I am a regular reader of a few magazines, and I would like to comment on them. One magazine I regularly read is Guitar World. It is, pretty obviously, a guitar magazine. Since I play the guitar, it is a good magazine to read. Except, because of the vast amount of guitar music, I am often very uninterested in the musicians they choose to cover. Plus, I am extremely picky, and I find some of the "virtuosos" to be ridiculously annoying. For example, Yngwie Malmsteen is arguably one of the best guitar players in the world, but he plays what is called "classical shred" and it is just a lot of technically impressive and super annoying guitar fireworks. I am more a fan of something that has groove AND technicality, so I am often disappointed in Guitar World for covering a plethora of guitarists whose music is downright annoying, despite amazing technical ability. If you want to be impressed by guitarists I really can't stand, then look up Michael Angelo Batio, Yngwie Malmsteen, and Rusty Cooley. Then, if you want to hear some equally impressive and not annoying guitarists that I like, listen to Paul Gilbert, Joe Satriani (NOT Chickenfoot), and Tosin Abasi (Animals As Leaders) or the band Scale the Summit (from Houston)!
The other magazine I read regularly is Bicycling Magazine. It is about bicycling, and specifically about road biking, which is the type that I much prefer and exclusively participate in. They're the bikes with skinny tires and curled handlebars. This magazine often reads like a workout magazine because biking is a sport, and workouts that improve bicycling skills are almost always included. It is a great magazine and besides the workout articles, it includes stories about bikes, people who ride, and reviews of gear (bikes are surprisingly complicated and gear is VERY extensive). A lot of great humor is often written into the articles, and the writers are pretty journalistic. I like to read all the stories, like one about a regular office worker who suddenly dropped her real job to become a professional biker for the best bike team in the world, which is pretty darn impressive. Besides biking stuff, the magazine will have triathlon workouts and other triathlon related things. This is because biking is usually the longest leg (in miles, not necessarily time) in a triathlon. Running magazines have a similar multi-sport reading group, and thus some bike and swim articles as well. If you don't think that biking is exciting, try watching a few Tour de France crash videos on YouTube, they get pretty darn brutal sometimes. I saw a guy basically fall off a cliff on one. And another guy almost decapitated a dog once. TDF enthusiasts that watch the tour are ridiculous, and the race is on public roads, so some European people do some crazy things like chase the cyclists in thongs, and let their dogs run around the course. Ridiculous. Also, there is a LOT of strategy in bike racing, and while some may laugh, it is very interesting. Check out Mark Cavendish and Mark Renshaw if you're interested. Cavendish is a sprinter, and he won the last stage of the Tour de France in 2009 by drafting off Renshaw until the last 200 meters or so, where he took off at about 50mph to dominate everyone else. On a flat stretch of road. It is pretty cool to see him just take off, so that's another good YouTube video. Cavendish is pretty much a British douche, so my favorite cyclist is Tyler Farrar, an American who is also a sprinter. He gets beat by Cavendish a lot, but he is pretty classy. And that's about it. I read about things I'm interested in, so guitar and cycling are obvious choices.
Yeah, magazines are generally WAY easier to read than books. Probably because there are lots of pictures to make it seem more like the cartoon shows we grew up watching. Personally I read some bodybuilding magazines (MD and Flex). I've always wanted to seriously learn an instrument. I'd prefer a string-based one such as the piano or a guitar, because the ones you blow on are kind of gross, but I never had time to learn... Never got into biking, but I do love rollerblading. In fact, I got a $170 pair last christmas and the wheels are already worn down to the point that they aren't really worthy of being called wheels and I seem to operate at 10% efficiency... no doubt since I've probably done nearly 1000 miles on this pair.
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