Motorcyclist Retro

I've found the first three issues of Motorcyclist Retro and have enjoyed them finding useful advertisers and great articles.
I was hoping to subscribe it's a shame to see it ending.. I've joined your email campaign to save the Retro...  

Were can i get the first three issues of Motorcyclist Retro? This sounds like a great magazine. Any help would be appreciated thanks  

Moto_ Mec,

    Back issues can be had at   www.simbackissues.com    On the left click onto Motorcyclist from there list of different magazines.  Now scroll down to the very bottom to the 2008 issues of MOTORCYCLIST and look for the SPRING, FALL, and WINTER issues of MOTORCYCLIST RETRO.

    They are there, and are only $7.00 plus shipping.  Good luck and happy reading  because that's all we're going to get.  The three issues.  Those bas_____s!

                  Mike  

Hey Mike,

   Pretty ironic, isn'it?  The amount of TIME, and  gasoline all of us spent trying to find the magazine. They pull the plug after 3 issues,and now you can order the issues over the internet for less than newstand cost.  Unreal.

   Wish we could get somebody like Leno or Barber Museum (true enthusiasts) to back a vintage bike magazine.

   Can't believe Britain has the number of vintage mags that they do, and in America it falls on its face.

Dave  

Davrenn,

       If you check the first couple of pages of this forum "Marty" the publisher use to chirp in with his two cents about the early problems of distribution to try to calm the uprising.  He's quiet like a church mouse now.  Wonder where he went?

      Do you like vintage dirt?  Try  VMX  from Australia mate.   It is awesome.    It's quarterly and they use subscriptions, what a concept.

     Mike  

Count another who wanted to subscribe.  I'm tired of the bling and sportbike shootout stuff that seems to be the make up of most magazines without any regard to doing stuff with used bikes that doesn't cost tens of thousands.  

I spent some time on CW forum getting some mediocre down talk from Mr. Edwards in response to my question about why there are no articles on real world custom stuff that can inspire the average rider to maybe take on a project or give an idea that might be holding one up a bit.  He made it sound like all of us budget guys were hacks with cameras and the bikes dimissed as having trophied at the local cruise-in.

The RD in the current Retro gave me hope, then I heard the magazine might not make it.  Heck, I'd subscribe on-line to see stuff like that article.  I talked with Boehm a few years back at the AMA HOF show, telling him that they ought to add a subscription area to the web for features on what reader/riders are doing.  I have a buddy who did a beautiful $11,000 bobber Yam 650 that actually got featured in one of the cruiser magazines and my brother did a Sonicweld copy hardtail 305 Scrambler street tracker that CW even put in it's "under $1000" article, but it went no further than that.  He has in progress pictures showing mocking up the hard tail with pvc pipe to make patterns for bending.  

There's a lot out there that would be great to see.  Even builders like Denny Berg promote the idea of "hacksaw and grinder" customizing, aka customizing on a budget.  

Mitch,if you read these things, I hope you can keep up the Retro magazine.  My friends and family here in New Philadelphia,although I am now in Delaware myself, love to play with some old stuff and see good spreads on what others are doing.  Also the invite for an easy backroad dual sport ride in SE Ohio that I made back then at Pickerington still stands.  I think you'd like it.  And we could show you some kind of neat stuff like the two bikes I mentioned along with some others.  

Dear Retro readers

Like you, I'm bummed the publisher put Retro on ice indefinitely (until the economy improves, they say). It was definitely something I enjoyed doing. But I'm planning to take the Retro concept private and publish it myself this spring. The key here is that I won't do it the way Source Interlink (our publishers) did it. They tested the magazine exclusively on newsstands to see if it was marketable, and though the answer came back as a definite yes (issue one sold more than 20,000 copies, hardly "falling on its face"), I don't think the higher-ups were into continued investment (offering subscriptions) in it given the state of the ecomomy right now. (Titles such as Motor Trend and Hot Rod, their real money makers, are hurting with auto advertising down so much.) My plan is to sell it directly to readers, single copies and subs (no newsstand), and also through selected bike shops. The name will change slightly, but the overall concept will remain: Dirt and street coverage from '65 to '85, with an emphasis on Japanese bikes (though Euros will also be covered, esp on the dirt side). For those of you interested in the new Motorcycle Retro, please shoot me an email at mcretro@cox.net. I'll grab your address and shoot you a note when orders for issue one (and subs for '09....we'll be quarterly) will start being taken. Issue one should be available via the website (www.motorcycleretro.com) in March or April. In the meantime, please ignore all the misinformation and stupidity out there regarding what really happened to Retro, and keep in touch via the email address above.

