Having regularly read "Bicycling" for many years (even when it was called "Bicycling!" in a tasteless 1970s way), I find it surprising to see how much the quality of the magazine has declined. In spite of all those people spending huge amounts of money on fancy equipment, "Bicycling" has become thinner and thinner. It has recently improved somewhat, after most of the editorial staff was fired, and a sign is the dropping of the truly horrible marginal comments (Bike Love and so forth) but it is only suitable for real neophytes. Unfortunately, there is no other single magazine that covers racing, bike touring, test reviews, technique and fitness in North America, no matter how poorly. The articles are very short and sometimes, well, just stupid. There is very little on cycling destinations or serious equipment tests. The photography remains decent, but compared to the German magazine "Tour," for example, "Bicycling" is a pretty sad effort. If you can read this, you have access to the Internet, which means you have far better sources of information to draw on. I am letting my subscription lapse and advise you to save your money. A big disappointment, "Bicycling" has not advanced with its readers.
During the 1970s, Bicycling was a great magazine with lots of in-depth articles about bike tours, bike racing, and bicycle technology. The magazine zoomed downhill through the 1990s into the worthless rag that it is now. The articles in the current version of the magazine are very superficial and lifeless. Many are thinly veiled press releases from various advertisers. If you really want to learn about road bicycles and bicycling, a much better magazineis *CyclingPlus*. For mountain biking, try *Bike* or *Dirt Rag*.
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Ok, I admit it, I still drool over hot bikes. But the essence of the bike reviews in this magazine are, "Whatever you are riding is junk, buy this hot cool bike made from unubtainium" And then next month....repeat. They used to really do some critical evaluations, like what makes a bike great, the physics of riding, the materials, the tires, the flex of the frame for various body shapes and weights. I suppose that got boring, and then manufactures stopped advertising in this journal because they panned their products.
You can still sort of tell what bikes they like, but its much much harder. The rest of the stuff is puff pieces that read like manufacturer's promotion literature. TI seatposts add 10% to your speed rating! TI sprocket bolts lighten your wallet 20% for faster rides to the ATM!
Come On! Most of us could get by with lightening "the frame" by 10 lbs by eating sensibly and riding more, (Reading about it less!) On the other hand if you stuff the magazine inside your shirt it's a good wind break.
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On the whole, Bicycling is a huge disappointment. I agree with some writers that the occassional tidbits of information are good, but I don't pay for a subscription for a sidebar or two -I read those in the newstand. Further, as I will mention below, once and a while there is a real gem of an article.
In the meantime, almost everything else they do is poor. The entire magazine is pitched at the readership as though we were all budding pros, training obsessively and fighting with that last 1% of body fat. The reality is, what Bicycling's readership principally is is rich -in their own pages, they recently listed average household income of a subscription at $115,000. So it's not people with the ability tor ride like the pros ride, it's people with the ability to buy what the pros ride.
The result is a majority of articles and reviews that focus on just this -$3000+ bikes (and, as one reviewer said, the occassional review of more reasonably priced choices around $1500. Wait, $1500 is *not* chump change?!?!), advanced training and eating techniques, etc., as opposed to real world riding -centuries and club rides, touring, commuting (gasp!), etc. Even it's racing coverage is terrible -its recent spread on the San Fran GP, one of the three most important races in the US, was 6 pages of photos, 4 of which were of people watching the race, not the racing itself.
For me, though, the worst part is its hypocrisy. In a recent issue, there was a truly excellent article on what the author called "Invisible Riders" -low income laborers who depended on their cheap bicycles to get them to and from work sites everyday. Yet: the author mentioned several times (albeit with embarrassment) that he was riding a Seven while doing research on people whose lives depended on $100 bikes; the author commented on the significance of these riders commuting everyday, a movement which riders like Bicycling readers had never been able to mobilize (maybe because they all drive to work and the magazine does little or nothing to encourage bicycle commuting); and the five bikes reviewed in that issue ranged from $3500-$7000.
Really, really sad. One star for "Invisible Riders" and the like, and that's it.
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I found this magazine to be pretty disappointing:
-Lots of uninformitive articles: like "15 secrets you can really use," "18 things only insiders know," "Ride like a pro," it sounds more like a fashion or diet magazine. All the articles have titles that imply good information but when you read them they lack substance.
Bike tips that are impracticle or obvious.
-Lots of product reviews that give no good information: instead they tell you how good the bike looks, what material it's made from, if it's high/low priced, what quality line the drive train is, how your friends will like it... they state the obvious and point out things you can figure out for yourself.
-There is a "style man" section in the back that tells you what biking clothes look good, and what is out of fasion?
-Lots of advertisements.
-Anti-triathlete comments in some articles
I only read about 3 of these before I stopped, sometimes I wondered if the editors were even bikers themselves.
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