Outside Magazine-Great if You Want a $5,000 Bicycle
Written: Oct 10 '09
Product Rating:
Pros: Bikes, Some Excitement, Some Pics, Accurate Product Reviews
Cons: Most gear/Trips too costly for most, Boring articles, Some iffy photos, Lacks passion
The Bottom Line: I will not be re-subscribing to Outside Magazine, due to a lack of excitement and ridiculously priced gear/trips that make me jealous.
toiletoctopus's Full Review: Outside Magazine Subscription
As someone who truly loves the outdoors, and abhors every moment of office time, I'm looking forward to retirement. It's some 20+ years away, but its not too early to dream about constant skiing, fishing, hiking, biking, camping, and hunting. Lately I've been tied up with work assignments, and unable to get outdoors as much as I'd like to. Yet when I get a chance to roll out for a day in the woods, the car seems to be one step ahead of me, as its more prepared for the elements than I am. In a couple of months, I'll be devoting some serious time away from the job, to pursue that monster buck that eluded me last year. There will be quite a few days of throwing a tent out in the cold, to see if I still have what it takes, to be considered a real outdoorsman. Of course, I'll bring the inflatable mattress and propane heater!
There are plenty of publications dedicated to outdoor activities, and my personal favorite is Field and Stream. My subscription to Outside Magazine is about to end, and I'm not going to renew it. Sure the name of it sounds enticing, and it has been the launching pad for Jon Kranekeur. He's of course from the "Into Thin Air" fame, and its a shame that their other writers can't even measure up to him. My major problem with Outside Magazine is due to this, as a lot of the articles, read like something from what one would expect from the AARP Travel Guide. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that organization, but I chose to subscribe to Outside, because I wanted to reach gripping, heart pounding stories about adventures in the great outdoors. Sadly, that's not the case.
A lot of the stories feature outdoor areas, that I'll never get to see, due to their expense. That would be fine if it was a few articles, but it seems that all of them are focused on exotic locales that would cost me a couple years of mortgages. I don't have the means to afford the $1,000 jackets that they wear, or the $2,000 tents that weigh less than my Twinkie. In addition, the articles read like a boring subplot that got rejected by Hollywood. For instance, there was an article on surfing recently, that put me to sleep. The article covered some of the basics, but didn't really get into the sport, but rather focused on manufacturing of the boards, and the people that design them. Yawn. I want to read about surfers hitting rip curls, where one could go to do it, and about dodging Great White Sharks that mistakenly identify them as seals.
Are the people that write these feature stories boring by nature? Or perhaps am I just holding up the candle of Mr. Adventure himself, compared to these authors? I loved it when Mr.K was regularly featured in the magazine, as his articles embodied the passion and adrenaline that go with outdoor activities. The new writers seem more interested in writing travel diaries, with less action, and more of their preconceived notions of what going on such activities bring to the table. That might be fine for some, and while this magazine does occasionally have a decent article, for the most part I find them to be dry reading.
The product reviews are usually decent enough, but how many backpacks can I look at? Obviously these are important pieces of equipment, but I'd like to see a bit more diversity. I'd like to see reviews of tents, fishing poles, hunting rifles. Field and Stream is more of a reference in the fishing and hunting areas, but considering those are "Outside Activities", you'd think that Outside would cover them. Another problem with their reviews, is its all top of the line stuff that Joe the Plumber can't afford. Sorry to bring up that old reference, but for those of us who wear nametags at work, we'd like to have some coverage of products taht we could afford. I haven't detected any biases on name brands though, so that's one place that this publication shines. For the stuff they've reviewed that I have bought, without selling off part of my house, they've been right on the money with regards to accuracy and product performance.
One place I don't mind drooling, even though I can't afford them as well, is their Bike Product articles. I do enjoy reading these, as they are better written than the featured ones, and cover aspects of this sport that I like. There are great suggestions about how to tune up your bike, and in my case its a rather inexpensive Specialized Rock Hopper. I've used a few tricks to get it up to shape on long rides, and am especially appreciative about their suggestions on snacks for these. You can learn a decent amount about sports nutrition, and a lot of these tips are geared for long bike trips. The bikes that they write about are all thousands of dollars in price, but they do allow me to dream about upgrading one day, to one of those expensive toys.
The pictures in the magazine are a mixed bag. Some of the shots are truly breathtaking, as they've had fantastic pictures of mountain climbing expeditions. If you want to see snow covered mountains during the summertime, look at this magazine, as its a reminder of the best season. Sadly they can be inconsistent, and while I don't expect National Geographic type of professionalism, a lot of the pictures are straight up boring. Some of the shots are nothing that a high schooler with a digital camera could produce, and while I appreciate the close ups of a particular product, do I really need to look at the boring part of a cave? Why not get pictures of all the stalagmites, instead of a cave wall that has nothing special to display?
I'm not going to be re-subscribing due to the more misses than hits. You can get about 30-45 minutes of reading time out of each 100-110 page issue, but a lot of these pages are loaded with ads. Some of these are useful, as they do tend to have some ski lodging offers on them. Unfortunately, the majority of them are for products that are out of my price range. This leads to some frustration, and it seems that every other page is nothing but "another commercial." Compared to older Outside Magazine issues, this publication has had a steep drop in quality, and its for the most part not exciting at all. Consider another outdoor publication, as the $16 per year subscription price is too high for what you are getting with it.
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