Still got it – had a Jones review that tipped me past interested into an expensive test ride : )

Mike D ought to be on commission for that review 🙂
[oops, trigger warning for the “all mag reviews are corrupt” brigade]

£9 is three pints.

It wouldn’t buy you 2 round ‘ere

Was the lack of advertising in Privateer through choice? I’m not sure as they tried to sell me some advertising in there early days and the cost was astonishingly high when compared to other mags, the predicted readership numbers were very low, even from their sales folk. Just didn’t add up, maybe that was one of the nails in its coffin?

Mike D is many things. Corrupt is not one of them 🙂 It was a good idea I thought having a broader view of ‘cycling’ but clearly didn’t work out. My copy is authentically dog-eared having giving sterling service as bath-time reading.

It still didn’t make me want a Jones tho!

@tomH – I found myself having a beer in a pub in peaslake a couple of months ago, two pints and a lime and soda and an expression of surprise from yours truly here. Having handed over a tenner and being told that did not represent sufficient funds to cover the transaction!

Fair question Darran, dunno I’m sure somebody does. I thought it was worth the cash. The Ride Journal is another one with similar production values. Quite a few articles in that I don’t get, but still order a copy whenever I remember.

I didn’t have a great deal to do with Privateer towards the end, but I’m reasonably sure that its demise wasn’t as simple as “losing money”. Rouleur (the company, not the mag) changed hands (again, not as simple as that, but the ownership structure changed) and had a portfolio of a successful high-end road mag, lots of successful high-end road books, various spin-off high-end road merchandisey products… And an MTB mag that wasn’t particularly growing (although not plummeting either) and didn’t really fit in with the rest of the stuff. Focussing their efforts on the road stuff (and getting back a bit of the salary bill) made sense, really.

From what I know of the numbers, something along similar lines in terms of frequency, price and production values could be made to work as a standalone, low-overhead venture. Personally I have high hopes 🙂

(Oh, and cheeky plug — if anyone fancies a flavour of Privateer stuff, all my bits are here 😉 )

(And I don’t have a Jones…)

Privateer was great; it’d be nice to think there’s room for something similar.

I’m in the minority I think as I prefer a printed mag to online myself.

Me too. Screen is no good before you go to sleep!

I prefer a paper mag too. I’d like it to be less about the bikes and kit, and much more about the places to ride.

The quality and style of writing in Cyclist is good, but after only 3 issues its already getting a bit repetitive for me – UK ride, international ride, a sportive/ event, an interview with some random, review of 3 expensive bikes I can’t afford, a hand full of kit reviews. Don’t think I’ll bother extending the trial sub.
Tinas could no doubt express it a lot wittier than me 😉

I loved the stories and photos but didn’t re subscribe when I could have because I hated the smell of the Privateer mag, it made me feel ill.
Note to Singletrack mag, your paper’s starting to smell a little with it’s new paper….
Please go back to your old supplier.

lOL @ tinas comments
your review really reflects my opinion of of the £5:95 singletrack mag
I stopped buying it too.
As much as anything because the nice lady in the local paper shop always had to study it for about 5 minutes then put her glasses on to find the price… then say the price out loud “five pounds ninety five!”and look gob smacked that some mug was paying 6 quid for a bike magazine!
I have issue 85 in my hand (borrowed) the review of gear I cant afford..

Thomson bars £239
Enve xc rims £800 each
X0 grip shifts a bargain at £179.99

I guess if you got to ask then you cant afford it!
i’m out.

I was hoping grit.cx was going to be a paper mag but alas web only and the site seems to have died on its ass already

Shame id like a nice paper bit of road bit of cx bit of touring type mag but not costing 5 quid and not full of crap reviews and ads

I have issue 85 in my hand (borrowed) the review of gear I cant afford..

Yes, but the gear reviews are a relatively small part of the mag. If I wanted to read a load of reviews, I’d buy WMB instead.

Thinking about it, the lack of test reports was something I liked about Privateer.

No/few reviews = little/no exposure for brands = likely no advertising or very low ad revenues = doomed from the start as very little net income from newsstand / sub sales.

I can’t see how something like that would be profitable and financially sustainable.

I can’t see how something like that would be profitable and financially sustainable.

It seems to work fine for Rouleur.

You mean Rouleur that has vested interest from and founded by Rapha…..?

And your point is?

That Rouleur isn’t just reliant on the tiny margin generated by newsstand and sub sales, so it’s not really an illustration of an ad free/low ad mag being viable.

But then I’ve also never been as upset by ads as some on here. Just turn the page innit.

That Rouleur isn’t just reliant on the tiny margin generated by newsstand and sub sales, so it’s not really an illustration of an ad free/low ad mag being viable.

