HELLO, AND WELCOME TO 2022*, HAPPY NEW YEAR IN OTHER WORDS, HOPE YOU’RE WELL?
Depending on how good the posties’ Christmases’ve been, and how bad their hangovers are, when this issue lands in your hands, I’m either going to be the first person to say ‘Happy New Year’ to you or the last. If it’s the former, cool – if it’s the latter, sorry…
In these dark and cold winter times, it’s only natural to look forward to warmer times and, while I’m not really one to wish me life away, I personally can’t wait for the sun to poke its head above the horizon for more than 20 minutes a day as it seems to barely do these days. I’m writing this barely two weeks into December and, therefore, the winter solstice, when the days finally start getting longer, has yet to come and go, and the warm days of May, June, July, August and September seem an intolerably long way off.
The biking calendar, though, even at this early stage, is starting to fill up and, yet another Covid variant permitting, 2022 looks as though it’s going to be a corker. All the biggies’ve already announced their dates, albeit with some date changes that’re going to make life interesting for the few of us lot here at BSH, and our renewed events listings, back as of this issue, at the back of the mag, are getting crazy already.
That means that if you’re running a do of any sort, then you’d better get it into our listings as soon as you can, y’know? Email the info’ or a flyer to me at nik@backstreetheroes.com
Right across the board, magazines, especially bike magazines, these days are struggling, and custom bike mags especially so. AWoL’s gone (a while ago, granted) sadly, as has Streetfighters, and 100% Biker in this country, and while Europe used to have 35-plus custom bike magazines, there are now perhaps five. We are, I think, if not the oldest survivor, then one of them, and it’s a struggle to keep everything going. When I started doing this, full time, back in ’94, there were three of us editorially: Caz the editor, Karen the cool one, and me (the glorified teaboy… actually, thinking about it, Karen made better tea), and an army of freelancers. (There was also some bloke from North Wales who did the design: Gareth… Gareth… Gareth… no, his name’s gone… nice bloke though, wonder what became of him?) Now, all these years later (a frightening number of ‘em actually), there’s just me, and a (reduced) number of freelancers. Oh yeah, and there’s a bloke from North Wales who does the design who, frighteningly coincidentally, is also called Gareth… hmm, wonder if he knows him?
One of the things I hear most often out and about is that folk can’t find BSH in the shops and, unfortunately, that’s something that we’re not alone in suffering from – out ‘ere in the east finding any form of bike magazine, not just BSH, is getting more and more difficult. I look at retailers’ shelves when I’m out, and in about a ten-mile radius of where I live, there aren’t many shops that sell bike mags anymore. There’re a number of reasons for this that I won’t bore you with, but there is a way round this – subscribe. If you order the mag from us, not only are you guaranteed to actually get it (saving a soul-destroying traipse round a series of empty shops), you get it earlier (the aforementioned posties’ hangovers notwithstanding), and cheaper too (something like a quid an issue off). You’ll also be guaranteeing BSH’ll keep going – in October (or November, I forget which exactly) Back Street Heroes will’ve been on sale 39 years, and I’d really like it to be still going at 40 and more, y’know? Surf on over to www.backstreetheroes.com, or ring 01507 529529.
See you next month!