Cycling Plus magazine

[rogerzilla]

I think it's become a parody, but it's hard to tell.  The cover of this month's has a glaring errant apostrophe, the reviews section is like Groundhog Day.  The senior technical editor must be pushing the rider weight limits of some of the exotic bikes he tests.  The staff photos remind me of the later Star Trek movies with Shatner et al squeezed into their uniforms.

It was a good mag for a few years but the MAMIL/sportive theme has done it no favours.  I suppose that's who buys bike mags.

AIUI most hobby magazines are produced by about 4 people on a shoestring budget, and the trick is to try and hide this.

[citoyen]

I suppose that's who buys bike mags.

No one buys bike mags. That's the problem.

AIUI most hobby magazines are produced by about 4 people on a shoestring budget, and the trick is to try and hide this.

Three people. I know this from bitter experience.

It's a vicious circle. Sales go down, advertising revenue falls, so the publisher cuts the budget. This means ever tighter resources, so it becomes harder to produce a mag with quality content people actually want to read. So sales go down...

Cycling Plus has done well to last as long as it has.

[spesh]

I suppose that's who buys bike mags.

No one buys bike mags. That's the problem.

I stopped buying cycling mags years ago after getting bored with the article churn-induced deja vu. That, and Cycling Weekly's descent from a publication for all cyclists to just pandering to sportivistes.

Cycling Plus has done well to last as long as it has.

I have occasionally wondered what it is that Mountain Biking UK has been doing right, given how long it's been around for. It can't just have been the Mint Sauce cartoon strip...

[rafletcher]

I’m struggling to remember the title of a (road biased, as opposed to MTB centric) cycling mag that was originally  based in Bath (I think) and used to publish a (centre spread?) ride map each month. I used to enjoy that - maybe that was the original C+? 

Re C+ I stopped reading that several years ago, and that was the only cycling mag I’d read for years, having stopped the Comic sometime in the 80’s.

[TimC]

Given the antecedents of this forum, I'm not sure C+ has too many friends here! It's been stuck in a Mamil rut for far too long, and is neither topical in the way The Comic can be, nor does it seriously attempt to attract a (slightly) wider audience as Cyclist does. It has no relevance whatsoever to the majority of real-world bicycle users, so it's a bit surprising it still exists in the form it takes. Several of its erstwhile competitors have now gone.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I’m struggling to remember the title of a (road biased, as opposed to MTB centric) cycling mag that was originally  based in Bath (I think) and used to publish a (centre spread?) ride map each month. I used to enjoy that - maybe that was the original C+? 

Re C+ I stopped reading that several years ago, and that was the only cycling mag I’d read for years, having stopped the Comic sometime in the 80’s.

C+ was published by Future Publishing, who were based on one of the little cobbled streets off the bottom of Milsom St in Bath. They were one of our clients in the early 90s when I was couriering!

[robgul]

I've still got a freebie Cycling Plus winter jersey somewhere . . . - and in the age-old tradition of deviating the thread .... whatever happened to some of the old-stagers from the C+ forum back in the low noughties?

Springing to mind ...... Ravenbait, Chuffy, Baggy, Tim & Kathy Pike, Nutty (Kathy's brother), Charlotte (OK, I know she lurks here), Fatbloke, Andy Gates, Ru88ell ... and more

[citoyen]

It has no relevance whatsoever to the majority of real-world bicycle users

What would be the point of making a magazine that caters to their tastes if they’re not going to buy it anyway?

Several of its erstwhile competitors have now gone.

Cycling Active tried to rebrand itself as a mag that catered to “real-world bicycle users”. That’s what finally killed it off.

[SteveC]

Springing to mind ...... Ravenbait, Chuffy, Baggy, Tim & Kathy Pike, Nutty (Kathy's brother), Charlotte (OK, I know she lurks here), Fatbloke, Andy Gates, Ru88ell ... and more

Ravenbait and Andy Gates are still alive on different bits of the internet.

[SteveC]

Trouble with magazines is that they most end up repeating themselves every year or two.
There are only so many ways you can produce a ride report, or a review of a component which is very much like its predecessor and so on.
Add to that the fact that a lot of us now use the internet to fill that spare time when we would be reading a mag and...

[StuAff]

Long term C+ subscriber. And dear lord, whichever person did not spot that apostrophic abomination should be hypenated…but otherwise, I keep finding stuff to read in it ever single month. Would note Warren the tech ed is probably more representative of the typical rider's weight than most riders or advertisers would care to admit. And he hasn't got enough bikes. I've bought many products that they gave positive reviews, and have been happy with my choices. They still cover a wider range of bikes and a wider range of price points than the competition (living or dead). Cyclist seems only slighly less aspirational/up itself than Rouleur to me. Bikes Etc did give it a good go- sorry it didn't last. I posted over on CycleChat that Audaxing Curmudgeon Monthly would go bust because said curmudgeons would be too tight to buy it…

Try finding a magazine, in any genre, that does not recycle subjects again and again. Nature of the beast. And why would any magazine not review Slightly Different Variation On Existing Product, when that is exactly what many of its target audience actually want to read because they might want to buy said product with some idea whether it's up to the job? What Car? would have to rename itself We Don't Know What Car Either, Sorry.

[rafletcher]

I’m struggling to remember the title of a (road biased, as opposed to MTB centric) cycling mag that was originally  based in Bath (I think) and used to publish a (centre spread?) ride map each month. I used to enjoy that - maybe that was the original C+? 

