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nope, been a member for years & had no idea! Someone has dropped the ball on the communication/getting the word out front!Maybe what I was getting at is that I wouldn’t normally think of the ST shop first for spares. (Perhaps I should?)
That said, I’d be happy to buy consumables (chains, pads, etc) off STW if the price was comparable to the online discount places.
If people weren’t in a hurry, could you save the postage/planet by popping small items people have ordered in with the mag each month? 🤔
If people weren’t in a hurry, could you save the postage/planet by popping small items people have ordered in with the mag each month?
imagine that would be a logistical nightmare as suspect that mag is printed/shipped straight from the printers.
with consumables, would the effort be worth the benefits (if there any) financially?
Mmmm have been reading this with interest. I post infrequently this days, but wanted to pop up to say I agree with so much of what people are saying here. What comes across throughout is a genuine love and desire to see STW survive and thrive in some form. But things really do have to change.
I've been here since GoFar. I was one of the original 200 or so people that subscribed to make STW a thing and I have been a full member since that day. I wonder how many of us from the original genesis are still here?
I've always loved print (I don't read any longform articles online), but have long since lost the excitement of the magazine arriving and rarely read much of the content. E.g the only thing I've read in the last copy was Chipps' article, just to see what he was up to. It's felt stale for a long, long time, and I've only stayed subscribed out of loyalty and probably inertia. The loss of Jenn was heartbreaking and no one since has written with her insight, intelligence and the integrity of a talented rider sharing their experience. With Privateer gone, Cranked is arguably better at this niche of the market, and the amount of us print readers happy to pay the cover price has to be pretty small now.
The website is ****ing awful. I'm subscribed because with ads it is totally unusable. The only place I come to is the forum, I don't read any of the articles anywhere else on the site for all the reasons discussed. Occasionally I look at FGF which is generally a horrible stream of consciousness/ spelling mistakes/ inaccuracies, with all the random music clips (why?)... Barney was genuinely funny and entertaining in his tenure .. since then, it's just milding irritating.
I go to PinkBike for news/ current stuff and Wideopen/ NSMB/ EnduroMTB for other articles/ reviews etc.
The forum has it ups and downs, but it's been a constant in my life for over 20+ years and I don't think there has ever been a subject or topic on literally anything that someone can't help with if you need advice. That is genuinely remarkable, it's a unique community full of opinions, petty squabbles, disagreements, but also much laughter and love. There really is nothing else like it.
I've not been back to the Classifieds since it changed, whenever that was. I sell and buy exclusively on PinkBike, it's easy and efficient.
I too am an early 50s, middle-class ish, lefty leaning person ... and whilst we are the constant and have been the staple of STW for all this time, as a business you have to look beyond us. Just over 10 years ago I serendipitously left my 'corporate' life and ended up in the bike industry, where I still work now employing about the same amount of people as STW. There is no scenario in our business that would see me going cap in hand to our customers. Suffice to say that you've had some really excellent advice earlier in the thread that is no doubt now feeding into your thinking.
@solarider. Great contribution. No idea if you're right, but I thought it well considered and informative.
Not much to add, but I worked for a major publisher of print media (anybody over 50 will more than likely have bought one of their products) and I watched the slow decline as they cut costs by reducing content and print quality. They missed out on the growth of You tube and made a pathetic attempt to get a foot in the You tube door.
The company were eventually sold to a business that was only interested in the digital offerings and all print media was stopped. I realise that Mark is keen to keep the mag, but looking long term I can't see how it will remain profitable. Specialist print media is dead.
And please put a header up at the top that say's 'Affliate links' + sort the classifieds.
Who stole the preview button?
I like singletrack as a place and the print mag is a wonderful thing, but I don't read a lot of the content of the website because there isn't a whole bunch that is relevant to me - I tend to spend more time on PB and NSMB for that side of things. Can't comment on ads as I aggressivle block them absolutely everywhere and always have. Sidenote - I work for a large publishing company (by accident - they bought us) and god help me if I accidentally click a link to one of our outlets in the wrong browser on my work laptop because without all the gubbins I usally use its an unreadable vomit of ads. We've got entire teams dedicated to writing tech to enable this and to drive affiliate marketing and all the other related stuff to make money off of it and it only sort of works because of the econmomies of scale that we can leverage. I'm not sure how it's evenn feasible for the likes of singletrack (and I guess the point is that it actually sort of isn't) to compete with that.
