Overdue

If not obvious, this site has essentially become my own personal blog space. It’s a good site, it’s paid for, traffic is already flowing to it, it’ll be here to stay for now, perhaps with some upcoming changes—I ask you kindly to continue visiting it what ever it’s relevance has become. This post is an overdue explanation as to the future of Cranked Magazine; it’s so late because it has been a difficult decision to come to. More accurately, I came to the decision prior to this point, but I’m only stating it now because of the difficulty coming to it. Nonetheless, there will not be an issue six, if anyone out there was still waiting for it.

A little background: the entire magazine became a solo operation run by myself essentially at the beginning of 2007—a year ago now. I don’t know if this comes as a surprise to anyone, but there is no staff at Cranked Magazine beyond myself. Many people have been asking when the next issue of Cranked is going to be released. I have debated this question myself for 9 months since issue five was released. I could say, like Mr. Spengler, that print is dead—and to a some degree I think it is, but that’s not the whole truth. More of the truth to be revealed isn’t necessary either—most of it was already mentioned in previous posts regarding my desire to experience bikes more, and enjoy my summer—by and large, spending time wrenching in a shop has largely displaced my interest in struggling to produce a print publication that unfortunately does not seem to benefit me in any significant way beyond late nights, stress, hunger, and a much emptier wallet. I had a couple people with me issues one through four and even then it was a super stress fest—issue five virtually on my own was no less stressful.

Had I received more support and encouragement from the community the effort would have been worth it and I wouldn’t be writing this post. Many might say they were supportive and encouraging, I know those of you who were and I have always been extremely grateful and appreciative. It’s only unfortunate there weren’t enough of you. There’s only so much effort that can go without reciprocation before one decides it is no longer worth it. Diminishing advertisers is a hard thing to overcome in the magazine game, it’s probably actually impossible to overcome. Just another reason why issue six won’t be released. If ever that proves otherwise and I decide to resume production it won’t happen until a much later date down the road. Times and geographic locales may change, and maybe with that change, the much needed support, encouragement, and perhaps new perspective will be there to see that production occur. If reborn, it’ll certainly be a horse of a completely different color.

What I’m saying is my interests have changed more or less. Or perhaps I should say, with Cranked, my interests were changed and now they are returning to where I’d rather they be. Cranked has been a great experience, but a distraction of sorts nevertheless. Working as a mechanic is wildly more satisfying and actually feels like I’m helping more people and being involved in the bike community more. Wrenching on bikes has provided me the same sense of accomplishment, if not more, I would get while working on the magazine. Besides, sitting in front of a computer all day is no longer very appealing to me (an aside to this is my ignorance as to how there are so many sites out there concerned with bikes: I often wonder what they do for a living? who’s dime are some of these sites maintained on?). More importantly, I’d rather spend the bulk of my time working on bikes, riding bikes, and spending time with my wife.

Cranked to me was a vehicle to inspire people to be into, stay into, or get into bikes; it was intended to be an alternative to the major outlets for cycling “media”. Keeping this website going is continuing that intention by sharing my own thoughts and experiences: a demonstration of what cycling for life is, to me. So in the meantime, keep tuned into crankedmag.com and enjoy my random posts and my own brand of cycling editorial. I’m eating my black-eyed peas and moving on! Happy New Year and always ride a bike!