The times, they are a'changin'...

Been getting motorcycle mags since the 60's. I used to get 5 different moto mags. Printed ones on glossy paper you could sit on the can and read if you wanted to. I'm down to one and it expires in November, I think. Don't believe I'm even going to be renewing that one, They keep trying to push me into reading it online. Figure it's only matter of time before they quit printing.
 
I won't miss them. :eek: Yes, I know. Horror! Gasp! Shriek!

@Chris09 made a good comment. He wishes he had the magazines from the 80's. If you (we) have to go back 40 years to when something was good.... Yeah, they were good then...but not anymore.

The print magazines are full of ads and have little in substance. "First Ride" articles are like the writer picked up the company's sales brochure and used that. Kevin Ash did great reviews and the world lost a great motorcycle reviewer when he died. But these new writers???

And when did you last see a comparison review of a bike you were interested in?

They forgot who their audience was and focused on saving money.

Chris
 
I've to agree with @Daboo there...

Back in the day I too was a sucker for various rags, nature & science like GEO or PM (Peter Moosleitner), of HiFi... and they had real good content with literally no adds...
After a while you've the first 3ft stack of magazines... soon accompanied by a 2nd stack growing aside... and then a 3rd...
And one day you're just fed up, having picked up the tumbling/sliding stacks for like a hundred times...

And these day?
Rarely an story/report without an angle, an objective, some form of marketing/propaganda... "He who pays the piper calls the tune"...
 
the Ferret said:
Been getting motorcycle mags since the 60's. I used to get 5 different moto mags.
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I must have subscribed to at least 5, as well, but I didn't start till the early 70s... and boy, they DID stack up!
I enjoyed Peter Egan and Kevin Cameron.
These days it's Noraly, Bret Tcaks, Chris Birch, and Zack Courts and others on YouTube and farcebook.
Sorry, @Mellow ...the times, they are STILL a' changin'! 🥰
 
Okay -- here's another take on why motorcycle magazines are failing. YouTube. I can't tell you when I've seen in print a review on the F900XR I have. Obviously I preferred it over the two Harley Davidson ***Glide models reviewed for June in Rider magazine. Or the zoom-splat donner bike of the YZF-R7 in the July issue. But they continue to push bikes I don't care about at all.

So I went to YouTube and entered "F900XR reviews". And right there at the top was a comparative review of the F900XR, the Triumph 800 model and the Yamaha Tracer. Good review. Hit some nice points in depth on all three bikes. And along with that video review, were some others as well. I got what I wanted, not what some editor thought I should want.

Chris
 
Mellow said:
Also, when your target audience if dying off...
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Bingo.
Fewer and fewer dinosaurs shaking they umbrellas at the sky. Mixed metaphors but I don't care.

Cycle World's passing is a sad sign of the times and as mentioned should have been anticipated. Improvise adapts and overcome. Hold on to the past if you're comfortable but don't be surprised if there's an extinction event you didn't see coming.
 
While in Germany, January 1976 through January 1979, there wasn't a motorcycle magazine I would miss. Even after getting back to the states and back on motorcycles, I continued to read them. I think I may have a few out in my back shed.

But I'm guilty too, probably by mid 90's I quite buying them.

Yep, times have changed and will continue to.
 
Al st1100 said:
motorcycle sales and baby boomers, may not be exact but should have some correlation.
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This boomer has only purchased seven new bikes: '87, '90, '93, '98, '00, '19, '25. All but the last two were while I had dependent children. Strangely, all were Hondas, although I've had a dozen used bikes of other makes. I've also bought three new bikes for my kids during the dependent period.
 
I, on the other hand, have never bought a new bike (or any other new vehicle for that matter.)

The closest I ever came was when I bought my first bike, a one-year-old '72 CK450, from a dealer.
 
Well I hope this doesn't lead to an end of the Cycle World podcast as well, but I fear it might. If you haven't been listening for the past two and a half years, Mr Kevin Cameron (maybe the best motorcycle technical writer ever?) and Mark Hoyer have done a weekly show dissecting all manner of topics. Even the ones that I thought would be a bit "meh" have turned out to be fascinating, and I have been saving these for repeat listening.

I stopped buying magazines about 10 years ago which coincided with my local library providing "free" (if you don't count my property taxes) access to a wide range of digital magazines. Its true they don't have the same magic as print and I can't accumulate several 3 foot stacks but beggars and choosers and all that. They download straight into my iPad on the day they are "published", including Motorcycle Mojo, eh. I have kept a decent selection of print mags from my founding two-wheel year of 1982 and later, and they bring back the excitement of the period when new models were firehosed onto the market at a terrific rate especially from brands Y and H.

I have a good friend who has obsessed about Cycle magazine and has been backfilling gaps in his collection with eBay; some of these (from the late 60's I believe) came at horrific prices. So if anyone has some old magazines they are happy to part with, there may be more fiscally reckless souls out there.
 
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