Renegade: Thanks for the link. Looking forward to the next issue. Checked out your stuff on-line. Nice to know some one is passionate about real bikers! Keep up the good work.

Streetchopper had been around since 1969….it has weathered many a storm. How can it go now? Take away Hot Bike or Amercian Iron please.

I’m telling you right now I’m going to make Renegade Biker Magazine an icon in the industry for the new generation of bikers, like Easyrider and Rolling Stone were in the sixty’s before they went corporate.

Right now we only publish two issues a year, with each issue distributed FREE at more than six major bike rallies such as Daytona’s Bike Week, Sturgis, Myrtle Beach, etc. For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of seeing a copy of Renegade Biker it is a first class biker magazine like no other! Printed on 80lb gloss full color from cover to cover, and it’s free! Renegade Biker is not corporate owned or publically traded, unless you mean between bikers! Renegade Biker is Biker built and biker owned!

I am currently working on issue #5 due out for bike week 08.

I started this magazine with practically no budget, I paid for the first issue with my own money, and have managed to at least break even on each issue since. Even with the slow economy and down turn in the motorcycle industry Renegade Biker is going strong! I basically produce the entire magazine myself, the photography, graphic design & layout, stories, ad sales, distribution, website, etc., If I do say so myself it is by far one of the best looking magazines you will ever see! Don’t take my word for it check it out yourself!

The main reason for the demise of many of the current crop of biker magazine is because they are boring! The same old crap for over twenty years!

If you want to see a kick ass biker rag then check out Renegade Biker at http://www.renegadebiker.com or be sure to grab one in Daytona this bike week, but you better grab one quick because the go fast!

Renegade Biker Magazine will be the #1 magazine in the world! Believe it! Read it! Buy it!

Scharf

http://www.renegadebiker.com

Sorry for the rant & shameless plug!

One of the directions that has been taken in the automotive magazine sector has been e-magazines. Notably, Winding Road seems to have overcome the paper crunch.

Possibly this direction would bode well with the motorcycle sector as well.

In that case, may be the American Motorcycle Group strategy of
2 really high quality issues a year, perhaps sold out of book, isn’t such a bad idea.

If it can be positioned as the “must have” publication, industry folks would go after it no matter how it was distributed.

If the problem is keeping up with trends, perhaps a monthly, low cost newsprint/paper format could bridge the gap….??

-nicker-

From all I have read and heard the newsstand industry is hurting worse than the cycle industry and several people are predicting at least half the motorcycle titles will be dead in a year. Just not enough readers or advertisers to support them all.

I have been told to look and see what magazines are selling in the big chains like WalMart to identify who the survivors will be. If you can’t find a magazine in the stores now, odds are they won’t be around muych longer.

For the naysayers, this does have the possibility of being very cool. If you’ve seen Surfer’s Journal (i’ve not seen Rodder’s Journal) you know how good an infrequently published mag can be. SJ is six times a year and reader supported at $12.95 an issue but what a great magazine filled with in-depth stories and unbelievable photography.

I’m thinking if Source Interlink Media didn’t think Street Chopper could survive it wouldn’t mess around with experiments like this, it would simply kill the title.

D.

1. The price of paper is out of control. We are looking at a 15-percent increase in the price of paper in 2008.

2. The economy and the “War on Terror” is really taking its toll on the custom bike industry. Take a huge chunk of the guys who are the age of the average custom bike enthusiast (18-35) and ship them off to the middle of nowhere to get their asses shot off. I hate to talk politics in an open forum, but enough is enough already. Bring our guys and gals home.

We actually have seen a recent surge in advertisers, but it isn’t enough to offset paper and staffing costs. So what we decided to do was produce the book twice a year as a labor of love. We will adjust the editorial content to make it more of a coffee table book (ala Rodder’s Journal; thanks to Steve Coonan for showing the world how it should be done) with a thicker package and more historical pieces and fewer news pieces in an attemp to make it timeless.

And if this plan works, who knows we may expand the magazine to quarterly in 2009? But we’ll just have to wait and see if we can figure out how to offset the cost increase of paper first…

As a motorcycle enthusiast myself, I hate to see any titles being taken off the shelves, no matter how graceful the management tries to achieve it.

Being deeply entrenched in the world of cycles and choppers, it has been obvious for some time that the world of customized scooters has been waning. Fewer buyers and builders means fewer ad dollars, and that leads to fewer magazines.

If we were willing to spend $8 or $9 on every issue of a magazine, they could lean away from the ads, but few, if any are willing to drop that kind of money on a magazine. IF it was the only one we read than maybe, but since I subscribe to numerous periodicals that kind of fee would force even the most serious reader to make some choices.

We can only hope that the strength of Primedia/Source Interlink will help to sustain certain titles while bringing some fresh blood to the readers. It’s a rapidly changing climate and all we can do is hold on as it rips through a series of corners and still finds us on the seat.

Once Street Chopper is gone, which will be any day now, how long before the recently renamed Hot Bike Baggers and Hot Bike follow suit? All are thinning down in editorial content, page count, advertisers and readers.

Another example of how Wall Street corporate-think managed to kill more enthusiast publications.

RIP American Motorcycle Group.

Could it be that the major expansion that we’ve seen has simply been an anomaly of demographics and “fashion trends.”….?

RE:
…Motorcycle hobby market has been shrinking for a while …”

So, instead of “shrinking” its simply retrenching back to it’s historic levels….?

Just a thought.
-nicker-

Motorcycle hobby market has been shrinking for a while and this is another victim of the current state of affairs…

RE:
“… will be jam-packed with the lifestyle that makes Street Chopper a standout …”

Does this mean more emphasis on Tattoos and Clothing…?

What’s the business case for the advertisers?

-nicker-

Many times people look to magazines to spot current trends. I feel that this move will kill this publication.

With the reduced budget, the quality will also suffer.