Why losing Dirt Rider Downunder Magazine is not cool.

Possibly the last print issue of DRD magazine features Broxy on the 2020Yamaha YZ450FX.

Business is business. It’s a fickle beast. It doesn’t discriminate, and it doesn’t give a shit about you or anyone else. People say you should separate business from personal – ‘it’s nothing personal, it’s just business.’ Not an uncommon term used when competition gets to boiling point and someone loses out. But hey – that’s business, right? But if you don’t take what you are doing personally – what are you really doing here?

Testing the BMW G450X in Australia. The bike only lasted a few years of production before BMW shelved it.

You may or may not have herd that Dirt Rider Downunder Magazine have decided to cease making their magazine, which I think is effective immediately. Over 13 years of production and 166 print issues of all thing’s dirt bike have come to an end. Some will see this as a triumph and look to benefit from DRD’s demise – it’s just business after all. But the reality is that it’s not a great start to 2020 for the dirt biking community and it’s not a triumph for anyone.

One of my favourite covers during my time as Editor. Caleb Van Dragt on the 2009 Honda CRF250X riding along a log during the 250cc enduro shootout.

I am having a particularly hard time with the news, because as most of you reading this will know, I worked at DRD Magazine for all up, probably about 5 years. That’s about 60 deadlines, and hundreds of photo shoots, interviews, tests, reviews, news pieces and dirt biking goodness. It’s a place where my love for print media was born and my skills of creative writing were teased out of me. I learnt nearly everything about what I am doing here at The Dirt from my time at DRD and from Paul Lance, the owner of the mag.

Taking the DRD Long term test bike - Honda CRF450RX to the River Race win in 2018.

I started off extremely green and my apprenticship was littered with good times and bad, as you would imagine any learning process would be. But I came out the end with skills and knowledge that would eventually lead me to this website you are reading today. And I thank DRD, Paul and the team for everything they have done for me. So, to say hearing the news that the place where I put in so much time effort and love was coming to an end has been pretty average.

All smiles during a DRD team building event at Pirini Motorbike park with Mary Perkins and her Encounter team.

It is true that online is getting harder and harder to compete with. The almost zero-cost of online production, especially when it comes to the likes of Facebook, Instagram and blog-style websites can’t be overlooked. Businesses, who at one point in the past would have relied solely on magazines to advertise their products can now push out their own advertising through their social channels and get real time results on audience numbers and generated sales, however bias they are towards their own stuff. Sadly, you can’t get that from print.

Which then makes me seriously wonder – have I been a protagonist towards the demise of the magazine I put so much into personally? I’d be a complete son of a bench to think otherwise.

Deep in maramarua forest, launching what is still probably my all-time favourite bike - the Yamaha YZ250FX.

Even though the DRD branding is competition to my little ol’ website, the loss of DRD magazine is not good for anyone. Competition is important because it provides reassurance that you're giving your readers the best possible service. It makes you try harder and makes sure you don’t slack off. Imagine there was only one media voice for dirt bikes in New Zealand. You would never know if you were getting told the truth, or if it was just all paid for nonsense. More options means more choices and more choices means more chances of consumers saying yes.

Enjoying the last of the ‘real’ GasGas machines in a Melbourne forest. This is the GP250 and it was stunning.

Even though you often compete for the same customers, views, clicks etc, there are times when it makes sense to work with your competition instead of against them. There are times when co-opetition, not competition, is a smart move. Especially in such a tiny, money-poor niche market like dirt bikes.

To Dirt Rider Downunder Magazine, Paul and the rest of the team; thanks for all the good times while I was there plugging away at deadlines and creating cool content. And for the times I was on the couch reading about what you guys were up to and getting a little jelly. It was a hell of a ride.

I was lucky to be one of the first in the country to welcome the EFi era to NZ by testing the 2009 Suzuki RM-Z450 at Digger McEwen Park. Now everything is injected.

The online presence of DRD will still continue for now and you can support them by visiting their channels when ever you see something that takes your interest.

DRD FACEBOOK - CLICK HERE

DRD WEBSITE - CLICK HERE

DRD INSTAGRAM - CLICK HERE - @drd_mag

And while we are at it – here is a plug to the other New Zealand Dirt biking outlets that provide Kiwis with great dirt biking content.