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I can't log onto the adfree subscription page. I normally log into STW with username and password, when trying to log into adfree subscription page it expects an email and password, but won't allow me to login using the email attached to my account with my account password. The adfree access option also isn't available on the normal subscription page.
When I last tried to renew my subscription, after trying to enter my CC details a few times, and realising that it wasn't me mistyping but the site that was ****ed, I decided to put my credit card away and wait for signs of technical competence before attempting again. Today, I decided to have another try, and once again I have put my credit card away.
To clarify. The Ad Block detection is part of the consent popup (CMP). They are not separate processes. The CMP does both, which makes sense as they are doing essentailly the same thing ie. protecting the site from users who want to access our content without permission. If you come with an ad blocker switched on you don't have permission unless you set it up so it doesn't block our ads.
The consent code is the same as used here
PLANETFOOTBALL.COM
You could try accepting the cookie on that site and then see if you get the same issue tomorrow.
I visit PlanetF1.com everyday (same group) and get the same pop-up everyday no matter what brower. As well as 4 other F1 sites that use similar tech.
I click agree to all of them everyday! But every visit the Agree and Close pop-up is back. I just figured that's the way they operate. So it's not just you.
Some of my browsers have ad-blockers, some are clean original installs with no added gubbins (usually Safari).
But even PlanetF1.com is useable with adverts. STW is approaching Reach group levels of intrusion that would put anybody off. It would be interesting to see how many 'Free' members stay around once ad-blocking banned.
'Free' members may not bring direct revenue but they bring awareness, indirect promotion and content to the forum. And the ones that actually ride(!) will buy mountain bike stuff from the features you drop into the forum like Fresh Goods Friday.
Also, full discosure. Unless you are a subscriber you are limited to our editorial stories now. You can read 3 articles a week and then you get the block that asks you to subscribe.
Exceptions are stories in our News and Sponsored categories. Most of what we publish is in the News category. We do have full control over that system as it's entirely ours so I can increase the weekly limits or decrease them and include or exclude any stories. All magazine articles are hard paywalled for subscribers only.
The reason Planet F1 has the same CMP because its the same company putting the ads on that site as here. The company is PlanetSport. They run their own sites and provide the same ad service to third party site s like us and Road.cc. They are British company specialising in ads for sports websites. Just for interest and FYI
Wait! Cougar has planted an idea I my head. I'm going to try something. Standby
OK. the login page here
Has no CMP. If you bookmark that and if you need to login you should be able to do so without the CMP or the ad block system kicking in. This means if you are a subscriber and you need to login you can do so and the system will get you to the CMP free part of the site. So you bypass it. If you are registered user after you have logged in you will get the CMP UNLESS you already have a consent cookie stored on your device.
To be blunt your editorial content is hardly worth bothering with, I've been on here before there was a magazine and if it wasn't for the forums I wouldn't bother with it
Has no CMP. If you bookmark that and if you need to login you should be able to do so without the CMP or the ad block system kicking in. This means if you are a subscriber and you need to login you can do so and the system will get you to the CMP free part of the site. So you bypass it. If you are registered user after you have logged in you will get the CMP UNLESS you already have a consent cookie stored on your device.
Add /password-reset to that exception list.
Maybe add the front page and forum indices to the list too, there's surely no harm in letting people see what content exists.
I have had a right fight to get on here.
I usually use brave but I am usually a paid member. As it happens I didn't realise that my membership expired on the 6th March, I have had no communication that I could find.
I will have a think about it.
I really support the reasons but if new users are put off this is only going one way
The system send sout an email to the one registered on your account two weeks before the end of a subscription. Did it get spammed?
Maybe add the front page and forum indices to the list too, there's surely no harm in letting people see what content exists.
Those pages are huge traffic pages. the CMP has to fire on those. The login page is different as there's never ads on there and it's a page free from all cookies.
Password reset page now included too.
Groovy.
To be blunt your editorial content is hardly worth bothering with, I've been on here before there was a magazine and if it wasn't for the forums I wouldn't bother with it
Seems a bit on the nose and a bit rude.
Example of why sometimes we stay away from the forum because even when we try and help there's usually comments like this that make us wonder why we bother. We don't have to but you aren't breaking any rules. Maybe rule 1?
