best cycling touring mag.

[jags]

Cheers Al but do you relazise how much those tab's are .
but your right of course not enough cycle tourist out there to buy a dedicated touring mag, or is there
if cycle sport or any other mag was to dedicate say half the mag to touring and half to there usual stuff i would buy it and i'm sure a lot of tourers would as well.
anyway i'm just dreaming no harm in that.

[Sweep]

I agree with "al_yrpal" and a fair few others - you are better off online with friendly folks on here.

I subscribed to Cycling Plus for a fair few years - it seemed to cover a broad range of cycling and I didn't begrudge it the sports/sportif stuff.

Then it very quickly all became about performance performance and the latest expensive carbon. bling bling bling.

So I cancelled it and never regretted it.

This forum is pretty much the best I know - one cycling forum I know is best approached with latex gloves on if you should stray into the non cycling bits.

Long live the friendly uber helpful folk on here.

[easyroller]

There's certainly not much in the way of cycle touring magazines, but then again everything you could possibly want to know or read about can be found on the inernet these days. Dropping into your local WH Smiths gives you the vast choice of Sportive Plus, Sportive Active, Sportive Fitness and Sportive Weekly...

There's that new CYCLIST mag, which is the same but with flashier photography and more expensive bikes!

[mrjemm]

...And all those fat coffee-table mags with monochrome covers and tiresomely hipsterish 'artistic' photography and in-the-know names. Oh, and fat price-tags to pay for the smug 'creator's' smug of smugaccino.

[Cyril Haearn]

There used to be a good magazine, about 1973, "Cycling Weakly"
Touring, racing, humour, good writing Coulson, Wadley, Bingham, Ragged Staff, Randonneur

Still remember reading how Boardman (yes, a relation) got in the top ten of the BBAR

Used to enjoy reading the results, a bit cryptic, and the club names
VC Sevale, San Fairy Ann, 34 Nomads, A5 Rangers, Redditch RPCC, Rennrad Norwich, Hull Thursday, VC Toutourien-Tower, New Tredegar Nomads, up the Clarion!
Malvern Esoteric

[Peter W]

The problem with being experienced enthusiasts, is having evolved and settled on a way of riding how/what we most enjoy. Consequently, it is extremely irritating when magazines try to tell us differently. I don't need to constantly be told I need a silly costly bike fit, and what the latest fashion/image components are. Nor do I need to be told (almost incessantly) what to eat. I'll do it my way, or not at all! (What's all this nonsense of reviewing and rating expensive sun glasses? When did having the 'right on' appearance become compulsory to riding a bike contentment?)

A sensible solution I've found is to cancel my subscriptions to the bike mags, and use a good forum (this one) for information on real life riding problems and issues. I now subscribe to magazines which deal with subjects I have no direct involvement with.I take three seperate monthly STEAM RAILWAY magazines which I find most fascinating and instructive. And neither am I continually being exhorted to buy one! (Just as well, since I live in a semi detached bungalow, and have fussy neighbours. Nor do I have a spare couple of million pounds anyway!)

[ChrisF]

Another good online 'magazine' for touring is https://www.cyclingabout.com/- lots of information about touring bikes and accessories, not much about actual touring though.

[seph]

Arrivee is good http://www.aukweb.net/arrivee/ Although not pure touring it often has touring content. Written by members, the focus is on riding and mercifully free of ads, gear/ diet/ training stuff. Reminds me of the CTC I joined...

[Si]

I never really got on with arrivee. I'm not saying that it isn't good (lots of people love it so it must be) - rather it's just not to my taste. I found that the ride reports tended to be a bit on the long side (OK, it is the mag of AUK), and very similar to each other. But there again I guess the same is true of the many of the tour/ride write ups in Cycle and other such mags. There have been so many ride/tour reports over the years that it's pretty difficult to approach the write up in a new exciting way.

[Freddie]

CTC Gazette 1950s through 1980s, better than any modern mag.

[Cyril Haearn]

The problem with being experienced enthusiasts, is having evolved and settled on a way of riding how/what we most enjoy. Consequently, it is extremely irritating when magazines try to tell us differently. I don't need to constantly be told I need a silly costly bike fit, and what the latest fashion/image components are. Nor do I need to be told (almost incessantly) what to eat. I'll do it my way, or not at all! (What's all this nonsense of reviewing and rating expensive sun glasses? When did having the 'right on' appearance become compulsory to riding a bike contentment?)

A sensible solution I've found is to cancel my subscriptions to the bike mags, and use a good forum (this one) for information on real life riding problems and issues. I now subscribe to magazines which deal with subjects I have no direct involvement with.I take three seperate monthly STEAM RAILWAY magazines which I find most fascinating and instructive. And neither am I continually being exhorted to buy one! (Just as well, since I live in a semi detached bungalow, and have fussy neighbours. Nor do I have a spare couple of million pounds anyway!)

Yet another railway enthusiast, +1
No need to build a loco, one may donate to the P8 project if one has spare cash
Old railway mags are good too, and there are plenty of books
A favourite: "All aboard with E M Frimbo"

[Peter W]

Yes indeed Cyril Haearn. I still live near Darlington and was astounded when they first announced that new build A! project. The A!'s were the real reliable heavy haulage express passenger trains of the old LNER region lines. They lacked the glory of the 'greyhound' streaks, but were much more reliable with much longer shopping intervals for maintenance. Many covered over a million miles in their relatively short lives. As one natable driver stated, 'In foul weather with a heavy load give me an A!. It would pull the countryside if hooked up to it!'

Mind you, the handling at high speed was something else! In the late 50's I often had to wait on Thirsk platform for the local stopping train to Darlington. One tea time, during a raging thunderstorm and torrential downpour, one of the blighters came hurtling down the track (The great racing stretch from Darlington to York) flat out and lurching so violently from back end to front end, accompanied by lightning flashes and a monsoon, that it scared the khaka out of me!! He was certainly doing well over 80.

With the new build Tornado A! there was much argument about whether to build exactly as per 1949 Peppercorn drawings, or, in the light of those known handling at speed problems, to use modern computer assistance to rectify it. They DID modify, very successfully indeed. The big shame, to my mind, has always been that no A! was ever tested for maximum sustainable power output on the Rugby plant. It was a shame that not even one of the old ones made into preservation, which was why they decided on that design as a new build. Tornado topped 100 m.p.h. on a night run, hauling quite a heavy test train. That, adequately gave the A! design the last laugh. (And pleased me immensely! )

[Raleigh Steve]

I like Bicycle Quarterly.

[fausto copy]

Certainly got side-tracked here and headed off on a branch line.
Next thing, they'll be introducing double-decker buses to get back on route.

[Cyril Haearn]

Certainly got side-tracked here and headed off on a branch line.
Next thing, they'll be introducing double-decker buses to get back on route.

Oh dear, hope there is no penalty for drifting a thread The motorway is closed this week so I have to drift through the villages to work, is it affecting my brain?

One really good resuscitation project was at the North Norfolk Railway I think, read about it a few years ago
A group of teenagers plan to build a replica tank engine, the timescale is in decades

+1 for Dai Woodham, he saved us from having to build hundreds of replicas

BTW Peter W, besides Steam Railway, which mags do you get?