What do you Guy's rekon of the content of our local bike Mag's ? With the exeption of Heavy -Duty which is not a bad read , the rest are crap ! I mean for fucks sake would you go out and buy a new harley on the back of one of thier road tests? You would be a fucken dickhead if you did ! Talk about suck up to the Mo-Co , half the shit they write is straight out of the H-D  press release !! But I suppose if they told the truth about such things like having to spend another couple of grand on top of puchase price to fix the injection , suspension, brakes,air cleaner ,pipes ect ect they might ruffle some feathers and lose advertising $$. But Haveing said ,we all know that were gonna do the Mod's when we buy a new harley ,I feel sorry for the poor buggers that are new to the world of HD they must shit emself .Any body noticed the quality of the finish on the new bikes ? the differance between my 02 fxld and my08 FXDF is chalk and cheese, ever seen em write that in the mags? Do they ever test bikes other than on 4 lane hwy's? get out on some shit backroads with a pillion and see how the 2.5 inches of suspension travel handle's it !! Bout the only thing the other couple of mags have  got going for them is that you may see your photo in the pages somewere at a party or whatever,you proberbly won't see your bike featured in there unless you are patched up with the organization that is conducting said party though.Cheers

Ohhh...now thats an opinian...

Onya Brett. I like a bloke who calls a spade a f**king shovel when it is and stands by his opinion!  I agree, Heavy Duty is the only way to go. To be fair to some extent, I guess all mags have to toe the line in order to get advertising income.

You can usually "read-between-the -lines" though. When they say that the ride was a bit bumpy you can assume it was pretty bloody crappy!

 

 

Well said Brett, I don't even know if Heavy Duty mag are keeping the standard they began with ? They seem to have more advertising and more "look at my bike" stories than anything of great worth other than maybe doc Robinsons tech talk (or whatever it's called). It would be good if these Mags could (maybe over a few issues) do something like show you how to change a rear belt or replace cam chain tensioners (thanks Scotty) ,tighten your spokes, replace brake pads, change fork oil etc etc on a regular basis. As far as your comment about the handling and the bike build quality difference between your 02 and 08 H.D. is concerned, I find that a bit depressing. I have always owned Jap bikes up until buying my 06 softy which I assumed would, at the very least have better handling than the earlier stuff. But it doesn't surprise me that you say the quality is chaulk and cheese, that seems to be the way this whole fucking world is heading.

Which issue Wozza?

Ok I'll check if I've got it but it doesn't change my previous comments,ok.

80 YEARS ON, you know this means I'm gonna have to read it again now.

Heavy Duty is the only one i get, i wish they would bring it out every month as i hang out for the new one, and the wait is too long. I wish they would do more stories on eveyday rideable bikes though.

Have bought the odd mag, and I agree Heavy Duty is better than the rest. Still too many ads and custom jobs for my liking but it has some good content.

My other whinge with HD is why have they now got Jesse James writing a regular article. I don't mind him but he's your typical US custom chopper builder, I don't think he's really relevant to most Australian readers.

I with you on this Brett. one mag in particular had seven full pages of pull yourself off sex telephone services. For fuks sake.
Ive found heavy duty to be the mag to buy here in oz. Hot bike is the mag to get from the states. Its all about bikes, stock and customs and no sex adverts.

I like the adds if they are Bike related, ya see some interesting stuff. The "go pull yourself" adds piss me off. There are plenty of those mags available if thats what you are after.

I find that they all follow the same formula for the articles after a while, you can almost guess the content.

I'm sick of big doller custom choppers, they bore me.

I like to see joe average's bike with mods I would do at some stage.

I like looking at the bobbers, but thats my interest at the moment.

I like the tech articles as well.

Yeah, so get creative Heavy Duty and stop catering to the MOCO and the pretty boys with money, give us something we can get our teeth into.

Geez your angry man.  A mate of mines got a magazine called 8ight which is fairly new.  He has published a few other well know mags and has been around the V8 supercars for a long time.  His mag does test on heaps of different test on cars from Aston Martins to Ford and Holdens and don't be fooled that by thinking journo's can't be bought.    

He reckons new breed of journo's are soft cocks and are scared to tell like it is because they get loan cars from the car companys for months on end and lets be honest the car manufacturer wants something in return.  Bag the product too much and your blacklisted.   European car manufactures fly aussie journo's  around the world to have them publish stories about their cars.

In defence of HD he just did a story on 08 V rod and he reckons HD were pretty easy to deal with.  They gave his journo the bike for a week and told him to do what he wants with it as long as he didn't ride it out of the state.  

If anyone believes in freedom of the press then they need to publish a  magazine.

 

Jeffro

   

    

Heavy duty for me

I found this forum in HD mag good on em. Ive learnt a lot about my bike reading their mag

kigchops comments on Jesse James how true, has anyone seen him on that show monster garage he acts like a fuggin dim wit with the IQ of a frisbee

 

WozzA I just dug out issue 93, page 134 and all I see is a Nostalgia story????
Yes Heavy Duty has been my preferred mag, in fact I have every issue from day dot. There is a girl on the cover of one of the early mags that blew me away. I actually wrote to them and asked to feature her again, but she had moved on.....bugga.
I agree they are featuring too many flashy choppers and the write up's are all predictable. Someone mentioned that they should show us how to do workshop stuff to our bikes, bloody good idea. Maybe they will read the forum and mend their ways.
I used to buy the other 2 mags, but the layout is the same each edition, tit's and parties.........hey I like the tits but sometimes they are covering a nice bit of the bike.
They had a great competiotion in the early days, they rebuilt a 54 Pan and gave it away to a subscriber...............some bloke in the west won the bike.

Early Easyriders, fuck yeah. Brings back the memories alright. Mutha, passin gas? (or was it wind) etc etc
Lotsa articles on "How" i did it, not what bling i just had my dealer install.
I subscribe to HD however, if i see another bloke on Prozac i may well burn it.

 If I can find one I'll give it a go Dave.

I buy Heavy Duty regulaly. Sometimes I may buy Live to Ride or Ozbiker if there is enough content thet I like, usually I just scan them at the news stand or read someone elses. After reading all the posts here it seems that the big buck customs are not that well received.