...Singletrack magazine for the first time and was quietly impressed.
I've largely given up with bike mags, finding the whiny, nasally, puerile articles a major turnoff, the group tests of the usual suspects no more than glorified advertising or aspirational arsery of the Top Gear kind and finding that in 300 pages of a 6 quid mag, 280 of them are advertising.
I was driven to buy it by the current state of my knees which are stopping me running or cycling. I was nurturing them with beer and carrot cake, not in the same glass but the other morning my belt reminded me of the terms and conditions of its use and apparently unnecessary strain is not one of them. So whilst in Sainsburys not shopping for beer and carrot cake I spied a copy of Singletrack and stuck it in the trolley. The fact I later found a beer in there at the checkout is neither here nor there. I can only think I must have brushed it off the shelf accidentally whilst getting the apple juice.
So the mag: Nice mix of articles, well written without the need to go large on the adventure, inspirational and yes, aspirational but not in a look at me and how smart I am, kind of way. Sure I'm not going to hop on a flight to Ecuador and go mtn biking but I enjoyed reading about those that did and all topped off with good photographs and not much advertising. There are still elements of the puerile and tests but it's all toned down to normal levels. It's the first bike mag I've read cover to cover in years. Who knows I may even get another.
I've largely given up with bike mags, finding the whiny, nasally, puerile articles a major turnoff, the group tests of the usual suspects no more than glorified advertising or aspirational arsery of the Top Gear kind and finding that in 300 pages of a 6 quid mag, 280 of them are advertising.
I was driven to buy it by the current state of my knees which are stopping me running or cycling. I was nurturing them with beer and carrot cake, not in the same glass but the other morning my belt reminded me of the terms and conditions of its use and apparently unnecessary strain is not one of them. So whilst in Sainsburys not shopping for beer and carrot cake I spied a copy of Singletrack and stuck it in the trolley. The fact I later found a beer in there at the checkout is neither here nor there. I can only think I must have brushed it off the shelf accidentally whilst getting the apple juice.
So the mag: Nice mix of articles, well written without the need to go large on the adventure, inspirational and yes, aspirational but not in a look at me and how smart I am, kind of way. Sure I'm not going to hop on a flight to Ecuador and go mtn biking but I enjoyed reading about those that did and all topped off with good photographs and not much advertising. There are still elements of the puerile and tests but it's all toned down to normal levels. It's the first bike mag I've read cover to cover in years. Who knows I may even get another.
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