Best regards,

Mitch Boehm
Motorcycle Retro
mcretro@cox.net  

Bummer man.  I was saving my Christmas funds this year to spend on a much anticipated subscription to MCRetro, Rats, foiled again by the economy.  

I think Mitch was on the right track, too bad the project only got a half hearted marketing effort.  I finally resorted to ordering all three issues on line from www.primediabackissues.com at $10/issue+tax, a small price to pay for these soon to be collectors editions.

All is not lost for us retro bike fans, there's another retro magazine "Motorcycle Classics" http://www.motorcycleclassics.com/ out there, and this one HAS subscription service.

TINK
photosbytink.com  

It's at the end, page 7, I think, check it out!
Thank, guys!
mitch  

Sign me up now. I have all 3 issues. Food for thought: I am restoring a CB350K3 over the winter, trying to get brother in law moving on RD250.

So I am reliving a childhood I didn't get, I am finding the vintage bike therapeutic!

Anyways, keep it going.  

klx678,

 Saw your back-and-forth with Edwards on the CW forum. Agreed with you 100%.  Am so sick of these "celebrity" builders and their gold plated choppers, etc. Would much rather see "real" bikes built by guys in their one-car garages.

 Would guess Mitch's future efforts are going to be more to our way of thinking, rather than the latest celebrity worship. Hope it works.  

Hey thanks Mike i am really looking forward to reading those issues. Rich  

Thanks Mitch!  I'll send this to all my friends.

PP  

Thanks Mitch. I'm one of the lucky ones who has all 3 issues. It was great news when I saw in issue 3 that subscriptions would be offered.I only found out about the demise of Motorcyclist Retro because I logged onto motorcylistonline.com looking for the subscription info.
Please count me in as a future subscriber to your Retro Mag.
I've been subscribing to Motorcyclist since 1993. I will NOT be renewing my subscription and I'll be sending an email to Source Interlink to tell them why.
Good luck with the "New" Retro. I look forward to subscribing.
Ed Gould
Portland, CT  

Hey guys, Richard Backus here, editor of Motorcycle Classics. It may surprise you to know I'm also disappointed in Source Interlink's decision to put Motorcyclist Retro on ice. As someone who has worked hard to get a classic bike mag up and running, I can tell you it's a battle getting the higher-ups to see value in a smaller audience like classic bike fans. Frankly, I was excited when Motorcyclist Retro launched, because in my mind it gave further credence to the fact the category has legs, that while we're not as big a crowd as, say, the people interested in new bikes, we're still loud, proud and very passionate about our old iron. And critically, we spend money keeping our old iron on the road. I've never been able to understand how the Brits can have a half dozen old bike mags, and yet historically the U.S. has barely been able to keep one in publication. We're now going into our fourth year, and it hasn't been easy. Satisfying, yes, but easy, no. But thankfully, we've had the good fortune to grow, and we're looking forward to many years of exploring great bikes of the past. While our focus isn't exactly the same as Mitch's (70s and 80s, mostly Japanese), we've been able to prove that a classic bike mag can thrive and survive. Where our mag is more general in approach, covering Japanese, European, American, and just about any oddball old iron out there, I thought Mitch's mag brought great focus to an era that resonates with many of us. I encourage you to check us out at www.motorcycleclassics.com where you can see what we've been up to the past three-plus years. We're a bi-monthly, and subs online are only $20. Check us out when you can, and in the meantime, I wish Mitch well getting Motorcycle Retro up and running in the spring. And please, feel free to drop a line to me anytime at the email address below, I'd love to hear from you.

Regards,
Richard Backus
Editor in chief/Motorcycle Classics
rbackus@ogdenpubs.com
www.motorcycleclassics.com