RAD Motorcycles Magazine

In this day and age, launching any new business is a risky affair. Nonetheless, many brave entrepreneurs are still taking the bull by the horns despite a generalised atmosphere of economic doom and gloom. One such venture is a new French motorcycle magazine called RAD Motorcycles Magazine.

In the mood to get RAD

The magazine is the brainchild of my good friend Pierre Brancaleone and is published in collaboration with Wild Magazine, another French publication that is centred on custom bikes and choppers, but concentrates more on café racers and classic bikes, although some custom bikes will no doubt make their way into RAD’s pages. Some of you may know Pierre from his Facebook persona, “Pierre Classic-Spirit”. When he launched the RAD project over a year ago, his intention was to position it as a rival to the well-established French publication “Café Racer” (which now has an Italian version, by the way, published in collaboration with the Playboy group), which in his view has become too diluted in order to appeal to a broad readership demographic and has become too steeped in the snobbish overtones of some of its staff writers, who tend to think that the café racer world is a select environment accessible only to a chosen few cognoscenti.[...]

In stark contrast, RAD could be described as a feast of friends, since most of the staff writers and contributors are above all friends of Pierre’s who share his tastes and views regarding motorbikes, art and music, as well as his left-field and sometimes acid humour. They are also very knowledgeable and well-known in the café racer and classic bike world like, for example, Jacqui van Ham, who needs little introduction to my friends on yonder side of the pond. In any case, reading it is a breath of fresh air in the somewhat stuffy world of motorcycle magazines and I for one hope that the venture will be successful, particularly given the amount of personal investment – at all levels – that Pierre Brancaleone has put into the project.

Let's take a look inside

Naturally, the magazine will mainly appeal to a French-speaking readership but even so it is well worth a read. You can also follow RAD on Facebook: just type “Rad Motorcycles Magazine” in the searchbar and give ‘em a Like! Oh and as I write this article, issue Nº 2 has just hit the shelves with, amongst other things, a special section on the mythical Norton Commando, a bike that is close to my heart.


Check out RAD here: http://radmagazine.fr