A note of thanks to Ride Cycle Review for sponsoring the Inner Ring for April. The Australian magazine has long been a good read. When I’ve visited Australia it’s been something to make the long flight back to Europe more pleasant.
But you don’t need to visit Australia any more in order to pick up a copy, it is now available online via Zinio, the electronic magazine distribution site.
RIDE is sponsoring the blog to make readers outside of Australia aware of the new electronic version and hopefully for them, generate sales.
Of course you might expect me to sing the praises of a sponsor but see for yourself. Here’s a PDF article on Cadel Evans winning the Tour de France, you can get a feel for the writing. Regular readers will know I’m interested in the business of cycle sport and RIDE has a lengthy and detailed piece on the profitability and reach of pro cycling in the current issue.
The magazine has an Australian tone… but so does the sport these days with Simon Gerrans, Cadel Evans and the Greenedge team. The tech reviews are also worth a mention because they have a formal protocol for frames, a lab based approach if you like where each frame is placed in a jig and forces are applied. Gone are the “the frame felt really rigid” references, this time the deflection is measured and can be compared. There are book reviews, diaries from pro riders and more.
To find out more about RIDE, click here or on the ad on the top right of the screen.
- As well as the on-screen ad, all sponsors get a shout in print. So thanks to Rob, Toby and colleagues for the support here. If anyone’s interested the sponsorship revenue isn’t just keeping me in silk Dugast tubulars and Lavazza Qualità Oro, it is being ploughed back for increased photo content, detailed reconnaissance of key Tour de France stages to aid previews and other content that needs some investment.
I currently have a subscription to Cycling Plus, which whilst good, doesn’t cover the pro peleton perhaps as much I’d like. Whilst there are other mags that do (i’m thinking specifically procycling) I have never really found it a particularly easy or pleasurable read. Therefore, there is definitely space for a well written, thought-provoking magazine that exclusively (or at least mainly) covers the professional side of the sport. However, with current exchange rates, the cost of 1 issue of ride is just shy of £6 – much too-much for a digital magazine in my opinion.
As a subscriber to Ride, I can wholeheartedly recommend it. I particularly enjoy the “Bikes of the Bunch” section. Does that make me a voyeur?
@Nick: As an immigrant to Australia from sunny Scotland, I used to spend many a day reading The Comic, CP, Cycle Sport and ProCycling. While each has it’s merits, I don’t think you find as much information or as many photographs in any British or Euro magazine (even Tour or Bicisport).
Small font (i.e lots of words), lots of pics and quality journalism over an average of 250 pages per issue. Sorry but less than six ‘quid is a bargain my friend.
I’m just lucky that I get to fondle the quality full colour paper of the print version :o)
+1 for Ride.
As an Aussie abroad I look forward to my quarterly dose like a raging addict. Awesome mag. 256 pages, last issue. Nicely meaty.
Easily the best cycling mag there is. Ive moved away from Aus but still subscribe its that good. $100AUD for a 12 month international subscription is great value (if you’re paying with AUD). Yes, there are only 4 copies per year but they are about 2cm thick and by the time I have read it im hanging out for the next edition.
Inrng: go get yourself a set of Dugast or FMB tubulars, you’ve earned it!
@neil_in_oz – duly noted. From the comments it is clearly a decent mag and I suppose if I find I don’t like it it’s only £6 down the drain. Still feel as though £6 is steep BUT I’m a notoriously tight northerner.
I would also add i wasn’t aware that it was a quarterly…..
Does anyone know if it is available to view on the iPad in an acceptable format?
and I’m still a thrifty Scot 😉
Great stuff, I picked up a copy when on holiday in Oz a few years back, really good reading.
I’m also a Ride subscriber down under. Quality read. Recommended.
Nick – get it through the Zinio app on the iPad. Quality on all fronts is excellent.
Nice work inrng; I’ll definitely be looking into this one…
Our O/S brethren are complaining that the $Aus is too high, certainly makes a change!
Mag is quality and well worth at least one purchase guys.
We have had to endure buying Pommie mags downunder and paying silly prices for years.
Fortunately along came Ride and it is sensational and Made In Aust, have been a subscriber from the start, favourite section is Paraphernalia – otherwise known as What can I buy next!
Oh and loving Inrng – excellent work
Foreign magazines are (and have traidtionally been) expensive in Aus because of protectionism (tariffs and newsagent monopolies), not because of the exchange rate. Kind of like most retail in Australia. The consumer suffers but Gerry Harvey does OK. Anyhow, Ride is OK, probably worth £6.00 or so a quarter but like all print based media it suffers from being out of date before it arrives in your letterbox. I find Ride’s reviews a bit tedious – I appreciate the theory behind the attempt to make them scientific (which is a very Germanic approach to testing), but I am sceptical about whether this translates to an individuals experiences on the road. Whatever, not sure procycling’s Marcel Wust approach of just throwing a leg over it and telling us that it zinged along nicely is any superior. Ride is also traditionally very TdF focused. One issue focuses on the lead up, another on a recap. Things may be changing now that the Australian cycling consumer matures, but in the old days the coverage of other races was slim. Having said that, it remains the only cycling magazine in which I have appeared in a double page photograph (climbing the Izoard during 2004 l’etape du tour, resplendent in team Lotto Aussie National Champ’s jersey as worn that year by Robbie Mac) so I’ll always have a soft spot for it.
INRNG,
Having worked for Dugast USA you should skim on a few pictures and get a set of silk tubs.
Seriously.
Your content quality is already high enough we wouldn’t notice a few missing pictures! ; )
Keep up the good work.
Just a quick note: the magazine’s title is RIDE Cycling Review.
The general quality of English-language cycling journalism is so low, if this thing’s any good we should be happy to pay for it if it provides a living wage to good writers. So much of what’s out there is hack stuff written by people who more or less give it away just to get it published that it’s tough to sift through it all to find the good stuff. The only print mag I pay for (other than Bicisport while here in Italy and I’ll probably sign up for the digital scheme soon) is Rouleur, but RIDE Cycling Review might be added soon. It’s the same way with cycling blogs EXCEPT we get the excellent Inner Ring for FREE! I still think you should set up a “site supporter” scheme were guys like me who like your blog can (via Paypal?) pony up some loot to keep you going – but maybe not enough for you to go wild with expensive tubular tires 🙂
It’s worth buying the last issue of RIDE just to get the letters section, just to read the response to the reader from the writer with the PhD in English Literature…
I used to buy Ride regularly because it looked value for money on a $ per page basis, stopped buying when I realised that I never actually read most of it because I couldn’t get past the pretentiousness of most of the writing (eg “A rotting root snaked the length of a person’s body before disappearing into the ground” from the start of that Cadel story linked above, I’d never get past that).
Now I stock up on cheap paperbacks a couple of time a year for that cycling print fix – I’d rather read something like a proper biography of Fausto Coppi any day
Nice to see support
Whatever they pay, it is not enough. This site is part of my daily routine.
Another subscriber of RIDE cycling review from South Korea, via Zinio. Zinio and iPad are very useful conduits to get magazines like RIDE, Procycling, Cycle Sport when you are living in a non-English speaking, pro-cycling-is-not-so-popular area like Far East Asia.
Also, Aussie-oriented tone of RIDE makes me smile in a good way. Most articles of other magazines usually try to be neutral, and it would be OK but sometimes nation or team biased articles are fun to read.
Thank you for good recommendation, and all superb articles of inrng.com.