Re C+ I stopped reading that several years ago, and that was the only cycling mag I’d read for years, having stopped the Comic sometime in the 80’s.

C+ was published by Future Publishing, who were based on one of the little cobbled streets off the bottom of Milsom St in Bath. They were one of our clients in the early 90s when I was couriering!

So that’s what it must have been, although I thought it was earlier than the 1992 Winaccurate tells me it was.

[TimC]

Springing to mind ...... Ravenbait, Chuffy, Baggy, Tim & Kathy Pike, Nutty (Kathy's brother), Charlotte (OK, I know she lurks here), Fatbloke, Andy Gates, Ru88ell ... and more

Ravenbait and Andy Gates are still alive on different bits of the internet.

All of them are. I'm FB friends with most of them, and see contributions from almost all of them fairly frequently. Some of the old CakeStop crowd decamped to other fora after the ACF meltdown, and some have moved on from cycling in general, but they're still about.

[robgul]

Springing to mind ...... Ravenbait, Chuffy, Baggy, Tim & Kathy Pike, Nutty (Kathy's brother), Charlotte (OK, I know she lurks here), Fatbloke, Andy Gates, Ru88ell ... and more

Ravenbait and Andy Gates are still alive on different bits of the internet.

All of them are. I'm FB friends with most of them, and see contributions from almost all of them fairly frequently. Some of the old CakeStop crowd decamped to other fora after the ACF meltdown, and some have moved on from cycling in general, but they're still about.

Shame that they're on the (to me) dreaded/awful FB - I'm sure they'd make interesting contributions here . . . perhaps Rogerzilla could have a "reunion" thread?

[De Sisti]

I stopped buying that magazine nearly 15 years ago. All the magazine covers appeared the same.
You know; young, skinny guy out of the saddle appearing to be sprinting.


*Edit: In my communications with the editor about the front covers; the reply came back to say
that "it represents the riders of today".

[Cudzoziemiec]

I’m struggling to remember the title of a (road biased, as opposed to MTB centric) cycling mag that was originally  based in Bath (I think) and used to publish a (centre spread?) ride map each month. I used to enjoy that - maybe that was the original C+? 

Re C+ I stopped reading that several years ago, and that was the only cycling mag I’d read for years, having stopped the Comic sometime in the 80’s.

C+ was published by Future Publishing, who were based on one of the little cobbled streets off the bottom of Milsom St in Bath. They were one of our clients in the early 90s when I was couriering!

So that’s what it must have been, although I thought it was earlier than the 1992 Winaccurate tells me it was.

I'm sure I remember it from earlier as well. Maybe 1991 or 1990. It's been on the Audited Bureau of Circulation since 1992, which is probably where Wikip get their date from, but it could have been around before that of course.
https://www.abc.org.uk/product/5987
The very earliest issues that I remember where quite chunky, with lots of B&W photographs of technical things – maintenance hints and to a lesser extent components. It seemed to have a rather practical ethos, much more about riding whatever you happened to ride, and I'd say that continued for about ten years. It's quite remarkable that it's been going as long as it has, even though it's changed in content and style.

[Paul]

I’m struggling to remember the title of a (road biased, as opposed to MTB centric) cycling mag that was originally  based in Bath (I think) and used to publish a (centre spread?) ride map each month. I used to enjoy that - maybe that was the original C+? 

Cycling Today?

[Beardy]

I used to read MTB U.K. back in the day, though these days I’m more likely to read Singletrack. The only road centric cycle magazine I’ve ever really enjoyed was Velovision which has long since fallen.

[rogerzilla]

Is Singletrack a magazine?  I only know it for the Picolax thread 

[spesh]

Is Singletrack a magazine?  I only know it for the Picolax thread 

It is indeed an actual magazine. IIRC, it started shortly after the demise of MountainBike World.

<tappity tappity>

Singletrack grew from an earlier web site, GoFar, an acronym for 'Get Out For A Ride', which ran from 1998 to 2001 and was founded by Matt Wenham along with many contributors from the uk.rec.cycling Usenet newsgroup including Shaun Murray, Callum Wilson, Tony Raven, Russell Pinder, Myra VanInwegen and others, and from outside Usenet, Mark Alker, Carvel Lonsdale and many more. GoFar was largely a reaction to the death of the Future Publishing magazine Mountainbike World on which Chipps Chippendale once worked.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singletrack_(magazine)

EDITED TO ADD:

The legendary Picolax thread was almost lost when the Singletrack forum suffered a bit of a server meltdown/kablooey a few years back, but fortunately, it was saved for the nation:

https://singletrackworld.com/2009/02/the-picolax-thread-returns

[Tim Hall]

I vaguely remember Matt Wenham on uk.rec.cycling. Myra van Inwengen liked purple anodised things on her bike and was a bog snorkling champion. I don't think these two facts are connected.

[Beardy]

Wasn’t there a Guy Chapman on U.K.rec.cycling used to refer to home self as bloke bloke bloke or something similar. He was a bit loud about helmet advocacy as I seem to remember and was vehemently against helmet compulsion.
Of course I might have dreamed all of this.

[rogerzilla]

You remember correctly.

[De Sisti]

I vaguely remember Matt Wenham on uk.rec.cycling. Myra van Inwengen liked purple anodised things on her bike and was a bog snorkling champion. I don't think these two facts are connected.

[Tim Hall]

You remember correctly.

He signed up here I think, but didn't post much/anything. Or was it Cyclechat?