This is a small introduction to the magazine. For more info on each person involved, go to "Contact Us" from the main menu.
Welcome to The Cycle Source Magazine. This will undoubtedly be one of the hardest articles I have ever had to write. In a page and a half I'm going to try and sum up the work a group of people have been doing for ten years. Since this is the first time many of you will be seeing our magazine, through our new distribution deal through Coast to Coast, I thought that this might be a good way to start things off. Take a look at this article, and then the magazine for the next few issues and decide if what we are putting together here is worthy of a spot in this industry and in your home.

We will leave this same column in for a few issues while we develope new territories so that new readers each month can get the same greeting we are giving you right now.

The only other thing I can say about all this is that this is the American Dream; a bunch of friends and brothers putting their passion for motorcycling into a magazine for nearly a decade and finally getting a shot at the big league. We aren't now, nor have we ever been college grads or people with money, as a matter of fact none of us could even use the damn computer when we started this thing. It was based solely on a love for the life-style and a need to carry on the traditions and values that were taught to us along the way.

Thankfully we have some of the best people in the world close enough to us to count as our advertisers and through their generosity over the years we were able to develope the skills to bring you what we believe now to be the best magazine going. So kick back and in short let me give you a brief history of The Cycle Source Magazine.

Starting in March of 1997, the Cycle Source began as a free publication that served an area of about a 100 mile radius of Pittsburgh, PA. Over the next four or five years it would grow into a publication that filled a solid area in PA, WV, and Ohio. Still a free publication, the Cycle Source continued to hone its content and gather contributors as it served the Tri-State area.

In March of 2005, the Cycle Source celebrated its 8th anniversary by announcing its intention of going to the news stand. After eight years, we believed that this was the right time to make the transition. On July 1st of 2005, we put out our first issue on the news stands through four larger distribution services: NewsGroup, Newbourne Ent. Harrisburg News and LaBelle Dist. at the retail price of $1.25. This gave us an immediate increase in coverage from New Jersey through Michigan.

After just six short months on those limited news stands we had established a 25% sell through rate. This was great for any new title, but we feel that we could have even stronger numbers with a slight paper upgrade since the bulk of the magazine was still being printed on news print.

We believe there is room for us among the National titles because our “Grass Roots” approach to the subject reaches our audience on a basic level. We love to ride as much as they do! With an average age of 37 years old making up the bulk of our staff, we believe that we are on the pulse of the next generation of motorcyclists. The entire motorcycle business is going through a generational remake and that’s where we have the advantage. More importantly most of us have been raised through generations of riders and the fact that we are young doesn't change the traditions installed by the grey beards before us.

We believe that grass roots motorcycling is the direction the industry and the culture is going. The upcoming generation is a different breed, more like the traditional bikers of the 70’s and their bike is as much about function as it is form. Over the next decade, we want “The Cycle Source Magazine” to be the publication they turn to for information on their life-style; the new, the different, and the basic facts about motorcycling.

We have learned through eleven years of developing this publication that there are no short cuts into the world of motorcycling. The men and women who make up the business owners and major players of this industry are lifetime members to an elite fraternity. Simply throwing money around is rarely as fruitful as long hard work and that's what we set out to do every month. We don't phone in our articles, we go and get them. There is nothing more important than getting the real story and getting it right. We want to find a way to show the younger generation and the older ones from the new crowd that there is more to this than buying a bike and all the gear that goes with it. This thing is a lifetime adventure that you take to find yourself and along the way, if you're lucky, you may even have a handful of brothers that you can count on.

So please, look over the magazine and feel free to send us letters.... WE LOVE LETTERS! If you like what you see and even if you don't, let us know what you think about the results of our ten year commitment to this way of life. Thanks for trying us out, Christopher "Wild Man" Callen - Editor In Chief