Welcome to issue number two of Super Streetbike. We're stoked to be back, and hope you're just as excited to see us return to the newsstand. If the feedback we received in response to our first issue can be trusted, we're sure the vast majority of you are psyched to be holding another copy of Super Streetbike in your sportbike-loving hands. (Still, some out there in motoland would like nothing better than to see us dispatched like a certain ex-despot formerly of Iraq. The quicker the better, too!)
We weren't surprised so many readers responded so enthusiastically; we're hard-core sportbike fans, so we're pretty sure that if we like it, you'll like it, too. What did surprise us, though, was the diversity of people who replied positively. The usual suspects (stunters, stunt fans and boulevard brawlers) spoke up in force, but it was the self-described "middleagers" (even a few Harley riders!) who wrote in to tell us how much they enjoyed our alternate take on the motorcycle universe.
And on the other side there were the haters, the anticipated (and utterly predictable) gang of self-righteous sourpusses who spent hundreds of hard-earned pixels letting us know in explicit detail what jackasses (their word, not mine) we were for even acknowledging these outsider elements in the first place. Fred Rau, senior editor at Motorcycle Consumer News, that bastion of safe, sane and totally sterile motorcycling, even went so far as to devote an entire editorial to "analyzing" (i.e. quoting out of context and otherwise rhetorically bastardizing) our first issue. Thanks for the publicity, Rau. Too bad our two magazines share, um, about zero readership or target audience. What these haters lacked in numbers, they more than made up for with sheer nastiness. Some limited their criticisms to the magazine, but many went straight for my throat, questioning everything from my riding background (12 years riding and racing, multiple advanced riding schools, even an MSF course), my journalistic credentials (masters degree and six years motojournalist experience), even my manhood (fully functioning, with a gorgeous three-year-old daughter to prove it). I haven't been insulted so brutally since eighth-grade gym class!
But never mind that pissing match--let's get to the good stuff, specifically, the new issue you're now holding. If you liked our first issue, you'll flip for this one.
Check out this month's custom crop, for example, bikes truly worthy of the "World's Wildest Streetbikes" title. Three bikes from Velocity Racing, including a 475-horsepower, $90,000 Bimota SB6R and a 550-hp Suzuki Hayabusa capable of speeds in excess of 240 mph. The gaggle of eye-bleeding customs (including a radical chromed 'Busa) built by the East Coast's King of the Bling, John Dantzler at Two Wheel Customs. And don't miss the streetfighter gallery, four machines that represent the cutting edge of streetfighter art, bikes that we traveled all the way to Europe to find.
Second only to the call for radical bikes was your endorsement of the extreme antics of the gravity-defying street-freestyle crowd. We sent our best photographers to the biggest stunt competitions of the summer, including the Starboyz Stuntfest and Stuntlife.com's Stunt Shootout to deliver the freshest street-freestyle content you'll find on the printed page, showcasing the latest tricks by the biggest names in the business. In addition to competition coverage, we've got wheelies explained by Team XMX's Dan Jackson, mini interviews with the biggest names in street-freestyle riding, a guest editorial by the original scenester and president of Stuntlife.com, Greg "Shugga" Walsh, and plenty more.
That's just the beginning--don't miss Neale Bayly's feature article on the Maxton Speed Trials, the place to go to find the world's fastest streetbikes; Mike Seate's photo essay on the original street extreme blowout, the Isle of Man TT; and hot products, fresh videos and much more. All in bigger, better, full-color photos and big layouts, so the magazine is every bit as fun to look at as it is to read.
Although it's only our second issue, we're confident you'll dig our new look and more tightly focused content mix. And we're still shaping this ship--once again, your feedback and comments are encouraged. Ping us at ssbmail(at) primedia.com. The good, the bad, the ugly, we enjoy reading it all. A word of warning to the haters, though...we're not going away, at least not anytime soon.