I just got a chance to look at my latest issue of Bicycling magazine (April, 2009).

Cover story is about a Buyer's Guide inside, says "With 127 bikes, this compendium offers something for every cyclist, from the entry-level up to the fantasy ride." (Emphasis is mine.)

Yup, saw a Fondriest TF1 Anniversary road bike in there, complete for $13,000. They also had a $120 Giant Little Giant kid's tricycle ...

... ... ... And not a single recumbent ... ... ... ...

Uh, I guess, according to Bicycling magazine, all of us here at RRSC don't ride bicycles, eh?

BluesCat

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Well I for one do not ride a BIcycle, my cycle has three wheels

I just love the look on the face of the clerks in the sporting goods store when you are looking at some cycle accessory like a cycle-puter, and they say you just mount it on the handlebars, to which I reply: "but my cycle has no handle bars" I do get the strangest looks. One fella thought for a second and asked me if I rode a uni-cycle. Nice try but no cigar.

IF there are articles about recumbent cycling in a cycling mag, it would be good for those in the know to let the rest of us know which mag's do give us a some respect.

It's not necessarily a lack of respect, it's more a different target audience. IF there were a glossy recumbent magazine, you can be rest assured that you would not see Treks and Waterfords in their buyer's guide.

You can get all butt-hurt about it, or accept it and move along. There are still some good articles on equipment, training techniques, diet, off the bike exercises... You just have to look past the gloss and the lack of recumbents. It's about the only off the shelf bicyling magazine that's not slanted toward mountain biking, so it's about all we have.

You have to keep in mind that the truth of the matter is; no matter how much we love our bikes, we're a very small percentage of the bicycling world.

Mark

Mark:

Yeah ... (sigh) ... yer right.

BluesCat

Mark, you are absolutely correct about target audience and how a magazine must lean its content toward the products of its advertisers.

My whole point in bringing this up, and putting it in the Advocacy and Safety section, is that the magazine made a point of saying "cyclists" in its sub-head for the article.

We are ALL, indeed, cyclists; whether we are BIcyclists, or TRIcyclists, or mountain bikers, or road bikers, or recumbent bikers. We ride the same roads and --- especially --- face the same perils, and the same disrespect from motorists, and sometimes even the same disrespect from lawmakers and law enforcement. Recumbent riders sometimes even face disrespect from DF bike riders, as if we are not riding REAL bicycles.

Bicycling magazine makes it a point to include a little blurb about the League of American Bicyclists on their web home page. (My membership is the reason I have a subscription.) The League SHOULD be an advocate for ALL cyclists. It seems reasonable to say if the League and all of the other advocacy groups expect to be successful, they need to be inclusive, not exclusive.

Would it kill Bicycling magazine to include just ONE recumbent bike in their Buyer's Guide? The ONLY thing that is different about upright bikes and recumbent bikes is a recumbent has a frame geometry which allows for even MORE people to enjoy cycling. Gosh, if more of us older folks got on bikes as a result of seeing, in the pages of the "World's Leading Bike Magazine," that we could STILL cycle successfully and comfortably into old age, wouldn't that lead to even MORE subscribers, and MORE advertisers and MORE fans of cycling?

Just a rant,
BluesCat

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