There's some interesting ideas in this thread about how singletrack could evolve, so fingers crossed.
I used to work in specialist magazines back when it was a license to print money. 3-4 months a year away, paid to do my sport and 8-9 months slaving away in the studio.
I had my meltdown and got out around 2002 just before the big importers fragmented into a bunch of smaller ones and the internet started being an attractive proposition. Now I don't know what I'd do. Advertisers seem loathe to pay for digital ads, the mags costs go up as printing gets stupid.
Content costs the same to create whether is is for print or digital.
Flying people around the world to great venues is expense. If you don't do that then you end up with some depressing images shot in less than ideal conditions because it is the UK and you have a deadline.
It used to be done, the rival mag used to come out two weeks before us. We'd grab a copy, see what they were testing in the next issue, ring the importers, blag the kit and a day later be on a plane somewhere windy and sunny to test and photograph it, write it while away, get back and bang it in the mag days before their issue came out.
All because the money was coming in.
We had a big advantage over Singletrack as we published several titles so the cost of accounts and subscriptopn matters and premises and design staff was spread wider.
I'm rambling but those days are gone. Singletrack seems to want to stay in them.
The mag the YT channel and the website all have the same problems imo. They need freshening up and the content needs to be cleaner and punchier.
Could YT be a good source of income? I have never worked out how YT revenue works. The following review is good, 2 mins shorter and it would be better and I'd more inclined to watch the next review.
Btw I have read the mag since issue 1 but like others I dont anymore. I subscribe not to block ads nor to read the mag but purely in the hope the forum carries on.
nothing remotely ‘bannable’ in anything you have posted.
Oh let him have his 15 minutes.
The idea of a payment to use the forum should not be chucked out imo.
Something like £12 a year to use forum inc. classifieds (old style classifieds)
£xx to get online mag and member offers
£xx to get print subscription
Oh let him have his 15 minutes.
Constructive. Very constructive. That should certainly help get STW out of this dilemma.
There was me thinking I was somehow making a sensible contribution but now that my selfish egotistical motives have been righteously exposed by Drac’s Sword of Truth I feel small, foolish and grateful for you exposing my real motive.
Please accept my apologies Drac. I would love to hear your more informed and altruistic views on the matter. Perhaps the usual STW bickering as the ship sinks might be just the thing that we need. That should definitely attract more fee paying customers and revenue to the site.
Constructive. Very constructive. That should certainly help get STW out of this dilemma.
You beat me to it there, I was about to say the same thing, almost word for word!
Just tried to message you, but that seems to be broken?
I'd like to think that there is no malice behind Drac's comment, just an off the cuff remark. I've said it earlier, but I consider your contributions well thought out and considered, so please continue.
Ha thanks. I have broad enough shoulders to withstand Drac’s mighty Sword of Truth! It’s all part of the STW banter to some degree but also a bit to do with why more people don’t find the place as welcoming and accepting as they might need to in order to pay to be here.
There’s not much more to add really, hence my comment earlier.
Mark and the team have a lot of opportunity and lots of options.
I really hope that they make the right decisions.
I was reflecting on this morning’s ride (beautiful day for it BTW!) about why I give a sh1t about this. Partly because for once I have professional experience that might help. But more importantly, I feel like STW is a big part of my life.
Over many years it has seen me through single life, a failed marriage, my father’s death, finding my life partner, the birth of my son, it has been my link back to the UK when I have lived overseas. It has been a constant in my life and the diverse bunch of contributors have been a source of advice, enjoyment and solidarity. I have met very few of them in person but this place was a social network before social media was even a ‘thing’. I feel strangely compelled to try to help somehow.
We might have different political views, we might have different jobs, incomes, attitudes, ways of communicating but we all love fannying about on bikes and that is a wonderful glue that binds us.
I thought you were a newbie 🤣🤣🤣
The reply was to your comment about being banned, you haven’t broken any rules. HTH.
As for feedback on the business. I have any ideas I have direct contact with the team.
