Motorcyclist (1-year auto-renewal)

Motorcyclist is a mainstay in the motorcycle magazine world, a place where cycle novices like this reviewer can begin to get a monthly diet of news, mechanics, advertisements, reviews, and cycle talk.

The format is busy, with very narrow margins. Think the opposite of those luxury goods magazines that seem bent on calming your mind. MOTORCYCLIST wants to rev it up, or better yet, place it in a helmet and roughly equidistant between the two ends of a handlebar.

The magazine pays fair attention to racing and racing cycles, then moves on to street bikes and eventually to the cruisers that most interest this middle-aged fat boy of a reviewer. The current issue in front of me has an Asian touch, with a series of articles headlined provocatively as 'Korean bikes: do they suck?' and an article entitled 'Riding the Ho Chi Minh Trail.'

'Makes one recall thirty years ago, when we couldn't imagine that a company named Honda could actually squeak out a running car.

Motorcyclists in this country, where riding a bike is a choice rather than a transportation necessity, tend to be passionate about their ride. So expect some flaming in the letters and reviews sections.

MOTORCYCLIST is a staple: the literary Hamburger Helper of a cyclist's regular reading.

When Mitch Boehm left, and Brian Catterson took top spot, this magazine went into a tailspin. Despite several retorts that it didn't turn into a Ducati infomercial, the evidence is overwhelming to the contrary. The writing went downhill, the perspective of what motorcycling means to a wider audience, and the circumspect approach to all owners flew out the window. I used to tell people Motorcyclist was the best. Not anymore. Do yourself a favor and get Cycle World. The writing is better, the experts are more credible, the articles are more intelligent, and they cover ALL the bikes. Rider is improving with each issue, having also surpassed Motorcyclist in quality some time ago.

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I subscribed for a year just because the price was only $10. I now know that the price of $10 was not really worth it for this magazine. First of all, when you hold it in your hands, you can feel how light and insubstantial it is. Then, you open it up and it's mostly ads for motorcycle gear and cars (!). I used to like Motorcyclist for its articles and the way I would get excited about new bikes and technologies they presented.

But then I started reading the far, far better UK bike mags like Bike and Superbike (which are more along my interests anyway since they mainly feature sportbikes). But you pick up one of those, yes they cost $10 each, but they are like 5 times the weight of Motorcyclist and jam packed with actually relevant articles that inform me and get me excited about riding every time I read. Unfortunately for us Americans, the UK bike scene is better in every way, so it's mostly a gallery of what we can't have.

Anyway, skip this magazine. It's unfortunate that Motorcyclist is actually among the best general interest motorcycle magazines in the US, which speaks volumes about the state of motorcycling in this country.

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Motorcyclist has never been the highest quality US motorcycling mag around, but it's always been a somewhat interesting. These days, though, I barely skim the issues. Tons of ads make that easy enough. Half of the magazine beyond that is dedicated to industry news and "sneak peeks." These days, that service is better provided online. What a magazine can offer is solid editorial content, comprehensive reviews, and possibly even a sense of community. The editorial content has improved somewhat with the addition of Keith Code's articles. Motorcyclist's reviews of motorcycles have been shoddy in the last few years, the gear reviews sound like an advertisement. And the sense of community, which would be accomplished through a solid online presence, falls short as well.

I'll pay more for Cycle World they have great editorials, experts on staff, and a good website. I'll pay even more for Motorcycle Consumer News their reviews pull no punches and they provide fantastic info-sheets for each bike reviewed. I'll even pay for Hellforleathermagazine.com's subscription they get the latest information before anyone else and have an invaluable user base. All of these are more expensive and I'm happy to pay for them.

I'm on my last issue of Motorcyclist and my renewal offer is a year for only $5. That's just too much for what I get out of the magazine.That's the only reason it gets two stars over one. It's affordable.

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I've suscribed for several years, I like Cycle World better as it just seems more professional but Motorcyclist is OK. They have a chopped up format that makes it hard to track an article through all the way. They also assume everyone is a RicKy Racer type and that we all go to the track.

Still I send them their $$ every year.

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