My goodness whatever you guys have done has completely broken this forum for me.
I use a mix of edge / chrome / duckduck / Firefox and they all (and I mean all) have issues. The pop up ads are awfully intrusive! I have over 1276 tracking cookie alerts on duckduck all from this site!
I really appreciate all the effort and trying to sort this but to be totally blunt - it's the worst site I visit in 2026. I joined this forum in 2007 (I can't afford the subs sorry). I know people get moaned at about announcing departures - but I need to say why.
Good luck to all of you. It's been emotional.
Dave
LOL! 😆 The overlaying pop-up ads feels like going back in time to mid-90s when advertisers first found a way to advertise with push-technology. I still remember very clearly those days when advertisers practically pasted the whole website with as much ads as possible covering all available space. The concept hasn't changed much apart from the ads themselves.
I am not bothered with the ads as long as they don't eat up my RAM or inflict my pooter with nasties.
Most ads on the side of the website page are fine, but the one at the bottom is annoying as it keeps popping up from time to time. Could you make the bottom ad slightly smaller or thinner? The page will look nicer if the bottom ad is thinner and does not pop up too often. Also, some of the overlapping ads should be avoided because overlapping is just a bad design and makes the page messy.
Everything is currently working fine for me (Windows/Chrome and Android/Chrome - and accepting any cookies I'm offered) and my subscription is up for renewal in 2 days. I guess I now have a choice of £29pa to STW or £15pa to AdFree. Based on that, I'd rather STW got the extra.
If you use multiple browsers then each one will store it's own cookies. That means if you visit a site that requires cookie consent in one browser you will need to consent again with a different browser. That's not us - that's how the internet works. I use diferent browsers a lot in order to see how the site works without having to clear cookies from another browser. The large number of cookies that DuckDuckGo alerts is simply those listed in the CMP. As I said earlier, that does not mean that all those cookies are currently on your device, just that by giving consent you allow those cookies to be present on your device when they are needed. The cookie consent platform is one used by 1000's of media websites that run ads. It's called Uniconsent. By clicking consent you are not suddenly downloading 1000's of cookies.
I have DuckDuckGo installed on all my devices. It was a few clicks to let DuckDuckGo access the site.
Cookies are not a bad thing. Cookies are how a website knows you are logged in or not. Cookies are how websites know what you have in your shopping basket. It's how you can browse through any site that needs an account. The fact ads use them for targeting has tainted their reputation a LOT. They are nothing more than a text file on your device. You can open them up in a text editor and read them. Most are a few characters long. Some are pages long. We now offer a solution that allows you to block all the ad related cookies that are linked to ads across the site. What we don't offer is a way to block them AND still use the site - unless you are a subscriber.
If you are a subscriber and you are having problems accessing the site then we will jump at the chance to help you. You are paying for that support among other things. If, however we find that you have settings in your browser that prevent you from accessing the site and you are not willing to change them, then that's as far as we can go with help.
To access our site you need to have privacy settings that allow our site to store and access cookies on your devices. Ad blockers can usually be set to allow certain websites that you choose - this is called whitelisting. If you run an adblocker and whitelist Singletrack you will see ads and cookies will be stored on your device. If you run a firewall at home or at your office that has security features that prevent cookies from being stored on your devices then you will likely have problems accessing our site. Unless you are a subscriber.
Some users have pointed out that they don't have ad blocking software on their devices. But ad blocking is starting to be built in to some browsers by default. Brave and DuckDuckGo are examples. Safari on apple devices comes with ad blocking tools although I'm unsure if they are active by default. Each of those can be configured to allow websites that you choose to store the necessary cookies. But we can't do that remotely.
Advertsing cookies are not stored on subscribers devices while they are logged in. Singletrack cookies are though and these are very much needed to enable the site to function. If your settings prevent all cookies from being stored then regardless of your subscription status, the site will not work for you as intended until you change your settings top allow our cookies.
If you access websites using a private browser (Incognito window in Chrome for eg) then cookies needed to make the site work WILL still be stored on your device. But when you close the browser they will be deleted. That means when you come back to the site you will need to clear the consent popup again and login to the site.
