Wideopen Magazine Issue 17 including articles on the Algarve, Port Du Soleil, Enduro of Nations along with reviews of the Stanton Slackline, Ragley Piglet and Dialled Alpine.
It’s been a long time coming but we hope it’s worth it.. here’s to plenty more to come from us in 2012. Exciting times!
Click the magazine cover above to go full screen (requires Flash).
Annoying flash version and content light, but I guess as an on-the-side hobby for the production team it’s never going to be very polished. Worth a quick scan of some of the better pictures.
You should be glad you don’t need to pay for it then Outiman! ;)
Amazingly tempted to abuse my admin powers and f-ck with that first comment! ;-)
Love the fact that people work hard to produce this kind of thing for free – awesome work from the team. Don’t know what Outiman is complaining about – photography in particular is stunning. I work in publishing and, yes, it would benefit a lot from an experienced producer but otherwise editing and photography is top notch. Good work to the team.
Outiman. You sir, are a grade A cock.
Absolutely ace, as ever. Please make a few more this year lads?
Outiman’s comments are a bit harsh, as are some of HelmetHeads. I’m sure James Hilton does the best as a producer as he can and it’s better than my version of amateur would be.
I think Outiman’s comments are a bit harsh too, but there’s no point beating him up. Authors shouldn’t have comments boards if they don’t want to hear both praise and criticism. For my own part, I think photography is 10/10, written articles 8/10, overall production 5/10, value for money 10.5/10.
We’re more than happy to receive constructive criticism and I have no issue with leaving outimans comment on here.. it’s up to you guys to make up your mind and we’ll be releasing the full four issues this year :)
Actually Jim – thanks to an editorial fuck up well be producing 5 issues this year I think… 17 was late so got rolled over!
And yeah – bring on the feedback – you know your doing well when people start hammering you – love it! Nice one for all the words either way you lot – all feedback is good.
Bring on 2012,
Good effort and like having free content. Not sure I agree that “you know your doing well when people start hammering you”, though. That might apply to big successes like Top Gear and brands like Apple. For a free-zine done by amateurs, it might just be because you’re not that good yet. Keep up the work and making improvements, though. Look forward to the next edition.
It’s always allot easier to criticize than it is to get off your arse and do something yourself, besides that would take effort. I will put money on Outiman being about 12 and hugely frustrated by the fact that his as yet his adolescent balls haven’t provided him with the spunk he actually needs to masturbate properly. Life is real easy from behind a keyboard, especially when your parents paid for it………Not that I’m bitter or anything.
Sadly, Chav misplelt his name as Chaz in his comment. I’m sure he’ll get over the fact his daddy couldn’t afford to buy him toys one day and man-up and pay his own way instead. In the meantime, I’d suggest he doesn’t work on publications that are made public with a comments board underneath if he can’t tolerate the reaction. It’s funny to note that I’m not the only one critiquing elements of the magazine, but I’m the only one getting abuse for it.
Your the only one who sounds like a……….that’s why you get the abuse sunshine. Constructive is fine, its the snotty ‘I could do better’ tone that puts sand in peoples crack. Love you :)
Chav – sounds like I;m not the only one who thinks your freezine isn’t perfect. Re-read comments from RobW, Will.i.wannabe, Rob1983 etc. Sounds like we all hit a nerve with you “I could do better” admission. If you don’t want others to comment on it, keep it as a hobby in your garage and don’t publish the thing. Authors coming across as touchy and argumentative will really endear you to your little readerships base, so good luck!
Just for the record…… I actually have very little to do with the mag (the odd article now and again, help with the DH team) but have a huge amount of respect for the people who put their time and effort in to getting it together. Firstly because they are bothering to create something, something pretty damn cool in my book. Putting your head above the parapet just to have cheap shots taken at you by idiots is a hard path to choose. Secondly any money these guys may make goes straight back in to promoting Mountain Biking, from giving young riders, photographers and writers a leg up, to supporting grass routes race series or helping small producers/ shops/ manufacturers get exposure. Personally I am very proud to even be vaguely associated with Wideopen and that makes me feel very protective of the people who put all the real work in for essentially nothing other than the good of the sport.
Yeah I have read everyone’s comments and most of them seem to be able to articulate themselves without coming across as an intolerable cock. As I mentioned, this is why your initial comments have drawn criticism. As I suspect that you are not creating anything near the standard of what is being produced by Jamie, Jim et al, I and others have taken exception to the tone you have used. Personally I couldn’t give a rats ass what you think of me (believe me). But as you so rightly pointed out this is a public space and if you choose to make snide comments then expect someone to bring you up on them. I have also come across plenty of troll’s in my time and sadly I’m sure I’ll come across plenty more. As always I am 100% sure you wouldn’t be half such an ass if we were face to face. However for now I will have to be satisfied with the fact that I seem to have annoyed you as much as you seem to have annoyed everyone else.
This is the last comment I am going to leave now purely for the fact that I prefer to put my time and effort in to positive stuff and people who love, care and respect me rather than being unnecessarily negative with someone I neither know or give a shit about.
