# best mountain bike magazine?



## golden tooth (Sep 1, 2013)

Hello All,
So, I'm kind of old school and I still love reading print media. I am wondering if anyone has a mountain bike magazine recommendation for me. I like stories about riding, tips and anything else that inspires me to go ride my bike :thumbsup:. I don't particularly like a magazine full of reviews of $5000 dollar bikes that make me feel like mine is inadequate for a good riding experience:madman:. 

Thanks


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## slapheadmofo (Jun 9, 2006)

I like BIKE magazine. Got every one since they started, 20 years ago now. It's the only one I read consistently. Good writing and photography, and they seem to try to concentrate more on the ride than the gear (though there's still a fair amount of reviews and tech stuff).

The 20th anniversery edition just came out . It's got some pretty cool retrospective stuff in there; worth grabbing.


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## Ladmo (Jan 11, 2013)

I can second the BIKE recommendation. It has interesting articles sometimes. I also like and subscribe to Dirt Rag. I don't think it is possible to get a mountain bike magazine these days that does not review top of the line bikes though.


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## golden tooth (Sep 1, 2013)

freakybro said:


> I don't think it is possible to get a mountain bike magazine these days that does not review top of the line bikes though.


I get that, and I don't mind some of it (I do like to dream). Thanks for the ideas guys. I will check those out


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## moefosho (Apr 30, 2013)

I also read articles here on mtbr, pinkbike, bikerumor and other sites. 

There is something intrinsically better about having the magazine in your hands though.


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## elcaro1101 (Sep 1, 2011)

I keep a Mountain Bike Action around for those late night number twos where my brain isn't fully functioning. It's just for the look at the cool gear and pretty picture effect when I'm not fully coherent and don't want to use my iPhone. I find the data in the mags seems a bit dated even as they are released to the news stand with the speed stuff is put out on the Internet, so the mag I keep around may be a few months old too. If I am coherent then my phone is my info/news source.


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## GeePhroh (Jan 13, 2004)

Freehub is a quarterly out of the great biking city of Bellingham, WA that leans more towards the am/fr/dh'ish side of things. Awesome photography and articles about epic trail locations. It'll get you inspired to ride! :thumbsup:


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## SomebodyGetaSponge! (Dec 21, 2006)

Dirt Rag is my favorite by far!


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## Shakester (Jun 26, 2012)

I like Mountain Bike Action as well. Partly because its the only one I can grab off a newstand around here. The only thing that I don't like about MBA that every test ride is usually on a bike that is $3000-5000 dollars. I've never seen them test ride a bike thats under $1000. That kind of eliminates a lot of people who like to read the reviews on a bike to help them decide on one. For once, I'd like to see them ride a $600 bike


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## whoda*huck (Feb 12, 2005)

Yes Bike, yes Dirt Rag, no on MBA (unless you want to see a "how to bunny hop" article about every 3 months).


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## midbunchlurker (Mar 18, 2005)

Bike mag FTW. I've read many others intermittently, but none come close to the great articles and phenomenal photography in Bike.


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## Spykr (Feb 17, 2011)

BIKE mag or Dirt Rag for sure! BIKE has articles beyond the basic interview or bike review (they also have a yearly MEGA review called the Bible of Bike Tests), and their photo sections are things worth cutting out and hanging on the wall! 

Dirt Rag is the most "mountain biker-y" magazine, if that makes any sense. Not the most professional, not the glossiest, most commercial thing, but damn they do a good job, their articles are well-written, and usually got a good dose of humor in there to boot!


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## slapheadmofo (Jun 9, 2006)

Yup - BIKE is my fave, but Dirt Rag is also good. I like to grab an occasional copy of Dirt or Decline from the newsstand also. 

Everyone I know refers to MTB Action as MTB Fiction. There's been nothing printed in that magazine over the past 20+ years that comes close to relating to mountain biking as I know it. It's like the US magazine of biking.


