This Friday 1 March sees the launch at London cycling café Look Mum No Hands of a new magazine, Simpson, focused on British cycling and which its creators say “will be like chatting to your fellow cyclists while you’re out on a ride.”
The first issue, costing £6, will go on sale from Monday 4 March initially only through the Simpson website, and includes a fan’s perspective of being in Paris for the last day of the 2012 Tour de France – an historic day for the country’s cycling as Bradley Wiggins became the first British winner of the Tour, with Mark Cavendish also taking the stage win while wearing the rainbow jersey.
It is, of course, the only other British male pro to have won that coveted garment on the road, Tom Simpson, who gives the magazine its title. “It was Simpson’s spirit and style, his legendary tenacity and his ability to suffer that endeared him to cycling fans everywhere as much as the trophies he won,” say the magazine’s creators.
“If this magazine comes to be regarded with anything like the fondness and respect still reserved for Tom Simpson more than 35 years after his death on Mont Ventoux, it will have achieved its aim,” they add.
Simpson promises to stand out from other cycling magazines, saying that it “won’t be a glorified product catalogue for unaffordable carbon dream machines.
“Here at Simpson, we’d rather be out cycling than drooling over bikes we will never ride - we hope to inspire you to feel the same way.
“If we recommend a product, it will be because
we use it and love it, not because someone you don’t know wants us to market it to you. Simpson will be flannel-free; it will tell it like it is.”
The fact the magazine is entering a crowded marketplace and also at a time when online is competing with print isn’t lost on Simpson’s founder and creative director, Terry Hawes.
“Some people might feel this is an odd time to launch a print magazine when so many are struggling to survive,” he acknowledges.
“All I can say is that sometimes you have no choice about these things. I felt an irresistible urge to create the sort of cycling magazine I knew I’d read so I just went with that instinct. This magazine needed to exist. Sometimes it’s just best to go with your heart.”
You can keep up to date with news of the magazine through its website, which includes a rundown of the contents of Issue 1, its Facebook page, and a Twitter feed.
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36 comments
Are you suggesting it might be twatwaffle?
“will be like chatting to your fellow cyclists while you’re out on a ride.”
There's a good reason I ride on my own.
But if you're creating the mag in InDesign, say, then you can export to something like Yudu for free. Alternatively, ask your designer to crate pages in layers and then export to HTML5.
Just saying like ....
Best of luck with the venture: nothing but respect for people who give stuff a go.
As others have said I'm not sure that naming it after a cyclist who died in a fug of amphetamines is quite the right way to go, but in fairness it would be difficult to find another cyclist from the pre-Boardman era who the English cycling market have ever heard of.
I really must get to LMNH one day, it's only 10 mins from my office...
Did you get permission from Tom Simpson's family or estate to use his name? Even if you did, I personally have a problem with people promoting commercial ventures using the names of deceased celebrities (or, with CGI, their faces, as in the new advert in which Audrey Hepburn flogs cheap and nasty chocolate bars from beyond the grave.) For all we know, Tom Simpson might have thought this magazine was a terrible idea.
+1 for the guys at Spincycle - issue 2 out now for nowt!
If you want a magazine that looks like it has been shrunk for iOS then great. Or, redesign for the different medium. Personally think reading magazines on a phone is a complete and utter waste of time.
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