My final comment is this. Read back what you have written then have a think about how that looks to everyone else, especially when you consider that what you are criticizing cost you nothing, jack, not a bean. If you want to contribute something, try and help to improve whats being produced, put your time and effort in to something that tens of thousands of people seem to appreciate then I am sure the guys would love you to get in touch. If on the other hand all you have to offer is unpleasant, barbed comment then jog on…
Cool to have free stuff and good photography. But dudes – not cool to have contributors attacking people who comment on the ‘zine on an open-access bulletine board. From the posts above, it’s the writers and contributors who de-generated this board to insults and crudity. Writers may disagree with Outiman’s comments, but the way they started levelling insults leaves a bad taste in the mouth. (Outiman was equally out of order to stoop to this level, although in fairness he only pulled out the insults after others did).
All together, think the ‘zine’s valuable, but I’m massively put off Wideopen for some reason – a combination of the contributors having been the first to be insulting (Outiman was critical, but not rude) and Chaz’s comment that they feed back into grassroots is disturbing. There are a lot of kids and teens at grassroot level, and they deserve better rolemodels than Chav and people appread to be based on their crude language and mud-slinging above.
Bloody hell – looks like we’ve stirred up a bit of a debate here…
I’m not going to moderate the comments on here either way and I’m not going to stop anyone posting their opinion up either way. I’m glad of ALL feedback whether it’s good or bad… to be honest, I’m flattered that any of you are bothered enough to comment and leave feedback rather than just ignoring Wideopenmag and telling us to f-ck off!
Moving on from the shit slinging – I think you guys (Outiman for one) are actually completely right – we’ve got a long way to go. We can be a bit scrappy, we tend to be a bit late with issues and we could do with being a bit more polished … but that’s why I love Wideopenmag. It’s a beast that’s growing and getting stronger with every issue that we produce. All I’d ask is that you guys keep telling us when you think something isn’t right, drop us some praise when you like something and stick with it … we’re getting there and we’ve got BIG ambitions to keep producing a mag that represents the UK mtb scene and promotes (as Chav says) the grassroots talent that we’re all proud to see whenever we ride.
Any crit most welcome on jamie@wideopenmag.co.uk
Thanks for the feedback chaps, I think despite the slinging match there are some fine points in here that we can take on board. Electronic communication is very prone to being mis-interpreted, and evoking strong polarised reactions – which has it’s positives and negatives but please, no one lose any sleep over this! :) We do this (the mag, the website, the raceteam) for the love of it, and driving Wideopen forwards has kept the three of us together for the last 5 years and will continue to do so. Bikes are in the blood – and I hope that passion does come through the feel of everything we turn our hands to, even when it’s not quite so arty, polished or professional as we could achieve as a publishing house. Issue 18 will be out in March – let us know what you think and if anyone wants to get in touch the contact details are in the Contributors section of the mag :)
I have some sympathy with all side of the debate. If you leave a message board on the internet, you’ve got to accept good and bad comments. However, it must be disheartening after working so hard on an amateur magazine to receive negative comments and Outiman hardly sugar-coated it (although he wasn’t rude).
My overwealming views are:
1. I like Wideopen.
2. I’m slightly disturbed by the comments about Wideopen working at the grassroot level. For me, that implies teens and other impressionable people. I don’t know how many work / contribute to the magazine, bit from the comments and list of contributors it’s clear that Chaz, and maybe Franz do. From their language and reaction, I’d be concerned if they use Wideopen to engage with teens at the grassroot level – their reactions suggest they lack both the maturity and skills to be a role-model to make it appropriate.
I will give the benefit of the doubt and continue to read Wideopen in the interim, but I’d suggest the Editors reign in the attitude of people who may be seen as role-models, even if this attutitude is borne out of a passion for what they do.
How do you get it to work on a iPhone? Cheers.
Hey fella – iPhone and Android work via the PDF link, it’s dead easy!
Just click the PDF link above or here:
http://download.wideopenmag.co.uk/Wideopenmag_Issue_17.pdf
and then open in Ibooks. It will take a while to download so you’re best doing on Wifi. Once it’s opened it will saved to your ibooks bookshelf and you can read it from there at your leisure!
It also works very well in the GoodReader app.
Let me know how you get on!
Jamie
Having problems downloading the mag to an Android phone, do I need some sort of PDF reader and Books APP installed? sorry for being so clueless. Any help greatly appreciated.
Oh.. and keep up the good work.
it’s much appreciated.
Cheers Gary! You will most likely need a PDF reader app … Do you have Quickoffice or similar? That oughta do it!
Downloaded Office Suite 5 (free) and it’s done the job, thanks for your help
Today I sat down and read through the entire issue and I have to say it’s really good. Excellent job and can’t wait for the next one. I can’t believe it’s free. Keep up the good work. Regards from North Wales
Cheers James – that’s awesome! We’re cracking on with the next issue at the moment and it’s going to be so good … the content is so much better than 17…. Definitely going to be a cracker!
Keep reading please!
After only recently discovering your little gem of a magazine. Ive got to say its better than most! Keep up the good work boys. Looking forward to next issue.
Cheers James – appreciate that fella! New issue should be out in the next few days!