We generally consider it to be the height of bad manners to make a derogatory comment about another publication, but we’ve been flummoxed by the latest two-page advert to appear in the October issue of Performance Bike promoting its subscription offer. It wittily threatens readers that it will turn into a chopper mag if they don’t subscribe, complete with a mocked up front cover of ‘Performance Chop’ (subtitled ‘Owning, accessorizing and polished long-wheelbase shite’), featuring cover lines for ‘articles’ such as ‘CAMPEST LEATHER CHAPS FOR BLOKES WITH BEARDS’, and ‘READER’S 400 SUPERDREAM CHOP – TRY NOT TO VOMIT!’. Coming at a time when EU legislation poses a potential end to the modification of motorcycles, whether custom, road or special, PB's attempt to alienate an entire sector of motorcyclists is truly bizarre. It might not even have been quite so vexatious if the attempt at humour (we're being generous and assuming that's what it was) had been even slightly successful.
PB is part of the Bauer Media publishing stable of motorcycle magazines which includes Motorcycle News, another title which has often expressed its contempt of custom bikes. Curiously, MCN has – presumably with an eye to a trend and a possible source of revenue – recently given editorial space to the likes of Roland Sands and other custom builders (some of whom build that ‘long wheelbase shite’…), although it still cleaves to the idea that choppers are both ‘dangerous’ and ‘irrelevant’. Unfortunately, we suspect that PB’s ‘amusing’ subs ad sums up Bauer’s supercilious attitude towards custom motorcycling and building. You might want to remember that…
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