Ride Best Buys?

[Taipan]

Looking at stuff on Sports Bike Shop, is the Ride Best Buys endorsement worth taking note of?

[Yorick]

Dunno.

[Rockburner]

Used to be, I haven't read Ride for about 5-10 years though, so no idea how thoroughly they test stuff these days.

[KungFooBob]

Does Ride still exist?

Can't remember the last time I looked at the bike mags in a shop.

(I subscribe to Adventure Bike Rider and it gets posted).

[v8-powered]

Purchased a few things like jackets after reading their reviews and were shite, returned pronto.....

[Count Steer]

Looking at stuff on Sports Bike Shop, is the Ride Best Buys endorsement worth taking note of?

Dunno. [Nosey]Whatcha buying?[/N]

[Taipan]

Looking at stuff on Sports Bike Shop, is the Ride Best Buys endorsement worth taking note of?

Dunno. [Nosey]Whatcha buying?[/N]

Nowt exciting, just some waterproof over trousers. I normally buy Richa ones but they don't seem to last, so thought I'd try another make, and Oxford ones came up as a Ride Best Buy. I've bought them now and at £23 delivered it's not going to be an expensive mistake if they aren't any good!

[Skub]

150 years ago,when I still bought bike rags,Ride touted themselves as 'real world consumer champions'.

Their recommendations back then were a bit...variable,I have no idea if that has changed one way or the other. Like you Tarquin,I too see the green triangles,but I don't consciously base a buy on that alone.

[Scotsrich]

They’re a bike magazine so they’re not really set up to test any sort of range of products.

I can’t see how they can test disc locks one month and gloves the next with any kind of in depth research involved.

I suspect it’s a few hours work for a staff member poking and prodding the products then a rough guess.

Just like you’d do yourself if you had them in front of you.

Although I’d be happy to be proved wrong.

[Horse]

They’re a bike magazine so they’re not really set up to test any sort of range of products.

I can’t see how they can test disc locks one month and gloves the next with any kind of in depth research involved.

In ye olden days, they IIRC had a tie-in with a German (?) magazine for professional test house services. Articles like leathers involved comparing shop-bought suits against manufacturer-supplied*, then carrying out serious testing.

* They caught one very well. The supplied suit was decent leather, overlaid panels, etc., the bought one didn't. "Terribly sorry, we sent you a MTM suit from a photo shoot".

For kit, it's worth checking the Australian tests.

And for locks, Thatcham and Sold Secure Where's Zanx when you need him?

[Dodgy69]

I bought a Richa all in one waterproof from sbs and that had the green triangle. Got wet bollox on first test.

Two piece has been fine though. I usually wait until I'm wet through and then put the waterproofs on.

[Asian Boss]

Their testing used to be pretty good 20 odd years ago. Back then the magazine had dedicated staff including one who was responsible for all the testing. They were pretty good and even helped shape the industry to a degree.

I think they now have far fewer staff and they're pooled with other magazines. I imagine their testing is far less thorough or useful these days.

[KungFooBob]

I think it all went wrong when Bauer took over from EMAP, the bike rags have never been the same since... that and the tinternets killing off printed media.

[Asian Boss]

I think it all went wrong when Bauer took over from EMAP, the bike rags have never been the same since... that and the tinternets killing off printed media.

Agreed. They kind of happened at the same time. The EMAP board saw the writing on the wall and sold the perishing lot. Back in the day magazines were very profitable (and some were well put together too). Take FHM which EMAP launched in the 90s. It was selling a million copies a month at its peak. That was £3 per copy plus three times that on ad revenue. So £12 million a month with pretty low overheads.

Now magazines are pretty niche and of little consequence.

[Supermofo]

RIde still exists as I have the Bikes Unlimited App I subbed to in the lockdown and for 7 quid a month decided to keep it for toilet literature So I get Bike, Ride, PS, Classic Bike and Built monthly and MCN weekly.

No idea on the Ride tests robustness. I'd guess it's opinion as much as anything but probably a decent guide along with user reviews if on SBS.

[Horse]

https://www.motocap.com.au/

[Taff]

I always assumed (maybe wrongly) that this sort of thing is influenced by the amount of money that's the manufacturer pays in advertising in the magazine.

Would a mag really give a product a poor review when it's being paid a good chunk of cash to advertise that same product?

[Hot_Air]

+1 for the Australian tests For clothing, MotoCAP is the only testing worth its road salt nowadays. It tests protection, the level of water resistance, and thermal comfort.

• Water resistance: Water is sprayed onto a test dummy seated on a motorcycle. The test measures the amount of water that enters the gear and wets the underclothing.

• Thermal comfort: A technician places a sample of gear into a test machine. The sample is placed over a hotplate, while heated water is injected into the heated plate, mimicking sweat forming on a rider’s skin. As the ‘sweat’ passes through the fabric to escape to the environment, more ‘sweat’ will be created to maintain the hotplate temperature. The level of ‘sweat’ that travels through the fabric is measured by monitoring the energy required to heat the hotplate.

• A burst test is performed on a sample of a motorcylist jacket to record the strength of its seams. The sample is inflated under pressure until the stitching on the seam bursts.

• Impact protectors are removed from the gear and placed over an anvil that measures the energy when a 5kg flat-faced weight is dropped from 1m.

• Abrasion resistance: A technician wraps a sample is around a solid metal block on an arm, which is dropped onto an abrasive belt moving at a fixed speed and a timer started. When a hole forms in the material, a thin wire behind the material is broken, automatically stopping the timer. The longer the time taken for the material to fail, the higher its abrasion resistance.

The downside to MotoCAP is that it only tests kit available on the Australian market. (Albeit the Ozzies get much of the same kit as we do.)

[gremlin]

I always assumed (maybe wrongly) that this sort of thing is influenced by the amount of money that's the manufacturer pays in advertising in the magazine.

Would a mag really give a product a poor review when it's being paid a good chunk of cash to advertise that same product?

That. If the big manufacturers are handing over test bikes and test kit, as well as taking out full page ads, are any editors going to bite the hand that feeds them?

If you want, professional, unbiased opinions from expert polymaths, look no further than these esteemed pages.

[Yorick]

If you want any off-road gear testing, just send it over here. I regularly test my gear