Thought I'd take a peek at the main page.
The idea of a payment to use the forum should not be chucked out imo.
Something like £12 a year to use forum inc. classifieds (old style classifieds)
How do you hope to attract new members?
Pay to play almost always (I say 'almost always' because doubtless someone will pull out some obscure reference I've never heard of to contradict me if I said 'absolutely') never works. All that would happen is that a proportion of the present members would pay and new membership would dry up. Putting the forum behind a paywall is a terrible idea.
This:
[Colournoise]. I’ve not given this a huge amount of though but stuff I don’t see covered elsewhere that might have some legs…
– Grass Roots UK racing across all disciplines (just look at the popularity of, and engagement with, weeksy’s thread).
– A real focus on local riding around the UK, whatever that looks like (not just the honeypots).
– Sustainability in what can be a pretty ‘single-use’, transport-heavy hobby.
– The experience of ‘normal’ UK MTBers – their bikes, kit and riding.(basically, using some of the common concerns of the forum to drive more content for the published material?)
I’ve said this before, I was a Subscriber from Issue 2 or 3, bought (or maybe was given) issue 1 at one of the 24hr races by Mark. I thought at the time the mag was a breath of fresh air, good quality photography, grown up writing. I cancelled the subscription around 5 years ago. It wasnt the same, reviews of £1000 wheels (this was when a typical set of Mavics was £150-300), and lights at £500 when ebay copies were £50, less photography and watercolour pictures. It lost me, as I’m not made of money, and the articles were just not interesting any more, the reviews of Rolls Royces, when I was in the market for a cheap car. There used to be a lot of articles about local rides, places to go etc. That was lost, and with it a lot of the interest for me.
As for Staff, Ive said this before, you have 6k subscribers, why are there 9+ Staff? With so many Staff, you’d expect the output of a newspaper nowadays, but I dont see that content on the website, or even the content from 4 Staff. Really, what do they do? Their job is to get a good magazine, with well written, intersting articles.
Get back to basics, the print world is dying, but with just a few Staff you might be able to survive. Selling a few things from the Shop? - come on, I’d say that doesnt even cover the expenses of one employee. If it does, then you need to change your business direction, and expand it, as it is clear the magazine distribution will not increase, but its cost will.The Forum is still awful. Pop up ads on every page. Who ever clicks on these ads? I get a ‘godaddy’ pop up on every page. I would never click on it, and cant believe many would, so why irritate potential forum viewers with thes intrusive ads? Make it easily accessible, have ads down one side or the other, or maybe both sides of a page. Expand your range of ads. I’m looking for a car in 9 months or so time. Reviews soem cars to see how to fit bikes in the back - there are enough queries on this subject on the forum, that I’m not sure why you’ve missed it. Add in roof and tail brackets, something that many UK bikers are interested in - go to the trail centres and see what people are using, that’d make a good article.
I’m sorry to say it, but you’ve got too big, and not kept up with business requirements, you need to reset, and totally change.
why are there 9+ Staff? With so many Staff, you’d expect the output of a newspaper nowadays, but I dont see that content on the website, or even the content from 4 Staff.
They have in-house IT amongst other things. You can see from the below link.
Well I've been a free member since at least 2012 according to my emails and I've never paid to be a member nor a subscriber etc. I'm here on a daily basis, several times during the day in fact. I'm a member on a few different forums but this is the one I frequent the most because my passion is cycling. I guess I'm probably a typical person who you're hoping to convert to a paying member of some sort. I don't pay for any forums and I actually dont know of any forums that do charge (I'm sure they do exist but over the years I've never gone to a forum and not been able to access it because I'm not a member). For me there is nothing else involved in the equation from home page content to the magazine to justify the spends. I don't buy a magazine to read about other people doing something I get enjoyment out of because you can't recreate that feeling I get when I ride a bike and that's all I'm in it for. I like to keep up to date with news/release articles, that's why I occasionally visit bike rumour, but I can just look at the forum for that because a forum user spots it first. We've all seen the rumour posts, someone has spotted a leaked article and shared it. I don't bother to read any review articles or FGF because stuff turning up in the post and being tried on or stared at gives me absolutely zero perspective as to how it'll be a week or a month later. If I need a genuine user review I just go to the forum and ask for people who own and use it. Clothing reviews are pointless because I'm the minority around here as I'm female so I'd also need to find a proper review of women's clothing by a woman who has actually used it.
