You may not be familiar with Shred “mountain bike lifestyle magazine” – it’s not in newsagents, there’s never any free tat taped to the cover – but since 1996 the South-West based team behind it have racked up 33 issues as of the latest one appearing in bike shops this week. The mag’s distributed via UK components distributors Madison and Silverfish, so pretty much any shop that deals with either of those (and that’s most of them) will have a stack of Shreds on the counter. The other place to get it is by catching up with the team at events, and they get to a lot of events…

The latest issue has reports from the Lugano World Champs and Roc d’Azur, plus the Utah Red Bull Rampage by third-placed Glyn O’Brien, with whom there’s also an interview. And bike tests, news, fashion and lifestyle elements all wrapped up in a handy compact A5 package.

If you can’t track it down in shops, Shred has probably the best subs deal in the industry. A tenner gets you six issues (generally a year’s worth) plus a decent T-shirt. It seems like you can’t get just a worthwhile tee for less than fifteen quid anywhere else, so that’s got to be a good deal…

You might be wondering why we’re plugging Shred all of a sudden. Well, (a) we like it but (b) we’ve cooked up what in other spheres might be called a “strategic alliance” with Shred, but what we prefer to think of as “hooking up” – future issues will carry stuff by Bikemagic writers (Oh, OK then, me – Mike), BM will have extended features from the Shred guys as things happen, everyone gets more stuff and you, the readers, reap the benefits. Bargain.

Want to subscribe to Shred? Visit www.shredmagazine.com and tell ’em BM sent you…