DirtRider Mag, Racer X, MXA & Transworld

[jmics19067]

No offense to any one but this is nothing more than a " he said ,she said" name calling contest.

Bagging on magazines<some are worse than others> is fairly common here.The corporate political butt kissing of sponsors is a real threat to the truth in print. All in search of the almighty dollar.

Then there are some ignorant or malicious people who will cause trouble in a forum that you can reply to. Imagine say if Honda was a sponsor for a dirtbike forum<again some are better than others>, someone buys a new bike, doesnt prep their air cleaner well and poof blows it up. Now they come on and slam Honda about having a crappy bike. Truth or not they just lost how many sales because somone won't admit they made a mistake and, trying to save the almighty dollar, is passing the blame onto the manufacture. We all know someone like that somewheres.

Manufactures need a read only type of media so they can sell without a numbskull drawing up false accusations and embellish the truth for the sake of sales. The consumer needs a discussion based media so we can tell what is just advertising hype and buttkissing smmoooze. The individual needs to try and decipher what is true.

Just the pot calling the kettle black with both sides picking out the negatives of the other.

And again some are worse than others.

 

[motometal]

jmics, I agree, and now imagine that your hypothetical Honda owner with the blown up bike is really just a guy who works for Yamaha and doesn't even own a Honda.&nbsp;

 

[nephron]

Somehow, we've gone from simply cutting on a pipe (LINKRM400PIPECUTTAWAY ) to adding $4000 worth of mods. Ridiculous. :silly:

Gotta love the old articles.

 

[nephron]

Won't go directly to the link. On the left, scroll down to the 'magazine articles' and click on the RM400T-CHECK IT OUT article. Very cool.

 

[Farmer John]

nephron,

Did you read the caption for the photo in the upper rt corner of the last page of the 1981 RM465 article?

 

[jmics19067]

Motometal, yeah you're right didnt even think of that scenerio.

Nephron,

I doubt you are going to see any old time how to's even though they were and still are the best articles out there in my opinion. Most bikes are just too good to have freebie mass improvements. Plus the fact of who buys the magazines what they spend their money on and their wish list. Todays world is just so different in so many respects. Kids are having their bikes bought for them more so then piecing together whatever we can find that might run like how I grew up.
Things are so different while we were trying to straighten handlebars and grooving brakes shoes we were drooling and dreaming of the true works bikes in the occasional special feature. Now you can buy a "works " bike for relatively cheap Buy a new Honda, buy the works Showa suspension ,send the motor off for porting, get a pipe, silencer, reed cage and titanium stuff for under what 15,000? Before you would need a welding shop and a machine shop just to keep the darn thing together.
Or being able to push the bike a 1/2 mile to the local sandlot or pit and hopefully bumming a ride off of your older brother's buddy , that just happens to ride, to the local race. Now you have RV's with full scoot trailers parked at amatuer events that is usually atleast an hour or two away. Most of us now have better equipment and better haulers,spares ,pressure washers etc etc at the local amatuer level then the pro's did traveling the national circuit then.

Unfortunately the mags are only selling what sells and to my utter disappointment of the average American consumer status quo and flash is apparently it.

 

[Rich Rohrich]

Originally posted by jmics19067
Most bikes are just too good to have freebie mass improvements.

Anyone who reads the DRN forums knows that isn't true. :thumb:

 

[jmics19067]

To tell you the truth Rich I am setting on the fence on that one. I am not sure how I feel about it basicly only because of the wording. I have learned a great deal here , more than I ever had, than by reading a magazine. It is a waste of magazine paper for all these high buck mods that they push with no breakdown on the attention to detail.

Thats the part that gets me with the mags, here we have a brand new motorcycle, lets send half of it off to california<short trip for them> to get my exhaust pipe polished and treat my suspension to some titanium fork springs with a billet front brake hose holder type stuff.Yet they never break down and explain accurately how to jet, how to read plugs, what you want<don't want> in a fuel and how to set up your suspension properly.

The areas that vastly improve todays bike are yes; cheap, easily read in DR.N, and commonly left out of the mags for fluff but are more towards getting the rider to understand how the bike should run.Invaluable yes, information that seems to be secret in the other forms of media or just pushed out because of schmoozing the advertisers for their fluff. Not necessarily vastly improving the bike but getting the bike to run the way it should.

I meant that the times have changed in that if you have a new bike and you set it up properly for your conditions it will be more than enough for most people compared to remove the simple cross lacing on your front wheel and do a cross 3 lacing before you waffle your rim tip from the old days.

I really don't think that the majority of bike owners need to improve the bike.The improvement needs to be done to the bike owner /home tuner. That is where I believe the difference is . I am going to use you as an example here but You don't want me to buy a particular pipe/ silencer combo because they just happen to give you more advertising money this month that may or may not improve my performance. You want to teach me that to get good performance you need to have a good burn in the combustion chamber.However I spend my money to get that performance is of no importance to you as long as good solid fundamentals went behind the thought process.

I stand by original statement in that freebie massive improvements to the bike are not as necessary these days,but the mass freebie improvement of how people think and what people should look for when searching for improvements is something that DR.N is head and shoulders above the mags

 

[nephron]

Did you read the caption for the photo in the upper rt corner of the last page of the 1981 RM465 article?

:laugh: Which are you pointing out? The coolness of the new, brash young Super Hunky on a 465? Or the absolute HORRAH!' of seeing the dork supreme anywhere near him?

Oh...wait. I got it--the douche is on something other than Yamaha. ;)

 

[nephron]

You're talking upper left?

 

[Farmer John]

Originally posted by nephron
You're talking upper left?

left - right....whatever. :confused:
You read the right one.
After reading that I had to go thru & read the captions in all the articles. :thumb:

 

[motometal]

performance improvements?&nbsp; come on guys! everybody knows this is all you need to&nbsp;run at "national pro level":

1.&nbsp; Add a Roost Boost

2.&nbsp; Replace the spark plug with the most expensive one you can find

3.&nbsp; Watter Wetter

4.&nbsp; Shorten the silencer to about 1/2 of the original length

5.&nbsp; Swich to Amsoil premix and mix it 100:1

6.&nbsp; Filch

7.&nbsp; Vented number plate

8.&nbsp; 20" front rim

9.&nbsp; that goofy thing that bolts to the back of the swingarm...what's it called again?

any other modifications will actually make your bike SLOWER, and may void the powerband warranty.