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Just downloaded and read the first issue of Singletrack (should be asleep but there's too much weird in the world for rest right now, and old bike mags seem a safer place - time and distance, another country). I loved the poetry, the photos, the song lyrics, Jo Burt's writing about shoes, the MB Q&A interview (and that evocative bleak oblivious oddness of Shap down the M6), the adventures (those have never really changed), the guy doing a diary of an enforced car-free bike commuting stretch, the old fashioned looking ads, the classifieds, I really just loved everything about it. Except that Maverick bike, didn't like the look of that (well done on securing the review exclusive tho). And it's funny that the mag started it's existence with Chipps talking about launching in an industry slump - some painfully familiar sentiments and quotes. But it swings around again eventually, I guess? It's weird looking back with hindsight knowing some of what's changed. But because I wasn't around bikes at all at the time the mag started, it's an inferred nostalgia. And nostalgia isn't really ever soft-focus good old days I don't think; it's always prickly and painful, or wry or bittersweet. Which is comforting in its way. Memory and perception are great deceivers anyway. Reading it made me wonder what my life would have been like now or where it'd have gone in those intervening decades if I'd been into mountain biking in 2001 instead of doing what I was doing (drinking a lot and writing about rock music). Anyway. We are where we are and that is that. And the world's never not weird.
Really love issue no. 1. Also still read it again from time to time. Was even more obsessed with bikes back in 2002, and finding that issue in my LBS was a good day.
Which issue had the JoB trail centre rant in it?
Nice post OP, wouldn't be terribly out of place in issue 01 😉
I think the OP is auditioning for a job writing for STW. I think they should get it. Also off to read issue 1.
Reading it made me wonder what my life would have been like now or where it’d have gone in those intervening decades
Without buying my first MTB in '94 I wouldn't be happily married to a woman I met through bikes, or have the daughters that I love, never mind the many great friends I've made along the way who help each other whenever help is needed. My life would be so completely different that I don't know where I'd be now.
Issue 1 is brilliant.
The enforced car-free commute article remains a highlight even now.
The other one I really liked was a piece by @samuri about roadies vs MTBers but done in a sort of Top Gun style with imagined radio calls as the roadies hunted down MTBers who'd strayed away from the dirt; one of the early issues, maybe #7
I loved my Maverick ML7, it was a brilliant bike… Will read the rest of issue 001 tonight at work.
The other one I really liked was a piece by @samuri about roadies vs MTBers but done in a sort of Top Gun style with imagined radio calls as the roadies hunted down MTBers who’d strayed away from the dirt; one of the early issues, maybe #7
#roadie1: Target in sight, do we have permission to engage?
#base: You may engage
I also like the one about sticking to the bedsheets because of all the grazes
(drinking a lot and writing about rock music)
Sounds fun. I bet there's some stories here.