I've recently cancelled my zwift membership, cancelled my NHS prescription, negotiated my phone contract down all in an effort to save money. The forum works just fine for no cost and so that woudn't drive me to pay. Yes I wish we could post instagram posts again, yes it takes a moment to upload my image to imgur before then sharing it but it's a free forum so I just think oh well that's that.
Why would I pay £25 for something that by the sounds of it won't survive 12 months, especially when this is the umpteenth beg. If a mate came to me and said give us £25 I'd give it with no justification needed but if I disappeared tomorrow nobody would notice or blink an eye. If I came on tomorrow and found out I needed to be a paid member in order to post or even view, I wouldn't pay simply because there isn't enough justification in it.
That probably doesn't help at all but I'd imagine it's the same view as a lot of free members who just frequent the forum who get no benefit from either the magazine nor the other content.
Clothing reviews are pointless because I’m the minority around here as I’m female so I’d also need to find a proper review of women’s clothing by a woman who has actually used it.
Hannah, Amanda and Zoe do tests too.
If I need a genuine user review I just go to the forum and ask for people who own and use it.
This x 1,000
I'm genuinely shocked ( to the extent that I don't actually believe that) people place any importance whatsoever in what a magazine writer says about a bike product. I'm really amazed that anyone else does TBH. The idea of asking one opinionated author in a magazine what a bike is like is just nuts. Especially when that magazine has to keep on the right side of the industry.
I am extremely interested in what the writing portion of the 130k STW members think. Hell yes.
If I need a genuine user review I just go to the forum and ask for people who own and use it.
Who do you think should pay for hosting/managing that forum?
Who do you think should pay for hosting/managing that forum?
We all should. I do. Although Mark doesn't describe it as such, but I pay £0 for a digital magazine and £25 a year for the forum.
I love this place and what it stands for.
I’ve just renewed my subscription but only because it happened automatically and apathy meant I didn’t stop it.
I think the mag and website need to work out what they’re about. There is no point in coming here for news or new products as PB and others do it much better and quicker. The same is true for product tests and reviews unless I want some of niche bike. The current issue of the mag has very little in it off interest to me. The fork review was fine. I enjoyed the article on riding in Aberdeen and that was about it. I’m not interested in the views on various subjects of the staff nor gravel bikes in anyway. That didn’t leave much left.
As for the shop the stuff your selling even with members discount is expensive. I wanted an Areopress but others are seeing it for 20% less than the members price and you get a bag of coffee. I would happily have bought it from you if your price was competitive.
@BruceWee as a sample of one I would if I thought it would help. Actually, I like the whole lack of tracking thing so I wouldn't need much convincing.
Something like £12 a year to use forum inc. classifieds (old style classifieds)
How do you hope to attract new members?
I think any forum has to be free to read (and ideally post) if it is to grow, but other aspects could be used as incentives for people to pay, for example:
IF the forum offered image hosting, I might be prepared to pay to be able to see full sized images in posts, rather than thumbnails (I'm aware of a few forums that work like this).
The ability to post clasified ads
Access to advanced search features
Absence of ads
Avatars!
Resources such as review archives
The forum remembering where you had read to in a thread and taking you straight back there when you open it again
Just a general 'good will' payment from those that appreciate it (I'm aware of several forums that operate in this manner, and let's be honest, it's what's already happening here with the addition of an unnecessary subscription to a mag they never read.)
I've been a member of quite a few forums, very few of which I thought were worth paying for, but it's not unheard of.
The forum is now the only aspect of this enterprise that is of any relevance to me - I read the print mags for about 5 years from 2013, but in the manner of all 'activity' publications, the content becomes repetetive (beginners guide to... how to ... carve gybe / waterstart jump / ride roots etc.). I don't think I've ever visited the homepage!
Anyway, the sentiment seems clear...
Who do you think should pay for hosting/managing that forum?
Might as well paraphrase weeksy since he put it so well.
We all should. I do. Although Mark doesn’t describe it as such, but I pay £0 for a paper magazine and £40 a year for the forum.
