TIME FOR A FIX...

MY REGULAR FIX

I have to come clean....every so often  I need a regular fix. No, not that sort of fix...the fix I'm referring to is cycling magazines. 
I subscribe to a couple of monthly magazines..then there is the bi-monthly magazine which comes as part of my membership of the Cyclists Touring Club and then on top of that I buy Cycling Weekly now and again just to keep up to date with the more sporting side of cycling. 
I also buy Pro-Cycling every so often again to keep in touch with the pro side of the cycling world, so all in all quite a few magazines pass through the doors of Purple Towers.... Oh..I forgot to mention a couple of small  occasional magazines from local cycling clubs...yes a lot of reading matter.


 So what is it that I enjoy so much about magazines...I mean I still read books and as I sit here writing this blog post I have a whole bookcase full of books behind me, a good third of them are cycling related...but there is something different about a magazine....it is so easy to read. 
I can read a bit and put it down and when I pick it up again just dive straight in without having to refresh my memory on the 'story so far'. 
I don't have to make a commitment to reading a magazine in the same way that I do when I read a book. 


Over the years I have learned so much about cycling from the various magazine that I have read. Regular write ups and reviews of the latest bikes have always been a favourite of mine and I have used them as the basis for each bike choice that I have made over the past few years. There is no way that I can test most of the new bikes that hit the shops each year but cycling magazine writers can. Each of the three bikes that I currently own was obtained after I had read reports on them in various magazines. If a number of various independent reports are all saying the same thing about a bike then it is usually the case. It has certainly worked for me anyway.... 


Then we have the advice regarding training and how to improve in various disciplines....always useful and always interesting. Readers letter pages...new components..new kit... even the adverts... I love it all.
Just look at the cover of the copy of 'Cycling Plus' shown in the photo above.. 
'Think Yourself Faster'  - 'Nail Every Climb'  - 'Superbikes-Dream machines ridden and rated!' just three of the articles in that one edition. 


Reading this kind of stuff really does help to ignite your enthusiasm and keep it burning on a month by month basis....well it does for me. 
On top of that it can also help to build your overall knowledge of the whole cycling scene....one of the reasons that I have been just a little surprised by some of the threads on various bike forums concerning the subject 'Where do you think your bike was made?' 
Did people really not know? Why should bikes be any different to any other product in this 'globalized trading' world we now live in...?
But I digress....I will save that for another post.. 


About this time of the month I start to feel a real pleasurable anticipation as the latest magazines are about to be delivered ...talking of which I have just heard a magazine flop through my letterbox and onto the mat...Time for a fix......