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## mbco1975 (Feb 28, 2012)

MTB Action gets boring very quickly. I was looking for an alternative myself, so just signed up for BIKE, so hopefully that is better...
Sent from my HTC6990LVW using Board Express


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## frdfandc (Sep 5, 2007)

Dirt Rag and BIKE mags.


MTB Action is only good for office reading. That way, when your done reading, you can wipe your butt with the pages.


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## hrv013 (Jul 10, 2013)

Dirt Rag


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## jeffj (Jan 13, 2004)

My two scheckles on mountain bike magazines:

For all those lamenting that some magazines only seem to test really expensive bikes, consider that this is what the bike companies send them. The magazines rarely get to choose which level model they get. And, the bike companies would generally prefer to send one of their top, or close to top tier models. I don't blame either one. The bike testers take what they are given to test, and if you were a company having a bike you produced reviewed by a major (in the MTB world) media outlet, you don't want them wondering if the performance would have been better had they been testing a model with better components. They would rather you imagine the reverse, and figure that if the model that is raved about had lesser components that it would still be pretty good.

I don't know what some people imagine goes on at a publisher of mountain bike magazines, but it's not like they have some enormous 'test facility' with dozens of scientists milling about in white lab coats operating all sorts of high tech test apparatus'. They are riders just like many of us, with their own personal riding styles, biases, likes and dislikes. For hard core enthusiasts that scour the internet for the latest and greatest, you're probably going to know the scoop long before a print magazine is going to have it coming off the presses and ready for consumption. It's just the nature of the business. If you're looking for pinpoint 'nth degree' scientific analysis, and up to the minute 'news', you might be expecting too much from a mountain bike magazine. 

There's simply not that much money to be made from it and they don't have the resources of more mainstream publications with truly major advertisers. Trek may be huge in the bike biz, but they're not General Motors or Microsoft.

Cheers.


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## kapusta (Jan 17, 2004)

Dirt Rag


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## CWnSWCO (Apr 24, 2012)

I just saw Mountain Flyer recently... pretty good, check it out. I like BIKE also.


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## Zoo1424 (Jul 20, 2010)

I get Bike, Dirt Rag, Mountain Bike Action & Switchback. Hey, I like mountain biking and any one of them beats Rolling Stone or Sports Illustrated. I just started getting Switchback & so far I'm digging it.


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## Brockwan (Aug 6, 2013)

I recently bought a copy of what mountain bike magazine. I found it ridiculous that the bikes they reviewed were not for the average joe. It took the piss really. I understand that the companies send their best as mentioned above, but I'd much rather read a mag with stuff in the majority's price range. It did have a high drool factor though.

Apologies for quality but check out these bikes they reviewed and their prices.

7984 uk pounds works out around 12,000 us dollars by the way.










Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## AZ (Apr 14, 2009)

Reviews of cheap bikes don't pay the bills, the overwhelming majority of readers want to see the latest and greatest. Try Dirt Rag.


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## sinfony78 (Dec 2, 2012)

freehub

personal stories, artistic/poetic visuals and composition, not hampered by reviews and ads

a real winner


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## Cleared2land (Aug 31, 2012)

Switchback - Way cool - great articles with diverse subjects. Unfortunately, it's not one of the cheaper ones.


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## synodbio (Mar 21, 2013)

Cool!! Good collections of magazines for bike riders which i was not aware


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## lucmac (Nov 3, 2013)

Speaking of a Bike magazine, I highly recommend getting the Nextissue app on your ipad. For about $15 a month you get a lot of good magazines and they keep adding new magazines all the time. Bike and Bicycling magazines are both included. I really like the digital versions as you can really zoom in on the high quality pictures and really see extra detail whether it's on the bikes, the gear or the stop action photos to see what's really going on or how a rider is doing something.


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## Stuartxav (Apr 2, 2020)

Here is a list. Only problem is that all of these are in Amazon.
I am also looking for a good one

Mountain bike magazine


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## noapathy (Jun 24, 2008)

^^^Still hiding out from the 2014 Ebola epidemic? We've got a new bug lately keeping people isolated from each other, though the TV and internet still seem to work. Better go back into hiding.


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