As of now, in excess of 99% of all users visiting the site today have experienced no problems that we can see. If you are a subscriber in that last 1% we are here to help.
This is in no way meant to dismiss anyone's issues or access problems. I'm just being honest about how things work and what we can and will do about it. We want everyone to be able to access our site. But not for free. The terms are ads or subscribe and we will help where we can.
Bollocks to this I'm logging out for while. Have a good weekend everyone.
The reason I visit this site less often in recent months is because all the ads have become annoying and most of the content on the home page is just stiff I’d read in the magazine already or news that is on all the other sites, only without all the adverts clogging up the screen.
I use my iPhone for pretty much all
my web access these days an it’s hard to see anything on the small screen with all the ads. I used to pay for a subscription but money got tight and unfortunately I had to make savings somewhere.
I still can’t work out how to send a private message…
Also, I was unable to get past the Adblock thing today on my work pc, Win11, Edge browser.
As of now, in excess of 99% of all users visiting the site today have experienced no problems that we can see. If you are a subscriber in that last 1% we are here to help.
Is there maybe some sort of survivor bias going on here because certainly I’ve not been able to access as per my post earlier. I’m not a subscriber so I’m reading you post as you have no interest in sorting that - despite the fact I’ve no ad blocker turned on and using Chrome. Safari on the same machine works (but is not my default browser) so it’s neither computer nor network configurations. I’ve no issue with you blocking people actually using adblockers but I’ve endured your massively processor hungry, screen real estate greedy ads for years because I think it’s right that you should get paid. To be rewarded for that with a tone of “well you should subscribe” leaves a bit of a sour note.
@Mark - that last message took over 1 minute from hitting Add Reply to actually stopping the “working” spinner in the top right corner- if you want to know why I’m not a subscriber it’s because your site is riddled with janky stuff like that and changes are rolled out without robust testing.
Likely me. I just clerared the site cache after some ad tweaks
We test a lot. This CMP update was tested 2 weeks ago. We load test. But as much as you can test a site there's no way to test for every browser and every setting within a browser especially where cookies are involved as there is no way we can tell how any individual machine is going to deal with cookies. To add to the complication the code is not ours. CMPs are third party systems. We have always prioritised subscribers and it's no secret that I've been moving Singletrack more and more towards being a subscriber platform for quite some time. Free users are welcome and always will be. But the deal is ads. As I said earlier, we are here to help any subscribers who are having issues accessing the site. Just email us with your details and we'll do our best for you. Previously the price of subscribing and removing the ads was £31 for annual digital subscription. Now you can remove the ads for just £15/year.
Full subscriber, not working on the brave browser, even with a password reset ☹️
Full subscriber here. Clicking on the Lauf review, each time I get a small advertising video playing bottom left.
edit: in fact, as I scroll down the page new ones keep opening, the latest one in French, merde alors!
Full subscriber here having to type this on phone as the site on Chrome on pc won't work at all for me now.
Get the adblock detected popup. If I click Go adfree it takes me to a page to subscribe and pay which I obviously already do. If I click unblock and refresh I get a popup where I agree to all to see if it will direct me to a page to sign in, but it doesn't. It just goes back to the original popup so I can't actually access the site at all
Everything is currently working fine for me (Windows/Chrome and Android/Chrome - and accepting any cookies I'm offered)
Reading other posts, maybe I should log out then see if I can get logged back in again?
Reading other posts, maybe I should log out then see if I can get logged back in again?
Have the login screen link at the ready, it may be as bad as they say
Replying to Mark from the previous page I cannot find a renewal email in junk. Deleted folder does not go back far enough. I am pretty certain that I didn’t delete an STW email but cannot guarantee it.
I am currently defeated trying to subscribe again though.
If I have ad blockers the go ad free button doesn’t do anything nearly every time.
The one time I did get it to work I clicked on the I already have an account link but it says user does not exist .
if I drop shields and login I go to subscribe but it says I already have a subscription. The no ads option could work well for me but…
I will try another day ☹️
You need to click accept and continue. Then login as normal you will be able to renew your subscription on your account. The ad free option you are seeing is Not a Singletrack subscription it’s a subscription to a service that simply removes the ads.
or since you are logged in, go to your account
And click the subscriptions tab.
