with all their prior issues from the 1970's and even earlier. It would be fun to read how you could buy a new 10 speed for $129.00 dollars!

The articles might even have more information without the sex toys in the back!

cyclintom

OK, let's give some actual criticism of Bicycling instead of just carping:

Buycycling is supposed to be a "beginners" magazine. I see nothing wrong with running beginners articles again and again. Every otehr day there is another load of beginners and they need to know a lot of this stuff and they are too dumb to look for old issues or actually read books on the subject. For that Buycycling is as good as anything.

HOWEVER, at one time they used to throw a bone to the dog. In other words hidden among the stories about Fred falling over on a freezing day ride and having his ear break off, there were real stories worth reading even to someone with an IQ above 80 and enough experience to qualify as "Almost a Beginner".

With the advent of the latest owner or more likely the advent of their brain dead marketing research firm, they decided that since "people" can't read they should simply put pictures in and limit the number and compexity of "words" to 25 words and no words containing more than 8 letters.

This is what REALLY sucks about it.

I really don't much care the qualifications of the staff, they are an extremely limited cross section of bicyclists. If you aren't gaining MOST of your editorial material from outside contributors then you can never be viewed as anything other than a book of advertisements.

In another thread here somewhere, some nutjob said that being able to do a "front wheelie" was a demonstration of the sort of "bike handling skills" required of cyclists. Now immediately most of us would notice that this could only come from a skate boarder or one of those "trials" BMXer's who think that being able to ride up a wooded skeleton frame and jump 25 feet onto a plywood deck is "REALLY COOL DUDE!"

But you know what? I'd be willing to bet that not ONE person in the pro peloton in Europe could do that and I'm certain that they have bike handling skills second to none.

Is that the reason that Europeans are kicking American butts in mountain biking now? Do you suppose that's the reason that mountain biking is losing it's appeal to the majority of riders whereas just a decade ago Americans dominated mountain bike racing and mountain biking was a HUGE recreational sport? Now, on the same trails that I used to think of as crowded I seldom see more than one or two other mountain bikers. Though I expect some of them can now do "front wheelies".

If normality isn't represented by Buycycling Magazine then obviously it's going to be represented by those weirdo cycling movies which downhillers jumping over 30 foot gorges and riding a bike on a tightrope over Niagra Falls or something equally stupid.

I'd like to see ALL website references eleminated from Bicycle.

I'd like to see complete articles with at least an attempt at literary quality and quantity published in their pages.

I'd like to see photos that aren't required to be self-sufficient. You know - like having REAL(tm) captions?

I'd like to see an article on a build up of a touring bike.

I'd like to see some sort of explanation why someone should spend $400 on a new pair of Dura Ace STI levers instead of installing a set of $50 downtube shifters or $70 barends.

I'd like to see someone actually complain about the rocketing cost of bicycle components (my latest $30 Tektros work as good as my DuraAce or Chorus brakes that cost four or five times as much.)

I'd like to see REAL racing coverage and not pictures of Belgians eating frits and mayonaisse.

Paris-Roubaix is a GREAT race and interesting EVEN to beginners if they can find other articles in the mag to relate to.

Look Style-man - the Tour de France ISN'T about your feelings about the atmosphere on L'Alpe d'Huez - it's about who wins and how.

I'd like to see articles on cycling wear. If you don't like to be seen while riding on the road there are cloths a lot cheaper than Rivendell's Wooly Boolies or whatever.

You know what? I'd actually enjoy reading a road test of a recumbent. I'm not interested in getting one but I'd be interested in learning what someone else thinks about them.

If there's one thing that many rider/mechanics have a hard time doing it's adjusting stuff on their own bikes. And gee, you know most of these adjustments are so easy that with a nice article and a few good pictures people could actually do themselves a favor.

Why isn't there more bicycle fiction?

I bet that there are Chinese and other Asians out there that can write English and who could do a damned good job of describing their country and their cycling societies.

Anyone see any articles on John Howard lately? What was he? Popcorn?

flatlander_48

Thanks! I was beginning to wonder if anyone was going to do anything except sling B/S. The magazine you describe sounds somewhere between Cycling Plus and Cycle Sport. All of the magazines try to be a bit different from the next guy. You have to find your niche or else you will find yourself with no readership.

What I would like to see is:

Bike tests like Cycling Plus
Bike Community and Culture features like Bicycling
Nutrition articles like Cycling Plus and Bicycling
Racing coverage like VeloNews and Cycle Sport
Bike Show coverage (don't think anyone one does a better than average job)
Domestic and International ride articles like Cycling Plus

Unfortunately I think you're looking at a $10 magazine instead of a $6 one...