I don't generally like moaning about this kind of thing, but I agree. MCN isn't my cup of tea at all and I gave up buying it about 7-8 years ago. It was too sensationalist and deliverately provocative for me and the reviews and articles never quite delivered what the front cover promised. Every time I bought a copy as a one-off for a particular review or to see if it had changed, I was reminded why I never bought it. It's now pretty expensive too compared to the monthly mags. I can't get on with the website either. I do really like the YouTube stuff Michael Neeves does though, it's miles better than the paper manages to be. Worth watching regularly. Maybe they need to try and bridge across to more online / video content...
Heres a class youtube vid by another bike mag. Search bimota v ducati. It ends in tears. Shame mcn weren't as daring. Intact Here's the link to save you the trouble
Oh yes, that one. We've already had it on another thread. It's what happens when you confuse the road with a race track. I have to pay for my repair bills, which is why i don't ride like that. (Also i don't want to die.)
MCN is owned by a german media group (Baur). This is why, if you notice, they always seem to feature BMW's. Free publicity - like this weeks edition.
I subscribe to MCN....sorry....I quite like it most weeks....sorry again... I liked the 916 20 year anniversary special a couple of weeks ago. It gets some of it's views and facts wrong, but don't they all? I mean, I read the Telegraph as my regular newspaper, but I don't read the bloody "sport" bit because it's normally eight pages of bloody gobshite ball - which, lets be honest, is a shit game anyway, so not worth reading about.... I draw the line at all the tabloids, apart from the Times, of course - but the MCN slips through my class barrier filters....which were erected at a very early age!....
Im always shocked by the lack of content on their test fleet of bikes and the lack of miles most of them cover. Content went south years ago.
Today's edition has a 32 page show guide, which judging by the thickness of the rag is a good thing as it would otherwise been a front and back page.
Should change their name to BMW News. Frankly Im pissed off about it and will not buy anymore. I bought weekly but have cancelled my order at my paper shop. Fed up about reading about fucking BMW's week in, week out.
I wonder how many shares in BMW are owned by the Bauer media group/family. In the late 70's and early 80's, MCN was at least fairly interesting - they did things like keeping long term test bikes and actually said what went wrong with them. Now they say things like "Ooh the red one's nice but it only does 178mph, get the black one that does 186".
Another cheap bastard, I like your style. I've spent many a happy hour in WH Smith's reading bike mags for free !
Thought I might add a few comments to this thread; not in the hope of changing any opinions because everyone is, of course, entitled to think exactly what they think of MCN. However, to answer one of the first (and very legitimate) questions, the reason why the top speeds were down on previous tests is because of weather conditions at Bruntingthorpe on the day. The test rider was Bruce Dunn, an extremely experienced, fast and capable rider who managed to qualify for the British 250GP a few years back as a wildcard. So, as you can imagine, not exactly slow. The conditions were extremely wet with surface water lying on the runway and it was also blustery and we made that clear in the text accompanying the test figures. This was in no way an attempt to mislead. This is a direct lift from the test as written by our road tester Adam Child... We tested the straight line performance of each bike at Bruntingthorpe Proving Ground. A 30mph right-to-left crosswind stopped us from maxing the bikes out, so the top speed figures are a good 5-10mph lower than we’d expect in still conditions. The test track was also wet, so we weren’t able to record our usual 70-0mph braking tests. Although the Kawasaki is the fastest, look at its top gear roll-on times: it’s very tall-geared. The grunty, but least powerful, R1 is the fastest of the Japanese 1000s to accelerate from 30-120mph (starting tin third gear), the Suzuki is fast everywhere and the new Fireblade is a decent all-round performer on the test track and dyno. BMW Honda Kawasaki Suzuki R1 Top speed (mph) 179.45 173.80 180.82 172.10 174.91 0-60mph (sec) 3.29 3.41 3.43 3.37 3.39 Standing ¼ mile (secs@mph) 10.27@ 143.66 10.28@ 139.87 10.43@ 143.36 10.31@ 140.81 10.38@ 140.59 Top gear roll-on 40-120mph (sec) 9.71 10.39 14.36 10.27 11.14 Roll-on in 3rd gear: 30-120mph 6.97 8.33 9.32 8.09 7.81 Dyno figures: BMW: 192.04bhp@13,250rpm, 83.78ftlb@10,5000rpm