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A while ago I subscribed to cyclingtips cos I found the tool advice interesting, and worth the roughly 10 bucks I paid. Now it seems like it’s been gobbled up by Outside who want nearly 40 bucks for the first year and more thereafter. Did cyclingtips refund me, and I missed it, or did they just take the money and run?
It was bought by Outside a year or 2 ago when they purchased Pinkbike. Sounds like a lot of the Cycling tips regulars have been let go or left. I follow James Huang on Twitter and he's been pretty outspoken about how things have been in the last 6 months or so and he's recently resigned too.
Think it could end up going the same way as Beta MTB which Outside ditched soon after purchasing Pinkbike.
They basically sacked all the main staffers. If you like the way they do things, they've resurrected themselves as Escape Collective. All the same familiar names from Cycling Tips plus some new ones. Podcasts too:
A load of the staff from Cycling Tips got paid off after they were bought out by Outside.
The ex-Cycling Tips guys have started up on their own as The Escape Collective. The website articles are pretty good and they do a good podcast now as well.
They had a cull of editorial staff late last year, almost certainly because they were spending a lot more than they were earning in subs/ad revenue.
Same here- I did get a refund but no notification or anything like that, just a random income into my account and I had to go digging to find out what had happened.
The ex-Cycling Tips guys have started up on their own as The Escape Collective. The website articles are pretty good and they do a good podcast now as well.
OOh thanks - looks good - but … 99 Euros a year ? That’s a set of Park Tools hex keys !!
Their funding is a subscription model, to maintain independence and to not be bound to the ad model or be seen to be taking money from the cycling industry.
I have joined, and do not see it as much different as STW premium to reduce dependence on the ad model.
The content on escape collective is great. Including lots of tool and tech articles.
Think there is a pay monthly option in the pipeline.
The journalists from the old Deadspin site did the same thing and set up defector.com and i now subscribe to that. It seems to be working for them as a funding model so i hope this new Escape venture works
OOh thanks – looks good – but … 99 Euros a year ? That’s a set of Park Tools hex keys !!
I thought the same, it's pricey when things like The Cycling Podcast are only about £20 a year.
They basically sacked all the main staffers.
Interesting, I follow them on FB and can't say I noticed any difference in the quality of their articles (which I read for free)...
I wonder how long PinkBike will survive in its current form, and given how Outside treated the staff at CyclingTips, and the whole saga, it makes me very reluctant to use PinkBike or TrailForks.
I wonder how long PinkBike will survive in its current form, and given how Outside treated the staff at CyclingTips, and the whole saga, it makes me very reluctant to use PinkBike or TrailForks.
Seems to be the same people running Pinkbike including the founder of the site. Looks like they've taken on more staff recently and have looked after Alicia after her massive crash
I wonder how long PinkBike will survive in its current form, and given how Outside treated the staff at CyclingTips, and the whole saga, it makes me very reluctant to use PinkBike or TrailForks.
Pinkbike is making money and is massively dominant in MTB media. They aren't gonna make any drastic changes now.
Cycling Tips clearly wasn't making money, had a large editorial staff and seemed to spend a lot on travel etc. I don't like to be negative, but they (particularly Fretz) seemed a bit smug and entitled considering their position.
No inside info BTW, but I've worked in editorial businesses most of my career.
Cycling Tips clearly wasn’t making money, had a large editorial staff and seemed to spend a lot on travel etc. I don’t like to be negative, but they (particularly Fretz) seemed a bit smug and entitled considering their position.
It's really hard monetising specialist websites, more so if you insist on having an excessive number of staff. My take, having worked on website editorial since the late 90s, I guess, is that the sector is still, essentially floundering around trying to work out how to make enough money to be viable. You have to have huge traffic numbers to make programmatic advertising worthwhile and banner ads are mostly a waste of time and of limited effectiveness. The best bet is probably partnership/sponsorship deals.
The other thing with Cycling Tips is that it probably had a strong seasonal element to its traffic with a big peak around the Tour and spring/summer in general and less reads over the rest of the year. I can see why, from a corporate owner's point of view, the sums probably didn't add up.
I hope their new model is viable, but the number of people involved makes me wonder just how many subscribers they'll need to break even let alone turn a profit. I guess that's fine if everyone's just looking at it as pocket money, but listening to the podcasts, they seem to have quite lofty ambitions - three tech writers, sorry 'editors', already and an intention to expand into covering mountain biking and gravel in depth too.
I used to find them quite refreshing, but yes, they are very convinced of their own importance. I suspect that's partly a side-effect of the way specialist sectors treat journalists in a blowing smoke up orifices stylee. If people constantly tell you that your opinion on XYZ is crucially important, it's easy to fall into the trap of actually believing them. But that's just my take. The flip-side is that if they thought they were useless, they'd probably be doing something else instead.
It’s really hard monetising specialist websites,
Especially as they seem to let me read all their articles for free for years on end...
It's nice, but I did wonder how they made any money....
I hope their new model is viable, but the number of people involved makes me wonder just how many subscribers they’ll need to break even let alone turn a profit. I guess that’s fine if everyone’s just looking at it as pocket money, but listening to the podcasts, they seem to have quite lofty ambitions – three tech writers, sorry ‘editors’, already and an intention to expand into covering mountain biking and gravel in depth too.
Totally agree, though I guess they have a better chance of succeeding than Beta MTB - if only because the road market is bigger, the packed racing calendar means there's more to write about and roadies seem more willing to pay for content.
I used to find them quite refreshing, but yes, they are very convinced of their own importance. I suspect that’s partly a side-effect of the way specialist sectors treat journalists in a blowing smoke up orifices stylee. If people constantly tell you that your opinion on XYZ is crucially important, it’s easy to fall into the trap of actually believing them.
Interesting theory and I hadn't thought of that. I'd just assumed that Fretz wasn't particularly sensitive to commercial limitations, as an editor. And it does look like they might be biting off more than they can chew (again).
I guess it did depend on when you subscribed to cycling tips but was on about my 3rd month in and was given a 12 months subscription to Outside free. I did email mail then about a month out of the date when I should of clicked the email to get the free 12 months but it went straight to my junk folder. Emailed them late at night expecting nothing and literally 5 minutes later a reply with a new code for 12 months free.
I guess you left your card details on your profile and they just automatically took payment.
The Cycling Podcast are only about £20 a year.
What??? I get that for free on Google Podcast!
A few years ago, when Trailforks started charging, I signed up as, at the time, I traveled enough to justify needing access to maps outside my own region.
Anyway, the introductory price was 50% of the regular account. Since the Outside buyout, that Trailforks membership also gets me access to Outside and Cycling Tips PLUS full access to Gaia maps (which provides access to loads of different mapping layers and topo maps all over the world)...I'm still paying the same annual price so, a bit of a bargain really!
What??? I get that for free on Google Podcast!
Sorry, I meant the Friends of the Podcast thing they do, not the main podcast.
This series they did was good - https://www.cyclingtips.com/tag/cool-tool-tuesday/