While jaw-jacking and bench racing about bikes with people inevitably someone makes some quip about so and so in some magazine said such. Being the toxic individual I am I'm quick to point out that they are in fact bench racing a bike they'll never be able to afford and absolutely never be able to ride at even 9/10ths of its limit on the track. Usually the conversation takes a turn at that point and unless they're one of my fellow toxic riders that can take an insult, I'm cut out of the conversation.
My biggest inspiration in writing is the late Hunter S Thompson. Stylistically his writing was fantastic. His first and second person style that pulls the reader into the scene is rarely duplicated and his acidic honesty about the hypocrisy in the system would be out of place in any kind of mainstream politically correct magazine. What do I mean? Good luck trying to publish "The Song of the Sausage Creature" in Rider Magazine or Road Racing World today.
When was the last time you read a review of a new sport motorcycle that included a passage about how the bike was too damn powerful for the street and that you were going to crash it and end up fucked up for life. Seriously go google "Song of the Sausage Creature" and read it, I'll wait.
How does this relate to my assertion that moto-journalism sucks and always will? Go to your local big box store and visit the magazine aisle. Pick up a few different glossy papered magazines. Flip through the pages of a Sport Bike magazine, then a general motorcycle magazine, then a Bagger magazine. Now pick up "Guns and Ammo" and "SCUBA Diving" and flip through those.
Do you detect a pattern? The magazines are fifty percent ads and the rest is mostly gear or service reviews. Where's the content? What content would even sell? Obviously any magazine sold by one of the three major media outlets in the world has to be a commercial enterprise, it has to sell copies and be able to sell ad space. To sell copies at your local magazine rack it needs to have flashy pictures of the latest industry toys because thats what people will see. If I as a consumer look at
the articles I'm not real likely to buy the magazine as if I just glance at the pretty pictures on the way to the check out counter.
Thats the first point, money. Print journalism isn't about telling stories and inspiring people its about selling products.Now before you assume I'm going to spend this whole post complaining about capitalism ruining journalism and quoting Noam Chomsky, I'm not. Noam Chomsky is a dick head.
Moto Journalism mostly sucks because of risk. At every step of the production of an issue there are people and entities that won't accept the risk of publishing something good. Lets talk about any given review for a new bike and a review for a new set of sportbike tires. Most written reviews follow the same format; they describe the lineage of the product, artfully repeat the marketing material or press release, and then they talk about using it if the writer was lucky enough to go to a press day for the product.
During a press event for a new bike the press get just enough time on the bike to get some photos, video, and an idea of whether the highlighted features from the marketing material actually exist or not. Its not practical for Yamaha or Ducati to hand over a $20k bike to me for the summer and let me run it through its paces on group rides, track days, and super-touring for the sake of a thousand words about what its like to actually own the machine. They'll sell plenty of R1s without Tim telling the world whether he regrets buying it or not.
Take for example the recent Motorcycle USA review of the 2015 S1000RR by Adam Waheed. Its a video review which basically says that the bike is awesome and all the electronic gizmos are sweet. OK, that sounds just like every other review of 2015 sportbikes, ever. Then look at the video where he crashes the S1000RR during the test, thats where the honesty in journalism almost happens. It just wouldn't be OK for Adam to come out on video and say that the lean sensitive ABS on the bike is
what tucked the front end and caused the crash. Its up to the viewer to discern this and realize that no amount of over-hyped electronics can make a bike 100% crash proof.
I'm going to pick on Motorcycle USA and Adam again and point to their 2015 sportbike tire shootout. This is the best piece of journalism I've ever seen. The test rider doesn't know what tires he's testing and he honestly gives opinions that aren't necessarily positive. Personally I'd like to see more test reviews like that where the reviewer isn't afraid to say something negative about a product.
Any outlet's product journalism has to avoid three risks. First the risk of the manufacturer and their money/product. I'm sure BMW was at least a little bummed when Mr. Waheed wadded up their bike. Two the risk of losing advertising dollars because someone says that the newest bike has a seat that is excruciatingly painful or that the newest helmet is terrible. Third is the risk to product testers. Sure product testers are a dime a dozen, look on a local forum and ask for people to test the latest R1 and you'd have a thousand applications, but it would look really bad if SportBike Magazine got a reputation for its writers crashing and hurting themselves all the time.
Another risk factor that no profit oriented business can ignore is political correctness. While it might be OK for a left handed lesbian eskimo with Autism to write an op-ed against the white man's culture complete with interviews on Good Morning America and the requisite amount of ruffled feathers from the right wing, it is not OK for Tim Jensen a white heterosexual male with a bachelor's degree that works in Corporate-IT to write an entertaining op-ed openly talking about violating traffic laws for fun.
In the middle 60's Hunter S. Thompson rode a Triumph Lightning 650 all over California. Among his adventures he took LSD, shot guns, rode with the Hells Angels, and nearly died in a motorcycle crash. You can read about it in his book "The Hells Angels", which I highly recommend. Most of the vignettes from that book would have just as much of a chance of getting published in a modern glossy magazine as "Song of the Sausage Creature" would. Nobody would take the risk. SportBike magazine or Rider magazine wouldn't want to risk the reputation of being part of a dangerous not politically correct sub culture by publishing something like my story of riding a beat up R6 around Southern Oregon violating traffic laws and moral edicts.
I'll tell you the truth because I have nothing to lose by it. Nobody pays me to write, which is also why I'm so irregular about it. If you want marketing and pretty pictures go pick up a glossy magazine. If you want honesty go read a blog.
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