Good lord there are lots! Do any regular riders have particular sites or magazines that they adore? Writers who know what they’re talking about? Ones to avoid at all costs?
I’m looking for recommendations to help sort through all the chaff as I get ready to earn my motorcycle license.
Thank you kindly!
FWIW: I rather like http://www.motorcycle.com - they are somewhat partial to sportsbikes, but they happily admit it.
For magazines, I like “Ride” for its hands-on approach. Yes, 150 BHP litre-class superbikes are fun to look at, but most people ride 600 cc standards - and how do those compare to each other ?
YMMV - good luck with the license!
S. Norman
well for mags I like Motorcycle Consumer News. They are a bit pricey but they do not accept ads and are pretty unbised. You can find them on the web at http://www.mcnews.com
They have good articles on better riding in every issue which is really nice. You can get a pretty good deal sometimes, I think I got two years for 30-40 bucks I think. Normally they are seven bucks an issue.
As for other stuff I read Tour and Cruiser sometimes, Bike if I can find it and maybe pick up odds and ends here and there. When you get your license and bike join an e-mail group for your bike, you should learn lots there too.
Back when I was geting interested in motorcycles and before I was online I had subscriptions to Sport Rider, Cycle World and Motorcyclist. Really I just wanted to read anything I could get my hands on. Now I still get Motorcyclist but I dropped the others. You can go here for a list of sportbike sites. I know a bunch more but for some dumb reason I don’t bookmark them. What kind of bikes are you interested in? Do you have a bike already picked out?
Seriously, they all do. However, some suck slightly less than others. For starters, I’d suggest not wasting your money on sportbike mag subscriptions unless you enjoy the pretty photographs. The sportbike rags do a pretty good job of taking pretty pictures - and hey, I like looking at sportbikes, so maybe that’s not all bad. But don’t expect actual content. Unless you can get a stellar deal (like, $20 for a year worth), I wouldn’t bother subscribing to these things. Flip through them at the grocery store each month and only buy them if they have something you actually care about.
Motorcycle Consumer News may be an exception to this. Unfortunatly they seem to be a bit dry. More focused on the riding gear and accessory aspect. Which would be all well and good if I wasn’t already happy as heck with my jacket, helmet and gloves. (Joe Rocket retro black/red, Arai Quantum/e black, and cheapo no-brand light-duty leather, respectively.) If you care about that stuff, you might
consider tossing the bux their way. On the newsgroup rec.motorcycles, when MCN comes up, about half the people say “Yeah, I subscribe to it and it seems worth it” and the other half are like, “Tried it for a couple years, finally decided that although they sometimes had good stuff, it just wasn’t worth the price.” So, flip a coin, I guess.
For online, I second http://www.motorcycle.com. It’s free (well, almost all of it. The pay stuff just isn’t worth it, IMO) and they’re generally pretty, ah, “up front” about their prejudices as Norman said. And I am a sportbike fiend so I like how they focus on those.
As for other websites, I would only bother with them if they focus on one specific model or very closely related models. For instance, there’s http://www.gixxer.com for Suzuki’s GSXR sportbikes. And it’s a pretty good site, if you have a GSXR. Otherwise it’s kinda incomprehensible. Same for http://www.labusas.org - the Hayabusa site. Or the various Kawasaki EX-250 sites - great if you have one, otherwise pretty obscure.
-Ben
Thanks for the suggestions-- more will be welcome.
For what it’s worth I’m not too interested in sportsbikes. I mean, right now I’m riding a 50 cc Yamaha scooter-- which has whetted my appetite for something with a little more oomph-- but I hardly need to look like a speed demon while I zip over the bridge to work.