Just tried again for a while
If I have shields up I see the go ad-free button but clicking on it does nothing
if I put shields down I do not see an ad-free button
damned if I do, damned if I don’t
ad-free makes sense for my forum needs more than the subscription
That will be because with shields down the CMP looks for the consent cookie. You will have consented at some point in the past and so it’s finding the cookie and letting you through.
with shields up your device will be blocking cookies. This will break the code that gives you the options to go AdFree.
what we need to do is change your consent.
look for this little button in the bottom left of your screen after you have clicked ‘accept’. That opens up your consent options. You should then be able to reject all cookies and that will give you the option to sign up for AdFree.
You must drop shields to make this work. Shields up is breaking the functionality of the site which needs cookies. 
This is a generalisation and not aimed at STW.
I have multiple layers of filtering from the router to the browser. Part of this is ad blocking. The reason for this is not because I'm fundamentally opposed to adverts but rather that I'm opposed to intrusive adverts. I'd tolerate YouTube adverts if they didn't suddenly appear mid-sentence.
Every other website these days requires 47 clicks before you can read the content you're actually there to read. I find it hard to really care about cookies, on balance if I'm going to have adverts then it's in the interests of both the advertiser and myself to serve ads for things I might actually be interested in. But it's got to a point now where I've given up trying to play this game, if a site is being deliberately obtuse with its consent forms then I'm just hitting "decline all."
Autoplay videos can **** off, exponentially so if they have audio; you try to scroll away and the bloody things follow you; "close" is hidden, again presumably intentionally, in some random place in the smallest font imaginable; half the time attempting to hit an [X] 3mm across on a phone screen has the opposite effect to the one intended. Join our mailing list. Pop-up adverts covering chunks of the page you're trying to read. If you like this content, here's another article of ours - sod off, I've not seen this one yet! It wouldn't be half as bad if there was a couple of minutes' delay where you could actually use the site before it started mithering you, I might actually sign up for more stuff if I'd had the chance to read something I enjoyed. 20 years ago this is what browser hijacks looked like.
Subscribers. Go directly to the login page to login. That will bypass the popup and let you login as normal.
Surely this should be part of the process? People having these issues can't see this advice because it's behind the gatekeeping.
How about a third button, is that possible with a third-party plugin? Unblock and refresh / go ad-free / I'm already a subscriber, take me to the login screen. Or even just reword the ad-free option so it's clearer?
We test a lot.clearly not enough - you basically just pissed off a bunch of your legitimate customers and the customers of your other customers (the advertisers). I work with developers and testers - I understand how difficult testing is, but I also know that it's actually not that hard to check the main browsers with default settings (which I have). I wouldn't mind if you or your third party plugin (blaming them when you've selected them is crass) told me what I'm supposed to do or how I can help solve the problem but "turn off your ad blocker" isn't really an answer if I don't have an ad blocker - especially since I was seeing your ads right up until this "upgrade".
and that is the deal I've accepted for years.We have always prioritised subscribers and it's no secret that I've been moving Singletrack more and more towards being a subscriber platform for quite some time. Free users are welcome and always will be. But the deal is ads.
but no help for the non-subscribers who have never used an ad blocker and been happy to contribute to your business that way? I'm sure you told us when subscriptions came about that you made less money that way than from ads - has the market shifted? am I no longer actually a valued contributor.As I said earlier, we are here to help any subscribers who are having issues accessing the site.
Oh here's a suggestion - give me another site to visit from someone using the same 3rd party and I'll see if its blocked there or its something to do with your configuration?
That was mentioned earlier, Planet Football.
Which I visited to check and then started getting targeted by Sky Sports advertising.
I am not after a personal service here so no reply needed. I tried deleting cookies etc but cannot go ad-free. I feel pretty stupid but don’t know why.
I will see if it works in a few days or maybe on my work computer in the week
but no help for the non-subscribers who have never used an ad blocker and been happy to contribute to your business that way? I'm sure you told us when subscriptions came about that you made less money that way than from ads - has the market shifted? am I no longer actually a valued contributor.
I actually published the real money numbers a page or so back in this thread.
TLDR Subscribers contribute £37 on average/year.
