Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly Magazine
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Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly Magazine (MMM) was a free specialty alternative newspaper serving motorcyclists and scooter riders in the Minneapolis–St. Paul metropolitan area. It was a full-color print news magazine, made available at several outlets and shipped to paid subscribers once a month. MMM featured motorcycle travel articles, regional motorcycle race and event reports, motorcycle-related movie and book reviews, and motorcycle and motorcycle accessory reviews. The magazine ceased print publication with the Winter 2017 issue, the first issue of that year, due to a decline in ads and revenue. The magazine hoped to continue with an online version, MNMotorcycle.com, but that effort stalled fairly quickly and the website disappeared, unannounced, in 2020.
History[edit]
Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly was founded in 1996, in Minneapolis, Minnesota and was first published by Dan Hartman, with Troy Johnson as editor. Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly provided coverage of local and international races, and was a source for local event results. MMM covered regional road racing, motocross, observed trials, enduros, and flat track, and motorcycle-related local events. For several of the early years, the magazine often focused on local DIY custom and restoration motorcycle articles, local racing, motorcycle swap events, opinion pieces, and occasional travel logs. In 2000, Victor Wanchena purchased the publication (and Hartman Press) and began to be more aggressive about obtaining new motorcycles for review, encouraging motorcycle clothing/gear and accessory reviews, and the event reports became less common while the promotion of local events was prioritized. At its peak, MMM was distributing several thousand copies of the magazine across the state every month.
End of print magazine and the website[edit]
Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly was one of several local and national magazines that vanished as the internet took attention and revenue from print magazines and newspapers. In his "From the Hip" editor's column in the Winter 2017 #189 issue, Publisher Victor Wanchena announced that this would be the last print issue of the magazine, after 21 years, because the demand and revenue had been "steadily decreasing for the last 10 years" and the print magazine format was no longer economically viable. Wanchena had started with MMM in 1996 as an associate editor and in 2000 he became the publisher. Bruce Mike was the magazine’s final editor and, at the time of the end of the print magazine it was hoped the digital version of the magazine would carry on in similar fashion. The magazine’s original website, “motorbyte.com/mmm,” received a complete rework in 2013 and was renamed “MNMotorcycle.com.” However, even the new far easier-to-navigate version of the website did not generate enough revenue to justify the time and expense. The website vanished unannounced in 2020.
The Minnesota Historical Society has archived printed copies of the magazine from July 1996 to the last issue and those copies are currently only available for viewing at the museum in hard copy.
References[edit]
1. Wanchena, Victor; Pearman, Sev (May 2001). "The Indian Scout - Reborn". Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly. Archived from the original on 18 February 2012. Retrieved 5 November 2009.
2. September 1996 – Bike Builders: Moto Martin CBX Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly, September 23, 1996 archived from the original 30 May 2017. Retrieved 26 January 2021
3. Electronic copies of some past issues are available at: https://issuu.com/minnesotamotorcyclemonthly and at this "Webarchive" site.
5. A complete hard copy collection, from July 1996 to Winter 2017, of the Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly is archived in the Gale Family Library/Minnesota Historical Society
External links[edit]
- Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly Online Archive
- Geezer with a Grudge Blog (found at https://geezerwithagrudge.blogspot.com/, Geezer with A Grudge at Fastlane Biker Delmarva, and https://geezerwithagrudge.wordpress.com/.
- Road Rash Motorcycle Cartoons, Harry Martin (author)
- Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly Facebook Page
- A limited Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly back issues archive can be found at Issuu.com
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