I recently had a chance to catch up with Maurice Tierney, publisher and boss man over at Dirt Rag Magazine.

In my oh so humble opinion, Dirt Rag is the best mountain bike magazine on the market. I’ve read a good many of them and Dirt Rag, by far, captures the soul of mountain biking the best. I read every issue cover to cover.

So without further rambling, here’s our interview with Maurice:

Blue Collar: How long has Dirt Rag been going?
Maurice: Ever since April of 1989.

Blue Collar: Who has been around for the entire journey?
Maurice: Only myself.

Blue Collar: What started the concept of a forum based mountain bike magazine?
Maurice: I was a freelance photographer and my Ex, Elaine, worked in an ad agency. We were inspired by the purchase of a Macintosh computer. Adobe Pagemaker presented a blank page upon launch. This page only needed to be filled with words and reproduced and you’d be in business.

I had recently gotten hooked after purchasing my second mountain bike, a 1989 stumpjumper just like Ned’s, the first being my 1987 Supergo Access as advertised on the back cover of Mountain Bike For The Adventure.

A mockup [of the first issue] was made on the dot-matrix printer and we went and sold enough ads to local bike shops to pay for a print run of 2000 16-page magazines. Price, $1. The magazine was instant-printed, folded and coallated in our basement the whole first year. I don’t recall much else of the plan. But the masthead said we were for “The mountainbiker of PA-WV-OH” because that’s where the races were that we were going to every weekend. Events have always been key.

Support was strong and we went to a sheet fed press and got staples the second year and expanded to become “For the mountain biker of the northeast”. Later we touted ourselves as “For the mountain biker of the east”, which was dropped as we became a national rag. The concept of “The mountain bike forum” just developed out of what we were already doing.

Blue Collar: How big is your staff? Who rides the most?
Maurice: There’s eight and a half of us now. And I can’t say who rides the most, but there’s usually 4-5 bikes parked out front and only 3-4 cars if that tells you anything. Mikey Paperjam does not have a drivers license. He can tell you about riding a lot, whether he likes it or not.

Blue Collar: What’s the best part about working for a mountain bike magazine? The worst?
Maurice: The best part is being in an industry that believes in what it’s doing, which is not just recreation but leaving the world a better place. There are so many “beautiful” people in the bike biz. 99% are motivated by something other than greed.

The worst part is trying to be the boss for my staff, which I try to avoid to no avail. Lucky for me I’ve got the best staff in the business and they excel with the wide berth they’ve been given.

Blue Collar: How big is your subscription list right now?
Maurice: Due to some newstand promotions in the Pacific Northwest and Canada, we are now printing 51,000 copies. We have 12,000 or so paid subscribers, 350 of which are signed up on our $99 lifetime subscription plan. 750 bike shops carry the mag.

Blue Collar: You said Dirt Rag started as a magazine for the east coast, however your popularity has spread to the rest of the country and other parts of the world. How do you put together a magazine that will appeal to everyone while still keeping your east coast roots?
Maurice: The east coast roots will always keep themselves, due to the fact that we are published in Pittsburgh, PA. The work is in trying to shed that “East Coast” image so the rest of the country will take us seriously. We’ve been working on that for many years.

Blue Collar: When you compare other mountain bike magazines to Dirt Rag, there is obviously something different about ya’ll. In your opinion, what is it that sets you apart from other publications in your industry?
Maurice: We try and take trails that other mags might never consider, or even avoid. The format is really to not have a format. This allows us to publish stories on a wide range of topics you’ll not see anywhere else. We’ve been devoting a significant amount of space to advocacy since day one, and this is what I’m most proud of. It’s good to be a part of getting bikes their proper status in the world. This will come, it’s only a matter of time.

Blue Collar: What kind of criticism do you deal with?
Maurice: Occasionally we hear that we’re “Too east coast” and that bothers me. Another is that we’re “The granola-chewing, pot-smoking hippie” magazine, which may be true for some of us. And we get a few, vocal-minority, complaints from the political right since we do not support the current administration of this country we love.

Blue Collar: I see a lot of times people who work in the bike industry and who’ve ridden for so long that they lose sight of what makes this sport great. They know the lingo, have expensive rides, take exotic trips and forget about the everyday rider. What steps do you take to keep the soul in Dirt Rag and continue to speak to the Blue Collar riders?
Maurice: It’s tough because we do tend to get a bit of the rock star treatment on occasion, so we just try to be ourselves. Being an open forum helps us keep it real, all the reader feedback and all, and the staff polices itself pretty well too. I will say that we do need to review more blue-collar, lower end bikes. Most companies want to send us their best goods, which is fine, but not representative of the real world for most people.

Blue Collar: Since your magazine is setup as a forum, every reader has a chance to get their words or pictures published. What goes into the selection of reader material for each issue? What advice can you give to someone trying to get their work published in an issue of Dirt Rag?
Maurice: Quality is the determining factor, as well as originality, which can be hard to come by. My advice for aspiring contributors would be to just do it, follow your dream and get busy.

Blue Collar: What kind of process do you use for your Stuff reviews in every issue?
Maurice: First there’s the balancing act. Each individual tester has their own idea of what is cool. The bike and part companies have their own agenda as well. But the most important person is the reader. They are the ones buying the magazine so we try and make the Stuff section well rounded.

Then there’s other constraints. We can only review maybe 24 bikes a year. So again we have to balance what’s available, who’s available to test it, sizing and even potential Pittsburgh weather. It get’s tricky.

As for the actual review process, we work closely with the companies to find out what they are trying to do with a given product, and then determine if they have been successful. We do this by testing each item extensively enough to find the weakness and report on it. Calls are made to companies to make sure we get the facts right.

Then there’s the peer review process. The whole staff reads everyone else’s reviews and goes to town with criticism. This is how we push and police ourselves to do the best reviews we can.

Blue Collar: With sixteen destinations on your World Tour and plenty of other riding locations visited, what are the favorite places to ride for the staff of Dirt Rag?
Maurice: There are great trails everywhere. Most inspiring are the trails built by passionate diggers in less-than-destination towns across middle America.

Blue Collar: What is next for Dirt Rag? What are your future goals?
Maurice: We’d like to keep growing at a slow, sustainable rate, without losing what makes the Rag special. With all the love and commitment our readers have given us, we don’t really have any other option.