Reflections on the Genre Analysis "Bicycling Magazine's Appeal to the Peak Experience"

Bicycling Magazine's Appeal to the Peak Experience 

The title points to the author/source of the text, or, in this case, genre that is the subject of the analysis: Bicycling Magazine. It also names the feature that will be discussed, the “appeal” to a “peak experience.” The purpose of the analysis is to explain how I see this sample of genres functioning in the larger context of reader interests and desires.  I don’t yet reveal what my take is on this appeal, what my critique of its limitations is. I will get into that later.

Once in a long while a moment surprises us with all the ingredients of perfection: weather, motion, health, happiness, and meaning. This is rare, and sometimes laden with insight; the usual chaos of day-to-day living gives way to clarity, a sense of "this is IT."

This opening casts a large net over the “big idea” I see at work in these artifacts. Specifically, the experience of an “epiphany,” or moment of clarity, of reckoning, or change, become the “hook” that the series uses to lure in readers. This subject speaks to a kind of universal human experience and pairs cycling with a much larger overall significance. I felt the need to address that before moving on into the analysis of these specific texts.

Poets and artists call these fleeting seconds epiphanies. Others might call them bliss or magic or ecstasy (though that term now has other connotations). Bicycling Magazine, which is read by over 2 million readers, and claims to be the premier cycling publication, calls them "The One Thing," as in "The One Thing That Changed It All."

In this paragraph, I connect the “big idea” of epiphany to both the magazine and the specific series that runs through multiple issues. I also begin to situate the magazine in a larger context with a nod to numbers of readers.

That is the title of an ongoing series of features in which readers of the magazine share a personal experience with cycling that gave them a reason to go on, a way to approach life, or a strategy to ride better, with more passion. The specifics vary, but the shared message is one of change, realization, or awakening. You might think of the Buddha under the bodhi tree or other great spiritual teachers, but on a bike: picture Jesus in lycra racing up to the Sermon on the Mount.

Here, I identify what I see as the major “message” of the series, and connect that to similar messages that come from sources other than these examples. I confess to a kind of sarcasm in my pairing of a special interest magazine like Bicycling with sacred texts and spiritual teachers, but this will help make my point(s) about the mixed purposes later in the essay. If it is not yet clear, I am trying to say that the claim to “the one thing that changed it all” is an overstatement that borders on crass, snake-oil salesman manipulation of readers.

The first impression viewers get of these testimonials to the redemptive power cycling is one of perfection, of achieving the ideal in terms of setting (always in nature), comfort (lovely weather), health (fit, young, beautiful), prosperous (great clothes and bikes), and moving (uniformly portrayed in as action pose).

This is the first real “body paragraph” in that I initiate my analysis by breaking down the images of the genre. I am looking for patterns such as “nature,” “comfort,” and shared traits of the models in the images. This is a bit of description, but also some slicing and dicing into what I see as significant features. I could combine commentary here, but save that for the next graf.

In one a road twists like a serpent off toward the horizon. In another, the trail, covered with fallen leaves, looks like Robert Frost's "Road Not Taken" and its "yellow wood." Viewers see no traffic, no strip malls, no industrial smokestacks. No one seems worried about work, about juggling family responsibilities, paying health insurance premiums, income inequities, or having to put food on the table.

Evidence from the individual images forms the basis for commentary and inferential thinking about the image does what I say it does: presents as idealized mix of traits in order to pair cycling with spiritual and psychological happiness and attainment. My tone gets a bit snarky too as I bring in what is NOT in the images. “Real life” does not sell bikes or magazines so much and the editors and designers of the magazine know this, I think.

In terms of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, these models have climbed to the top and have transcended the lower, base needs most humans have to meet. Judging from the images, they have the basics of food, shelter, clothing, community, and security. All they need to achieve is self-actualization. This impression fits with Bicycling's description of its readers. According to its mission statement, "Bicycling is the world's leading cycling magazine and connects with millions of active, affluent professionals for whom cycling is the centerpiece of a vibrant, experiential lifestyle." Some of the key terms here are "affluent," and "professionals." The magazine invokes in readers success and career, two traits that make it possible to concentrate on personal fulfillment through recreation. It's not surprising then that what is consistent across this genre is elite social status, and the freedom that status allows, to train, compete, and sculpt a lean, fit, and stylized look. 

This is a complicated paragraph in that it grounds psychological frameworks with nitty-gritty marketing of the magazine. This works to establish context – audience, “speaker,” situation, and message. This is looking at the very rhetorical elements of this text and how it works. I am having to stand pretty far back to see this and to risk alienating some who might not want to hear me scrutinize a magazine that is read for fun and product gossip.

While there are consistencies across the samples, Bicycling has strived to portray some diversity. The subjects in the photos vary in terms of race and gender. We see young women and men, but men outnumber women 3 to one, both in these four samples and the survey of two years of issues. One is black. They are well groomed, affluent, in their 20s or 30s, looking into the lens of the camera, or off toward some distant vista, with faces lit with confidence and ease with the world. These people have it together. The light is slanted, gauzy even, and their lean, muscular gams pop with definition. Three out of the four are standing, and the backdrop ranges from mountain ridges to heavily wooded forests. They look resolute, focused on what is coming, charging ahead, and happy. They look like people one would want to meet at a party, hang out with, travel to Colorado for a camping trip with. Viewers might want to know them, want to be them. They are the best of what an industrialized economy can provide, namely leisure, toys, and beautiful, unspoiled places to play.  

This is what I would call a concession paragraph. I want readers to recognize that I see various ways of approaching these artifacts, this genre. I want them to see that I am reading more into this than a casual reader might do, and I want to give credit to Bicycling for choosing a diverse group of models.