Non-subscribers contribute £0.12/year or 1p/month in ad revenue.
Hi @ jp-t853
Lets take this to email.drop me an email mark@singletrackworld.com and I'll try my best to get you fixed. I'll need to aks you questions about your setup and what browsers and firewall/privacy settings you are using.
Cheers
Mark
Here's some general information that may be helpful to some who are experiencng difficulty accessing the site.
- Active Ad Blockers: Extensions like AdBlock, Adblock Plus, uBlock Origin, or Brave Browser's native blocker are active on the site.
- Blocking Consent Scripts: If a browser blocks
cmp.uniconsent.comoredge.uniconsent.com, the site cannot initialize properly, triggering a fallback warning to the user. - Privacy & VPN Software: Cyber security software, VPNs, or browser "strict" privacy settings that block tracking scripts.
- "Reject All" Tracking Behavior: If a user clicks "Reject All" on the UniConsent banner, and the publisher has enabled AdFreePro (a recovery tool), a secondary message may appear asking for other ways to support the site.
- Incognito/Private Mode: Adblockers running in private windows can trigger notifications if they differ from normal browsing settings.
UniConsent +4
Once triggered, the platform can display custom messaging, often asking the user to disable their ad blocker to continue browsing or to accept the privacy consent banner to access content.
- Allowlist the Site: Click the ad blocker icon in the browser toolbar and pause it on the specific website.
- Disable Privacy Extensions: Turn off secondary privacy extensions to see if they are causing the alert.
- Clear Cache/Cookies: Clear site cookies to reset the consent state and re-check for adblocker presence.
AdBlock +3
I actually published the real money numbers a page or so back in this thread.
TLDR Subscribers contribute £37 on average/year.
Non-subscribers contribute £0.12/year or 1p/month in ad revenue.
If you completely close the ‘shop front’ by over zealous entry requirements how do hope to attract new subscribers?
Perhaps you need to offer a week/month of free to access to the whole site to show newbies what’s on offer.
Locking the site down is like bolting the door of a shop and only letting people have a peek through the letterbox. The odd person might knock to come in - many will walk on to the shop with the open door.
But we aren't locking the site down. A small number of users are experiencing issues related to triggering ad block detection. The traffic to the site over the last few days has actually increased by 10% on the same days a month ago.
Here's some more information that I hope may help.
- Browser-Level Privacy Features: Browsers like Brave, Safari (Intelligent Tracking Prevention), and Microsoft Edge (Strict Tracking Prevention) have built-in ad and tracker blocking that users often don't consider "extensions".
- DNS & VPN Protections: Users may be using a VPN or a custom DNS service (like NextDNS or AdGuard DNS) that blocks ad-serving domains at the network level before they even reach the browser.
- Antivirus & Security Software: Suites like Norton, Kaspersky, or Malwarebytes often include "Web Shield" components that block tracking scripts or ad-related URLs, triggering the CMP's detection.
- Residual Extension Files: If a user previously had an adblocker and uninstalled it, leftover registry entries or cached browser data can sometimes still cause detection.
AdBlock +4
- Slow Network Connections: If a critical ad script fails to load within a specific timeout period due to a poor connection, the CMP may incorrectly flag it as being "blocked".
- Script Failures: If your site has JavaScript errors that prevent certain ad-related variables from initializing, the CMP might interpret the missing variables as evidence of an adblocker.
- Aggressive Content Security Policy (CSP): A misconfigured CSP on your server might block the very scripts UniConsent uses for detection, leading to inconsistent behavior.
Reddit +1
- Ask for the "Incognito Test": Have a reporting user try the site in an Incognito/Private window with all extensions disabled. If the alert vanishes, it's a browser-level or extension issue.
- Verify Console Errors: If a user can provide a screenshot of their browser's Developer Tools Console, look for
ERR_BLOCKED_BY_CLIENTornet::ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED. These confirm something on their device is stopping the request. - Check AdFreePro Settings: If you use UniConsent's AdFreePro integration, ensure the "Revenue Recovery" logic isn't set to trigger purely on consent rejection, which users may confuse with an adblock alert.
If anyone wants to try other websites with the same Uniconsent system there's a list of them here