Motorbike magazine... Recommendations please!

Hi,

Hoping someone can help me out here please. I am trying to buy an annual subscription to a motorbike magazine but have no idea which one.

The recipient is male in his early 50's and loves Harleys etc..

All opinions appreciated.

No idea about specific 'Cruiser' mags but I've flicked through a few and most seem to be more about customs/OCC type bikes and tattoos than actual bike news.

I'm a regular buyer of 'Motorcycle Sport & Leisure' (Or MSL as it's also known). It's a brilliant mag. Mature topics, great stories and news, and covers all types of bike, from race reps to street bikes, commuter bikes and cruisers. Highly recommended.

The subscription is £30 (UK & ROI) for 12 issues (or €5.40ea in Easons!)
Visit www.classicmagazines.co.uk or follow this link directly to the subscription page for MSL [broken link removed]

HTH,

PK.

Is the recipient a closet "biker" - did he once own a bike?
A motorcycle of 125cc or above, not a scooter or moped.
This usually betrays a different mindset than scooterists.

Mainstream mags will feature the range of bikes over a year including production harleys
If he's really into wild wimmin and leather a hardcore harly mag from the states might be just the ticket.
A moderate approach would be a magazine for customised bikes, which may include some japanese and european makes.
One of the nicest bikes I ever saw in print was an American customised XL500 Yamaha single with a spine frame in electric blue - really, really, well executed.

Mind you witha gentleman in his fifties a vision somes to mind of a full dress Honda Goldwing with; -

• wrap around fairing
• foglights
• crashbars
• panniers
• topbox
• running lights down the side
• highway pegs
• GPS navigation
• radio communication
• king and queen seats
• reverse gear and
• waterproof 100W speakers

Y'see, people in their fifties and sixties actually RIDE full dress tourers [whatever the make].
They go on massive rallies here - you're see them gathering at the Loughlinstown roundabout every summer.
Radical "hogs" OTOH are some of the most uncomfortable creations on this earth - no rear suspension = "hardtails" indeed.
The boys on American Chopped at Orange County Cycles on Sky make them look beautiful, but I wouldn't want to ride any of them more than a mile.
No offence Tuttles, if you read AAM, they're works of art, but hardtails were never my thing after riding three up on a Triumph 500 twin across the site of a demolished building. Ouch!




ONQ.

OT :

Onq, so its like that now ?

In my time on two wheels, 80 was the magic number.

Bike did 80 MPH, gave 80 MPG and cost £80

'Motorcycle Sport' was the only mag worth reading then ( and what a read it was with recollections of Norton, Vincent and Velocettes doing - what seemed - impossible feats [ of course the Japs changed all that ] ) .

Will never forget a review that it printed of what was the latest Triumph model at the time - described as being 'available in seven self peeling colours'

Hi Guys,

Thanks a mil for all the info! PK I followed your link and purchased MSL.

Thanks again... another present struck off the list.

olddog said:

OT :

Onq, so its like that now ?

In my time on two wheels, 80 was the magic number.

Bike did 80 MPH, gave 80 MPG and cost £80

'Motorcycle Sport' was the only mag worth reading then ( and what a read it was with recollections of Norton, Vincent and Velocettes doing - what seemed - impossible feats [ of course the Japs changed all that ] ) .

Will never forget a review that it printed of what was the latest Triumph model at the time - described as being 'available in seven self peeling colours'

Click to expand...

Nope - it was like that then!

A few years later in my day it was 60, 60 and a multiple of 60.

My CD175A [spine frame model] did 77 once [66 in the other direction], regularly gave 60 mpg and cruised at a steady 60mph between stops. And cost 300 quid. I had life changing experiences on/off it - twice.

Motorcycle News was the bible, with Superbike for drooling over unattainable forrin and jap metal - and wimmin.

The crunch came for me in Thesis year, with a site in Carraigaholt in Clare, site visits in the middle of winter and a choice between a one year old GPz250 - 85 mps, 65 mph and two grand and a ratty Renault 4 L.

The car won, my learning curve went vertical on the trip down and the car paid for itself on a bumpy blind bend coming into Kilkee that had a 12ft long, road-wide puddle in the middle of it, and an ambulance coming the other way at speed.

On a bike, that would have been it for me.

But on even the humblest of 4 wheels, with ineffectual wipers [slow and slower were the two speeds] and a good memory for the shape of the road ahead, I drove through the puddle most of which had landed on my windscreen from the passage of the ambulance and arrived at my overnight halt.

Which was strange, because one fo the locals had died recently and that night back in 1989 the whole town of Kilkee was out in a funeral procession at 5:00pm on a dark winters evening.

"That could've been me..." I thought. And that was the end of the bikes.

I'd had a good run - CD175, CB125SJ, RD350, RD400, a couple of bad crashes but didn't end up with bits missing or a limp - I'd been lucky.

'Nuff said.



ONQ.