Honda: 168.86bhp@11,500rpm, 79.36ftlb@10,500rpm Kawasaki: [email protected], 78.72ftlb@11,500rpm Suzuki: 166bhp@11,000rpm, 81.11ftlb@9,500rpm R1: 161.23bhp@12,500rpm, 78.59ftlb@10,000rpm Onto another point raised by a couple on here. This is a Ducati forum and your complaints of 'too many BMWs in MCN' is something that we hear from every single forum on the planet. Just change the manufacturer according to the forum. There are many people who believe we have too many Ducati tests in the paper. The recent BMW splurge is because BMW launched three bikes in two days and we took the decision to split them over two weeks after having to draft in a freelance tester to do one of the bikes to ensure we got enough time on the bikes during the press launch. Yes, MCN is part of Bauer Media, a German owned company but to suggest there is a link between this and BMW coverage is so tenuous as to be ridiculous. Ducati is also German owned but there is no such link made. MCN will never please all of the people all of the time...we are the biggest selling motorcycle publication in the world with a (free) website that is also the busiest in the world. We don't put everything online because we have a profitable print business that makes significant amounts of money for the company and we are attempting to keep that business model going while print media can still make money. The website makes money too but not to the same extent and if that changes then I am sure the bosses here will make changes. Our YouTube channel is the biggest motorcycle channel in the world and despite what people might think, we do not have Top Gear style £1m an episode budgets, and do the best we can often with limited time to do this on top of what we have to do for the newspaper. I like to think many of the videos are some of the best bike video content available. As for not reporting faults on long term test bikes, this is frankly untrue. I have written about each fault my Ducati Multistrada 1200 S Touring suffered this year as have all of my colleagues and just have we always have done (and including three of three BMW long term test bikes I have 'owned' since 2008 which have suffered a fault. Indeed, there are threads on here where I have been asking others for any similar issues surrounding broken HT leads as I have had two this year on the 'Strada. MCN is accused by some of sucking up to the trade and by the trade of not helping them out by telling the truth about faults or bikes that aren't good enough. We get terribly upset manufacturers phoning us up and shouting at us over us staking out factories for spy shots often for days on end in the hope of getting the shot. We are still one of the only titles to take MV Agusta to task for the early problems with the F3 over the throttle response and also the Yamaha MT-09 which has a snatchy throttle while other mags suggest it's the new messiah of motorcycles. Most long term test bikes cover significantly many more miles than the UK average and are ridden in all conditions too. It's worth remembering we also own and ride our own bikes along with riding test bikes so this isn't the total annual mileage we cover. Also, most test bikes are with MCN between April and late September before being taken back and sold through the dealer network. I also take task with those who criticise our test riders. Both of our permanent road testers are highly experienced road riders with many years of riding in all conditions. Both race (one in the MRO Powerbike series the other is a multiple Isle of Man TT participant who also races at the North West 200 and at Scarborough between club races. In no way am I going to suggest MCN or Motorcycle News UK | Motorbikes | MCN are perfect...far from it but when there are unjustified and inaccurate criticisms being levelled then I will happily discuss them. My direct email at work is [email protected] if anyone wishes to contact me. Regards Andy Downes MCN Senior Reporter
Yep well put Andy as you say you cant please all the people. I notice people here and previously on the old Ducatisti site where there was a previous MCN grumble seem to know more about various models of bikes , how they handle what their problems are and how it should be put down in writing than what you guys do , you'll never get through to the ignorant so I wouldn't bother defending yourself mate. I for one enjoy buying and reading it every week simply because I like bikes , I may never buy another new bike again so new bike road tests don't much interest me from a buyers prospective , and I'd like to see more specials , home build race rep strokers etc , tested against the original and a modern equivalent around a track much the same as a top gear type feature. Pete.