( apologies if it's not 40 quid. I don't actually know)
I subscribed after one of the previous appeals but I really believe no more appeals just put the price up.
The only other forum I use regularly is retrobike. The forum is much easier to use. Editing, adding images, listing stuff for sale, private messages etc.
We all should. I do. Although Mark doesn’t describe it as such, but I pay £0 for a digital magazine and £25 a year for the forum.
I love this place and what it stands for.
+1 pretty much same for me.
I think I'll start donating my STW magazines to whichever bike cafe/charity etc i can. Once they're read Ive little use for them and they're too stiff to use as wiping material.
That way they'll at least be read and seen over a wider group. Someone might read, like the content and look to join. Maybe,maybe not but I don't think theres any harm in it. And its more clutter out of my house.
the content becomes repetetive (beginners guide to… how to …
carve gybe / waterstart
jump / ride roots etc.).
Been there... 😀
I go to PinkBike for news/ current stuff and Wideopen/ NSMB/ EnduroMTB for other articles/ reviews etc.
Pinkbike/Outside is am absolute hot mess of a website away from the front page. I think either Google or Outside themselves have had to warn me twice in the last couple of years that my user/password has been compromised. The forum is full of (not to put too fine a point on it) ****ers. The only thing that's worth the time are Levy, Quinn and Kasimir, the rest is for children. Oh, and it's an order of magnitude larger operation that STW is. NSMB is hyper-local to the sea to shore, and is literally just reviews (dull shit that is really the lowest form of "journalism" Hell, if I can do, it's got to be), and has the same "buy us a coffee" ask that STW has and EnduroMTB have also recently got out the begging bowl in the same way that STW is doing now.
I doubt there's any part of the bike industry (including the written parts of it) has a magic wand to resolve the fact that the arse has fallen out of it recently
When it comes to bike magazines in general, are they all dying a death?
It would be interesting to see what the circulation figures are for some of the magazines, especially things like Singletrack where they aren't, I don't think, even available in normal newsagents etc.
I'd hazard a guess that the magazine industry as a whole is circling the drain and won't be around in it's current form for a great deal longer.
The forum is full of
This in itself shows why Forums like STW (And my own of course) need to remain and exist. Pinkbike forum should be EPIC... lots of knowledge, lots of content, people... but it's dire... Partly because of the teenage angst, but also the layout, formatting, process, uploading of pics and structure.
MTBR.com forum is sometimes a confusing place, but is a superb forum. The content is really informative, but i'd argue, this place here has greater depth of knowledge of many things.
mtbr.com is free though, with some sidebar adverts of course, which if i could turn off with a small cost, i probably would 🙂
I am a recent convert from free member to paying subscriber- I stopped reading the magazine years ago as I've never really found the writing style to my liking. I never look at the main site and now pay for the forum purely because it is a great resource for advice on bike maintenance, training and races/events. I also find the chat about pro cycling entertaining too and usually there are some long/involved threads about the big grand tours when they are on.
In many ways I'm not the target market as I gave up mountain biking years ago and only road ride and trail run now and I wouldn't say I'm particularly interested in gravel riding or bike packing.
But, as much as I love cycling I sometimes wonder how much can really be said about it as an activity outside of the competitive part of it. I buy a bike on average about once every 8 years so bike reviews are meaningless to me for 7.9 years out of every 8. Routes in the UK are well established- especially mountain bike routes that can legally be published...even I could advise someone on a classic peak district route and I've not ridden a bridleway since 2009. Like most people I know who are into cycling I don't go on multiple cycling holidays a year to far flung sunny countries following a local guide around, so articles about riding in Andorra or Croatia or something are of limited value really.
I still buy the paper copy of Cycling Weekly as I can catch up on some pro cycling news and also I find the domestic competitive news interesting- the focus in general seems to be on things that are more local and relatable to me, local TTs, Hill Climbs and CX racing, club runs, events that I might actually enter, rides I might actually do.
I might be totally wrong here but is it fair to say most people own one bike (maybe 2) and rarely exchange it, ride local to them and perhaps go abroad on a cycling specific holiday maybe occasionally but probably rarely? The sportives or events the enter most likely will be within a 3 hour drive of where they live?
