Superbike infamously lost all Honda's advertising for years after a negative test bike review.gremlin wrote: ↑Tue Sep 28, 2021 10:51 amTaff wrote: ↑Tue Sep 28, 2021 10:31 am 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.
I did hear rumours the a similar promise had been made by a major clothing importer if their reviews didn't improve. How true that is I have no idea.
But the early RiDE tests were pretty decent I thought. I bought a Scott jacket on the back of them and it was probably the best jacket I ever owned - shame I grew out of it. I also bought RS Performance gloves thanks to their tests which found them pretty difficult to destroy. FWIW, I got hold of one of their 'best buy' pair in a dealers three-four years back and did my usual test - get hold of the forefinger in one hand and the other fingers in the other and pull and see what happens to the seam. The leather promptly ripped straight through. My RS gloves are now twenty five years old, and have been worn in all weathers... I still can't do that kind of damage to them.
If you want to see the sort of thing they did, take a look at the FortNine channel on YT. That's gone from a bit amateurish in the early days to seriously professional production, and they get MILLIONS of hits - I'd guess they can do some serious damage to even a big manufacturer's product lines.
