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First Issue Review – Mountain Bike Rider

If velocity deep-section rims, naked carbon and specialised prolongs are your thing then IPC’s new magazine, Mountain Bike Reader, should be the read for you.
Aimed at 18-35 year old men who are active mountain bikers the magazine tries hard to raise the level of editorial to an interesting level but at the end of the day this is a title only for the serious rider. The majority of the bikes covered average around £1,000 and many of the features are highly technical though no doubt informative. Items include fitness ideas, product tests, interviews and technique tips.
However, one would trust IPC to have rigorously researched the market and found a gap which it hopes to exploit. On reading the title however it is not immediately clear what this gap is. Is it young and trendy bikers who like a good time or is it the die-hard specialist who wouldn’t go out on a Friday night in case a hangover prevented his daily 6am ride?
While some of the articles are actually funny (especially the tongue-in-cheek bit about the Grifter’s merits), the reader cannot escape from the twilight world of 150 mm low rise stems, Noleen coils and Lava Domes. The layout reflects this to an extent, being staid and rather dull.
IPC is clearly aiming at something of a “lads/mountain biker” readership, but if there is really a market for this, why is the only non-bike advertiser IPC’s own Eat Soup magazine?
The 156-page glossy has an ad:ed ratio of 40:60.