I'm not sure if STW is guilty of any of the above as I haven't read it in years but most cycling media seems to be like that to me and it is fairly predictable/tired after a while. I always thought Cyclist magazine offered some different/insightful articles compared to the rest but there's still only so many "Big Ride in Sunny and Faraway Country [x]" that can hold my interest and it is inevitably really expensive now.
I might be totally wrong here but is it fair to say most people own one bike (maybe 2) and rarely exchange it, ride local to them and perhaps go abroad on a cycling specific holiday maybe occasionally but probably rarely? The sportives or events the enter most likely will be within a 3 hour drive of where they live?
Ummmmm 😀
Yeah I know, wrong place to pose that question probably 😂
Ummmmm 😀
Especially on the number of bikes bit, but the rest is partly true. I do find some of the route articles interesting but it does depend on the writer. I rarely find bike reviews interesting in any mag but there is lots of other stuff going around.
Yeah I know, wrong place to pose that question probably
I do get your point though. A lot of riding of 'us' is not in far flung places.. but then again, magazines are a bit of 'social dreaming' aren't they ? The trip to Peru you'll never do, the bikepacking in the Andes that are beyond our reach..
Rather than, a trip round Ladybower reservoir on a gravel bike... which lets face it, won't be that exciting to read.
we're all different though of course, i'd love to read about (if i read magazines) how Charlie went to BPW and nailed a red, ate a burger and experienced Merthyr on a Friday night... but i doubt many others would. In the same way, an article about someone roughing it in the Cairngorns, well, it doesn't do a lot for me.
From an exceptionally biased perspective, a racing series with a youngster racing Fort William, now that i'd read 😉 😉
I subscribed to the paper magazine because I saw there was an article about Nesbyen, a place I'd spent a couple of weeks in a year ago.
Honestly, I was underwhelmed. I'm not sure what I was looking for, but it wasn't what I read in the article. I saw what it was trying to do, I think. It was trying to avoid being a dry 'review' of another riding destination by running a thread through it about 'hidden folk' and Norse mythology.
imo, it completely missed the mark. It was a bit about the riding (honestly, how many ways are there to write about riding over rocks and dirt) and the rest seemed to be jarring talk about trolls and fairies.
Contrast that with Hannah's visit to Repack. We get to meet the characters and get an idea of the local scene. Admittedly, we're talking about well known names from the history of mountain biking but when I read about trips to other countries, that's what I want to read about. I want to know what the local riding culture is like, who the notable characters are and why they're notable, and just get a feel for the general vibe of the place.
I think the Nesbyen story was a missed opportunity to talk to locals and find out more about the place. Instead it ended up feeleing like a Lonely Planet writer trying to flex his creative muscles and put some colour into the local history section.
Anyway, part of the reason I like to read about far flung places is not some much to find out what the riding is like but what the local scene is like.
Is it possible that the audience for the mag and the audience for the forum are actually pretty different?
At the risk of rambling and not adding anything: I very rarely buy bikes (never new ones) and have no interest in racing etc. I think I might have subscribed to the mag one year ages ago but let it drop. I would probably pay for forum membership now that I know it's useful...but I tend to drift in and out to avoid getting bogged down in forum politics
so articles about riding in Andorra or Croatia or something are of limited value really
Tbf travel writing (like food reviewing, mayne even top end gear reviewing) isn't solely to be "practical". Sometimes it is escapism. There are plenty of people that read supercar mags but will never buy a new car, who read Jay Rayner but don't go to 5* restaurants etc.
Haven’t read the entire thread and although Ive had a monthly sub for quite a few years, I’m currently a freeloading free member, but I think you really need to sort the stability of this forum. It’s a good forum one the whole, and searching for random non bike related stuff on google, posts quite often come up from here and other large sites like pistonheads and mumsnet.
The difference is those sites don’t repeatedly crash. This one has for years now. The way I personally use it is: first crash, ok let it reload and carry on. Second crash, fark this I’m off, and I’ll go and look at something else. That point is often reached after one or two minutes. I’m on an up to date iPhone.
I think if you sorted that out, you’d find yourself with a lot more traffic which in turn has to only be good for ad revenue. Just my freeloading 2p.