Monday, November 1

Thumbs up for Street Chopper

When I turned the GK website into a printed magazine in February 2007, the main motivation was frustration that I couldn't buy a magazine on the newsstands that featured the kind of bikes I liked or wanted to know more about.

I have always bought the UK magazine Classic Bike, and it's still my yardstick for quality old-bike-journalism, but when it came to choppers, the mainstream titles were sadly lacking.

So it was a pleasant surprise to recently flick through the past five or six issues of Street Chopper in one sitting and find a magazine that features my kind of bikes, with almost no duds or filler, decent photography, and proper grown-up writing. I met editor Jeff Holt in LA in June, and he's done a commendable job turning this title around. Grant Peterson writes a lot of the features... and they're good. It may be a little States-centric, but then it's a Californian title.

If Street Chopper had been around in its present guise when I was researching print costs nearly three years ago, I doubt if I'd have had the motivation to produce the first issue of GKM.

4 comments:

grant said...

Hey Guy,
Glad you finally got the mags! yeah, it's been a good couple of years turning the street chopper around. Looking back at the mag right before then it was gross! Jeff Holt got a hold of it and we have just done our best with what we have, which is luckily a lot of great bikes out here. We don't have full control over it because it's owned by the big company, but we're tryin with what we have.
See you in Yokohama!

Help said...

ya I seen the st chopper mags on the shelf for years, the first one I bought was the anniversary and have bought every issue since then, ive actually been thinking about picking up a years worth even..........Great Job Jeff Holt............GKM fucking rules also you guys do one hell of a job!!!

Help said...

I cant agree more, St Chopper has really taken a turn, a turn in the right direction featuring real bikes and real people building them.........since the anniversary issue this mag has become one of my must buys when im shopping for baby food at the local grocery store haha......Jeff Holt hats off to him and ohhhh yeah GKM you guys have ruled the scene since conception.......thanks for all the hard work and rad reads!!!

Blue said...

Jeff Holt is a lovely young man. And Street Chopper's pretty cool.