Crap MB (Mountain Bike Rider)

Member Name: roger_smith

Product:	Mountain Bike Rider
Date:	04/10/00 (538 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: None, apart from to start small fires

Disadvantages: Costs too much

Mountain Bike magazine does not seem to be aimed at people who actually ride mountain bikes. The target audience seems to be people who are obscenely wealthy, who collect very high end mountain bikes.
I am not one of those people. I ride a GT Backwoods, with a few modifications that I have made myself. I ride singletrack, fire roads, and sometimes on pavement.

I read mountainbike magazine's to find tips on better riding techniques, maintenance help, reviews of products, and stories about mountainbikers. This magazine doesn't seem to feature any of those things.

What passes for product reviews in this magazine are glowing endorsements of products made by the advertisers. And high praise of 2000 quid, bikes that a real person could never afford.

The hints and advice that I crave are nonexistent. I want to know how to avoid pinch flats without riding high psi in my tires (aside from spending big bucks for tubeless tires, that is), this magazine will never tell me.

The articles about racers are bland, outdated, and too focused on downhill, which doesn't interest me much.

The worst thing about this magazine is that it, like so many magazines these days, is comprised mostly of ads; and articles about things advertised in the mag, which really equals another ad anyway. As I have said in many epinions about magazines: a publication should strive to strike a reasonable balance between ad space and content.

Another poor aspect of this magazine is the column by Zappatta, or as he calls him self, Zap. This is a huge waste of space and paper. He has nothing to say that would be useful, or of interest to mountain bikers.

The final point is: this mag costs much too much!

Summary: