Streetfighters Mag is no more

[Hagarr]

The magazine folded because not enough people were buying it. Not enough people bought the mag as there has been a steady decline in the numbers of people who are interested in streetfighters and custom biking. There always were young blokes getting into building bikes and they replaced the older ones who retired from biking due to family etc.

But the young blokes getting into biking are few and far between, not sure why, as they have far tastier bikes available now than we had in our day, and it's always been expensive to get into bikes, I don't think these days are any more or less expensive than when I was a kid. I paid 300 quid for my first bike (a GSX250) in 1992 and then paid 440 quid to insure it. I got stopped by the plod 3 times and had to prove I had insurance so good job I did,

Without the young blokes coming into it, all grassroots custom biking in general is slowly but surely diminishing, not just streetfighters. Its becoming a sad parody of its former self when the choices for Chops are just bolt on Harley tat or an expensive Orange County Choppers ripoff, and the new cafe racers are equally sad, taking a slow 250 or 400 and fitting exhaust wrap, firestones, clip ons with no rearsets and calling it a cafe racer build is a parody of the original rockers actually tuning the nuts off the fastest bikes they could buy at the time.

THe neo-rockabilly-retro crowd seems to have a few young faces in it, but I don't see many bikes among them, lots of cool tattoos and American hot rod type cars, but few bikes.

Those of us who go into a garage and make parts for our bikes are a dying breed. We are old. How many of us are under 40? very few.

But 20somethings dont read magazines anyway, paper magazines are as relevant to them as vinyl records, so streetfighters etc are battling hard against digital media.

I don't know what the answer is, the only thing I can suggest is help out the young bikers, show them how to wield spanners, build cool bikes and not get ripped off. And we should ride our bikes more, so new bikers see cool bikes and want to build their own.

just come in from shed to read this.

I don't know more than three people that I know of that actively modify stuff, in particular actually machine and modify!

But why would you? All the stuff out there is better than anyone can build, excluding the real professional builders (Ben!) with great original ideas.

I'm still finishing off my Harris yet I constantly cast a glance at my B-King and shake my head sometimes and go ........why?

It's because my ideology about bikes is different, Old!

We had to make bikes better back in my day and you could but it is a hard task to better anything out of the box nowadays unless you have lots of time, money and inspiration.

Spoilt for choices now.

[Gix11]

Tough call. I think Streetfighters have more to do with being an indiviual these days, and kids still crave that.

The internet killed magazines (ASF included), plus Tony is also on the money.

It's just progress and it will return in one form or another; this is just a transition.

[ozzy1100]

I beleive that maybe there will be a move back to hand built bikes.
We are more conected than ever before and people will always be driven to be diffrent
The sheep will still follow but there will always be a % of people wanting to look at something they built with their own 2 hands.
My nephew is 14 and has been in nothing but trouble for some time now, much as I was. A few weekends ago he stayed here for the a few days, the look in his eyes as for one of the 1st times in his life he felt apart of something he could understand and not be judged for not playing by the rules took me stright back to when I was his age. Somewhere sometime most of us had a exp like this in some dirty back shed looking on in wonder as men played with fire and teated you like a yng man not a boy. That look in his eye gave me hope that what I do and what keeps me sane when the world is lost will not die with me. Above me I am lucky enough to have old masters share their wisdon and Im proud that I will get to pass it on.
streetfighters is just a name given to a way of building, Im shore a lot of us built bikes long before we even knew the word and will continue to long after the lastest fad has gone and if anyone thinks the next gens wont be as smart as us well you havnt been paying attention

[MDM]

In sure the numbers sold are only part of the story.
I'm very willing to bet there are several magazines
still on the shelf that have a LOT lower sales.
I worked in the print trade for 23 years,
saw a lot of culls due to greedy suits or low
profit margins or bad "restructuring" decisions.

Nail. On. Head.

[Jockney Rebel]

thought so .. so dave whats on the cards for you now

[MDM]

What's on the cards?.... Hmmm, they appear to be blank...

Actually, that's not 100% true, but I do have another seven days from today before I'm booted out of the door...

[hutch]

good look on what ever you do

[ozzy1100]

X2

[safighter]

Yeah one door shuts another opens good luck in the future

[hooligan]

Rapid bikes here in Aus could use a better editor.

[fimpBIKES]

LOL


good luck MDM and the rest!!!! end of an amazing run, i dont know of any magazines who are happen to reject the latest flagship models and turbo some old clanger instead quite like you did
you have changed my life for the better and i will miss my monthly dosing of madness


ps- spare time to finish up some long forgotten projects??

[MDM]

Thanks guys, your kind thoughts are really appreciated!
Hopefully a bit of spare time to get stuck into forgotten projects - there are four that all need attention...
Although I will have some news for you in a week's time

[wackyrider]

Do tell...

[Tony Nitrous]

I keep reading folk have got the latest BSH
and the cover say "incorporating Streetfighters"
but there is no S/F insert, section or anything fighter related?

[hooligan]

Do tell...

Might be this
http://www.flat-out.com/

[K6Thou]

Might be this
http://www.flat-out.com/

Or this

https://www.facebook.com/worldwidebo...ed_target_id=0

[sharky]

Ive got it tony....issue 351

[Neo Dutch]

Last 2 issues of BSH has Streetie stuff. 20 pages or so in the middle.

[Tony Nitrous]

Yeah, few folk had their subscriptions swapped over,
got a big of fighter stuff for 3 issue's then... gone.

[Neo Dutch]

Maybe they were using up the stories they had on the desk.