It’s not an ad-free/low ad magazine, and I doubt it’s subsidised much if at all by Rapha.

It is, however, an example of a viable review-free bike mag, which was my original point.

I’d rather have tasteful well photographed ads than product ‘tests’ and reviews which are just ads anyway

Thomson bars £239

This makes me happy because I just bought some Thomson carbon bars for £77 in the CRC sale.

It would be nice to read an article that is not full of the usual man/beer/cake/epic/etc… stereotypes. I hope Seb focuses as much on the writing and some originality as the pictures and also dispenses with the god awful practise of comedy captioning every photo.

This makes me happy because I just bought some Thomson carbon bars for £77 in the CRC sale.

Those were the Ti ones.

nickc – Member
Yeah, at £9.00 privateer was just too expensive really. I like Singletrack,

Funny… Singletrack for me is almost 10 Euro in a shop – think it was €9.49 last time I picked one up (shortly before putting it back down again). Dirt is closer to six euro, which I consider steep, but on the rare occasion that I’m in the newsagents I might buy it and go sit and read it with a coffee. The few extra quid for Singletrack crosses some sort of barrier for me though – just can’t get my head around paying that much for a mag.

guy I worked with regularly brought his read copies of ‘cyclist’ into our bike shop, enjoyed reading it as it was well written.

Could not see myself buying it, as I stopped buying bike magazines years ago.

Only ‘print’ mag I buy is “Empire” for movies and cinema. There are also lots of quality free magazines and newspapers given out in London, which fulfill my reading needs

Dirt used to be really good, I used to buy it back the day (I have issue 1 somewhere) but when I bought a copy last year around June/July it had morphed into some kind of horrible men’s lifestyle magazine with loads of ads for big watches and sh*t 😆 It used to be published by 4130 (of Ride BMX fame) but I couldn’t find any mention of them when I looked to see who was responsible for hashing out the expensive firestarter I’d purchased.

Sounds like its going to be a(nother) even more up itself and spaff filled garbage that ST is these days.

Never, ever buy bike magazines anymore. The best source I find for looking at shiney new stuff is pinkbike and reading ‘normal’ riding stuff is on here, in the forum, written by normal people who haven’t been on creative writing courses and as such have to fill every single sentence with their over indulged rubbish.

Dunno if yous have read this-

http://sonic.net/~ckelly/Seekay/bike_review.htm

I stopped subscribing to mags when the majority of the content was new kit, bike tests (i.e. ‘buy this one’), new bits etc (nevermind the paid advertising).

Why cant mags do more trips, trails, trail build, health, fitness, weather kit, etc rather than this jacket is our value recommendation at £150.

Why cant mags do more trips, trails, trail build, health, fitness, weather kit, etc rather than this jacket is our value recommendation at £150.

Because where is the incentive for an advertiser to support a title if there is no exposure other than a paid ad?

No ads = not enough income to be really profitable, which at the end of the day, is why you go into business.

But not the reason people buy magazines. Swings and roundabouts…

No ads = not enough income to be really profitable, which at the end of the day, is why you go into business.

True but I don’t buy mags for the ads, same as ‘customer reviews’ on retailers websites – all seem to have 4/5 or 4/4 stars. I avoid mags, especially the slimming down mags – mbr and mbuk have become slimmer and slimmer recently.

Dunno if yous have read this-

http://sonic.net/~ckelly/Seekay/bike_review.htm

How true is that! 😆

A mag that contains cycling, photography and Beer would ace 😆

Bring back MTB PRO I say. Loved that 90’s mag. Big gloss photos on oversize pages. Just had a nice feel to it.

Privateer was always profitable and never lost any money.

Can’t wait to see Cranked. A magazine with genuinely great photography and well written and interesting articles for real mountain bikers is long overdue.

Good luck to Seb and the team.

Is this where Doddy’s gone/going?

Doddy went to Factory jackson

I was hoping grit.cx was going to be a paper mag but alas web only and the site seems to have died on its ass already

It’s designed for tablets (OK, mostly iPads) but you can read it on the computer too. There is going to be a paper end-of-season compendium in the works though. Stay tuned.

Hora

Why cant mags do more trips, trails, trail build, health, fitness, weather kit, etc rather than this jacket is our value recommendation at £150.

I just did a Post-It note calculation on the last issue of Singletrack. 132 pages, of which 18.5 were ads, 113.5 editorial. 78 pages of trips, trails, interviews etc and 30 pages of reviews/grouptests/bike tests. Not a bad ratio.

I agree that doing a print mag is a brave move, but hopefully there are enough print magazine fans still out there that another print magazine will be welcome. I can see advertising being an issue, as many brands have stopped print advertising completely, but if the cover price, or circulation, can make up for that, then it should work… Best of luck to Seb and crew. At least I assume he has a crew 🙂