And they ride great bikes. The exact brands and models are not revealed, but a close look with an experienced eye ascertains right away that these are no ordinary machines. They are high-end rockets designed for competition. These are all tools for pro-level riders. They are all newish, made of carbon fiber, decked out with the best components, perfectly fitted. Some are road bikes, others, mountain bikes, still others are cyclo-cross bikes. Notably, bikes used for utility or transit are conspicuously absent. These machines serve purposes of recreation and competition. Likely, their owners drive or fly to the beautiful sites where they ride. Within that constraint, the message is clear: epiphanies are not limited to any specific discipline as long as the riding is for fun. The whole elite tribe, under the big tent, can find their deepest desires on bikes meant to fulfill recreation on and off road.

This is where I connect another feature of the images, the bikes, to my view that these images present an elite and idealized view of their subjects. Again, there is diversity, but it’s an elite camp of bikes, the most expensive, the best of the best, a promotion of high-level consumption and clever marketing.

A closer look reveals a short, dreamy, narrative account to accompany the visual richness. The text depicts a specific moment, tells a brief story of that place and event, and then finds the meaning in it. One rider crashes and finds the courage to get back on the bike. Another finds inspiration in a professional rider's aggressive attacks during the Tour de France, attacks that would never result in winning the overall race but that yielded individual stage victories.

These next paragraphs all break down the text of the images. Each graf presents evidence from the texts and begins my commentary. I quote, use summary, and paraphrase.

The language is casual, conversational, full to the brim with familiar motivational slogans. One states "I learned to go for the win, not to be content with just sitting on a wheel." ( "Sitting on a wheel" is an expression specific to cycling-speak, and stops just short of the much more pejorative expression "wheel sucking," which has obvious parasitical connotations.) This rider is now in the wind, risking everything, living life large, and if he gets "dropped" because he takes a risk, he claims "so be it."

Others broke a leg or did an iconic climb in France. Because of this experience cycling, they recovered, "discovered a passion," or realized "it's all mental." The thread of inspirational testimonials runs through the series as a bright and predictable tonic for readers looking for more reasons to ride their bikes. Like pleasant Hallmark cards, the realizations come to readers in an easy to digest generality that borders on the banal. These are more slogans or appetizers than real, hard-won life-changers. But that's what works, what doesn't require much work from readers. Complexity, ambivalence, nuance, or doubt, are conspicuously absent here. The larger meanings derived from these high points are lightweight bon-bons that we can all agree on and feel good about.

My commentary here enters the domain of ethical critique of these texts. I take a little umbrage at the mixing of spiritual claims with marketing. I see the magazine and these artifacts as playing with reader desires for meaning using the vehicle (pun intended) of bikes and cycling.

The magazine wants readers to trust their fellow riders' new-found direction and to identify with their stories. The narratives come across as helpful, friendly, intimate even. These testimonials open the door to a spiritual communion with bikes. One could say that the magazine is offering a kind of religion, a church of the bicycle.

This paragraph assumes full authority for my take on the artifacts and how I see them functioning. The discussion here points to what I see as the real purpose of the series. Right or wrong, this is my take on what the magazine is doing with these texts. Notice that I don’t use the “I” here, but rather make my assertions on behalf of most if not all readers.

I can't deny that I enjoy the articles and find myself opening to the personal, and vulnerable stories of fellow cyclists. There is no argument that exercise is an inescapable element of a healthy life, that cycling offers benefits like stress reduction, community connections, and emission-free transportation. I like the idea that cycling, or any physical activity done mindfully, can heal, and I want to believe in the church, the shared significance. I even confide such experiences with my cycling brethren and sisteren. We sometimes warm our hands at the fire of a shared lifestyle and bond as a tribe of velo geeks. But I can't quite call the sport, or industry, if you want to be blunt, a source of spiritual direction. They are just bikes, luxury toys, and bikes are a product that corporations want us to buy. There is a reason why many cyclists deride the magazine as "Buy-Cycling." They know that advertisers and the editors of magazines will do just about anything to promote and sell us their products.

While I have been speaking in general, I also felt the need to “come clean” with my own perspective here. I am, after all, one of “the tribe,” even if I don’t fully buy what the magazine is selling here. I don’t like mixing personal epiphanies with marketing and business. In fact, I am a bit cynical about what businesses will do to push their products, and I side with readers in terms of having a privacy that is distinct from buying and selling. That, I admit, is a bias that I wanted readers of my analysis to know. I also feel this helps my ethos, or credibility as a speaker and writer. Self-awareness counts big for me and, I think for many readers.

So these testimonials are crafted and shaped to offer up simple fun, good stories, a heightened sense of meaning, and their purposes mix honest experience of readers with a subtle urge to upgrade, to buy, to travel, to be young and free enough to live the cycling ideal. They appeal to a dream-scape in which cycling can solve problems, provide direction, put viewers on a path to answers.

As the essay comes to a close, I feel the need to back off a bit. The series is just a part of a magazine. Readers know that when they buy it or engage with it.

They are fun to enjoy, but only up to a point. The dream is a good one, its allure all but irresistible, an invitation to another life, its message "if only I had that, there, with that significance, then I would be happy."

One more time, I make the distinction between real “happiness” and  epiphanies from those connected to a fallacy that things and places and mythological ideals will, by themselves, make readers deeply content. That’s a much bigger project.

If only changing it all were that simple...

My parting shot here points to my experience that psychological and spiritual attainment is much more that being a good cyclist or having the right gear or going to the right places. I want to locate these texts where I see they belong: light enjoyment rather than true life change.