Going for Speed
Mountain Bike (MB) is certainly not the worst mtb mag out there. Mountain Biker for instance is so awful it's almost impossible to read. Mountain Biking might be worse. Bike is pretty good, but still shows the same basic faults as the others, just to a slightly lesser degree. I'm only picking on MB because I got the new issue last night and read it in the bathtub after the wednesday night MTB race (SuperDan schooled me again, but at least i won the old, fat guys class).
I admit I'm no fan of Zap. I hated MBA when he worked there, and it seemed like MB started to go downhill when he got hired on. It seems like he's always trying to take credit for inspiring all the innovation in the industry. Plus he's such a SoCal throttle twister he's completely out of touch with real MTB riding and racing (which, for the record, is obviously centered in NorCal).
So let's look at our July issue of MB. It starts off OK. For once Zap is entertaining. I usually write the guy off as big ol', non-bike-riding, know-it-all, industry-schmoozing poser, but this month his column is down-to-earth (literally) and downright funny. As a bonus there's no stupid motorcycle racing trivia. So far, so good.
This is one of the strong points of magazines. You expect a regular column to be sort of the writer's personal axe to grind (kind of like this page is for me). You don't expect facts and truth so much as entertainment and insight. Unless of course you're reading Dondo's column, in which case you expect blather. I heard they finally fired this clown. I can't wait til his column stops showing up in the mag. I've always thought dondo was a kook. He used to always go on about how many freewheels and cassettes he broke, as if this made him as cool as jobst, that other jacked-up destroyer of stuff that works fine for everyone else. Like hello, Dondo. You break stuff because you're fat and clumsy, OK?
Anyway, not to get off the subject. Dondo's column was lame. No surprise. Probably the only thing Zap and I will ever agree on is that Dondo is lame.
Maybe I'm not so mad after all. There's a nice historical article on Steve Tilford, who's even older than me. There are some good spy photos and stuff of the new goodies coming from Rock Shox. There's a very sensible page about Bontrager rims, pointing out they make better, lighter, cheaper wheels than cross max's. What was I so annoyed about anyway?
Oh, I remember. First of all there's the article about the specialized olympic replica frame. Author Chris Burgeson goes on and on about the fancy M2 frame, but nowhere do we get to know the weight of the frame. Is this like all the other M2 frames, i.e. 3 1/2 lbs or so (the same as a mid-priced regular aluminum frame), or has specialized gone beyond the marketing BS and decided to make something better? We don't get to know. They've got the bike all dolled up with fancy components, and you get a complete bike weight (22 1/2 lbs), but no clue what the frame weighs, just hype. I don't know if they're too freakin' lazy to take the bike apart or if they're worried about losing advertising when they expose M2 as a hype-vehicle or what. It seems to me that if a bike is sold as a frame, a review should have an honest weight of the frame. Otherwise we just have ad copy masquerading as an objective review.
If you've read much of the drivel I put out, you know how I feel about nice long top tubes. So I can't help but notice Matt Phillips complaining about the 24" top tube on the new Trek Y-bikes. He blames front tire washing on the extra 1/2 " or so of length. He goes so far as to call the long top-tube (similar to Fisher's Genesis) geometry "weird." I can only surmise that Matt either doesn't race, or maybe just doesn't know how to ride a bike. There are plenty of talented and experienced riders who think this sort of geometry is the best thing since derailleurs. I personally haven't experienced any more front wheel wash outs than I used to, even though my bike has a 24.75" top tube. What I have experienced is a fairly shocking improvement in handling in all types of terrain. The slightly longer wheelbase and shorter stem keep the rider's weight between the wheels and make traction more predictable for me.
I acknowledge that not everyone rides like me. I don't expect Matt Phillips to agree with me on every point. I do expect magazine writers to make more of an effort to learn how bikes handle though. Most of the people I know who ride bikes with the geometry Matt calls "weird" now refuse to ride their old bikes. We're talking about pro and expert level racers as well as regular guys who just like to ride alot. They're all very experienced riders. Does Matt think Trek just dreamed up that long top tube as an M2-esque marketing scheme? Maybe they actually built some prototypes and let people who know how to ride bikes use them for months on end, eh? I happen to know that's the case, because I rode one of the Fisher prototypes.
If that's a picture of Matt riding the Y-bike in the magazine, then that sort of explains everything. Check out the shoes. Anyone who doesn't ride hard enough to destroy a pair of those cheesy nikes in a week or two has no business writing reviews of racing bikes.
The whole point is that most of these guys don't really acknowledge the limited worth of their opinions. They state things that are entirely subjective as if they were facts. It would be nice if there were at least a preface, like "I'm a hairy-legged SoCal goofball who rides slow, but the long top tube didn't work for me because I don't know how to steer a bike." Every review I write is full of disclaimers like that. I know from years of selling and racing bikes that what works for me might not work for you. But if I tell you enough about me and how I ride, you might still be able to use the information to gauge the probability that a given product will work for you.
So what's up with the photo of "Auburn" in the back of the mag? I live a few miles from Auburn, and I ride there all the time. I can't imagine where in Auburn the photo could be. It doesn't look like anywhere near Auburn I know about. The caption provides a clue, mentioning Eagle Mountain Bike Park. Ok, Eagle Mountain is only like 50 freakin' miles from Auburn. Kinda makes me wonder about the other stuff they print.
Ok, so actually the magazine isn't that bad. Many of the articles were entertaining. Most of the time blatant opinions were presented as blatant opinions. I was impressed that in their short review of WTB semi-slicks Matt Phillips specified that they experienced lotsa flats, rather than just stating that semi-slicks get more flats (I've been racing semi-slicks for more than a year with no flat problems at all). Many other mags would've taken a more know-it-all approach.
All they need to do to have a pretty good mag (at least one that meets my needs) is a) stop printing stuff that dondo wrote, b) Give some actual data (like frame weights) in their bike reviews and c) make Zap shut up already about motorcycles and his daughter with the trendy, yuppie name
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