I like the comment suggestions of digital only along with annual / bi annual mag books with some extra exclusive articles and / or longer extended versions of articles with extra photos etc.
You should have seen the vitriol they got when they put in a small supplement about CX bikes!
I enjoyed that, and would be happy to read more. Articles on road biking for MTB'ers would even be fine. However I also remember years ago Dirt included some BMX stuff, which I thought was a waste of time, and put me off the mag a bit. Not everyone would like the diversity, that's for sure.
Shame he wasn’t more forthcoming during the upgrade debacle, I cancelled by subscription over the way it was handled and general contempt towards forum users (which the article does nothing to dispel).
Difficult to argue with this. Put it this way, the 'attitude' doesn't do anything to promote charity towards STW. The 'active' mods don't help either, and are contributing to the slow death.
Numerous forums have the means to only allow acces to the sales section via a minimum number of posts and/or subscriptions.
its not hard.
That alone would pay for the forum many times over.
This place makes out its so difficult to run it’s laughable to those of us who frequent/moderate on other forums
Imagine STW is a trail centre (just a little tongue in cheek)
Cougar is in reception, she's not alone, the place is humming, the people not drinking coffee from thermos flasks outside are helping themselves from her machine as they hang around chatting while Cougar fixes their laptops between answering the phone, handing out route maps, putting plaster on grazed knees and keeping up a constant heart massage on someone who's probably dead till the ambulance arrives
Chipps is out riding a flash bike that he borrowed off the bike rack of a T6 in the car park. The bike owner will never notice, it's only there for decoration and the bar is open till after dark.
Drac is in the bar serving his following of the owners of all those Focus STs, Beamers, and Tsomethings in the car park. MTBers aren't really welcome in the bar, dirty smelly argumenative things they are, they sit outside with their themos flasks or scrounge a coffee in reception.
Will is in the bike shop trying to sell a 1400e fork to the only customer who came in for an inner tube for her kid's bike. She's now not sure if she wants the inner tube as it appears non of the guys know how to fit it and they don't sell cheap pumps or tyre levers, best ask one of the MTBers chatting outside or ask in reception. The workshop door got stuck and as no-one had the mechanical nouse to free it no-one has been in there for months. The huddle in the corner; Andi, Anthony etc and some reps are discussing which top end bike to give pride of place on the display.
Hannah is out riding with some MTBers, she's been given some more helmets to test so is heading for the biggest jump on the black.
The office has a "do not disturb" sign hanging on the door so no-one goes in or has any idea what goes on in there.
On a serious note to STW and all who sail in her: all the best with evolving the busines model to appeal to both the clients who pay for the advertising and the clients who read the pages, and finding a compromise between their needs which means pandering to one doesn't alienate the other.
Imagine STW is a trail centre
a load of folk (who don’t pay to use the car park/facilities) protesting loudly about a new red graded trail being built in place of a blue one that they’ve been riding for donkeys years?
Cougar is in reception, she’s not alone
err...
More like a load of folk who have been digging and maintaining the trails for years for free being a bit non-plussed when the owner of the centre says he doesn't really care about the trails and they are only there to fund his loss making, artisanal coffee shop next door 😈a load of folk (who don’t pay to use the car park/facilities) protesting loudly about a new red graded trail being built in place of a blue one that they’ve been riding for donkeys years?
Imagine STW is a trail centre (just a little tongue in cheek)
....meanwhile, in the car park , Edukator is giving a lecture on how easy it is to perform a perfect J-turn in a Winnebago without knocking over a nice glass of red with the headstock of your vintage guitar.
No one is really paying attention. 😉
They've worked out the people behind the "do not disturb" sign just regraded the old blue trail to red rather than fix all the potholes and braking stutter bumps, and officialised an unrideable section around a fallen tree rather than pay a lumberjack to remove the tree.
again in jest - and it was too obvious an answer not to type
edit: and I see Perchy has taken it in the spirit it was typed. 😉
Downtrodden, overworked, multitasking, the-business-would-fall-apart-without-them receptionists are always female, Steve.
receptionists are always female, Steve.
Tsk...
My favourite bit about the upgrade is where several forumites who work in IT (who knew!?) offered their help for free....ignored.
On a more serious not...
If you want our money tell us when we get the mag archive back and a timetable on the forum fixes. As much as people want this place to succeed and have invested in it for quite some time now that is part of the exchange of monies for goods and services.
My subscription lapsed when my card expired and I wasn't fussed enough to renew because I found the magazine repetitive so had stopped reading it. I certainly think a bit more diveristy wouldnt be a bad thing. I can't see the issue with bringing in some of the grit.cx content to the main magazine. Likewise covering a bit of MTB racing. It might not be right up everyones street but there must be enough interest to read about them, otherwise how do regular newspapers survive - assuming we don't all have direct interest in becoming a lying, embezzling politician or a murderer.
Drac is in the bar serving his following of the owners of all those Focus STs, Beamers, and Tsomethings in the car park. MTBers aren’t really welcome in the bar, dirty smelly argumenative things they are, they sit outside with their themos flasks or scrounge a coffee in reception.
No Ford owners thanks.
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</p><p></p><p>NO! They have actually done something right and not tried to be a jack of all trades. Still not mastered the forum mind but at least stuff happens on here. When DW and SDH went to social media it was the beginning of the end and the forums died.</p><p></p><p>I also don't read the mag, every time I have a look it just doesn't draw me in, maybe if they did more bikepacking and such it would.</p><p></p><p>I would be happy to pay towards classifieds IF and only if they were actually organised in such a way that you could easily browse for specific parts as opposed to the mess it is now. There are too many ads to just have a free for all; it would be the easiest thing in the world to split it into whole bikes, frames, drivertrain etc. as so many other forums have successfully done in the past. As it is if you haven't sold within a couple of days then you probably aren't going to sell at all unless someone bumps the post. Getting rid of the chat would also be a great way to kill your user base.</p>without the younger generations signing up (which I assume they won’t as there are more modern apps aimed at them than you can shake a stick at), it has a limited amount of life left in it. Think they have missed the boat in terms of keeping up with the way things are going.
My favourite bit about the upgrade is where several forumites who work in IT (who knew!?) offered their help for free….ignored.
I liked that bit where there was an open invite to the office for IT types to come along...ignored.
It is not know why, but emus cannot walk backwards.
Can't or won't?
I'd agree with ferrals. I was for cancelling the lot as the mag hasn't done much for me for a long time as it is I'm switching to digital. The last memorable article was one on the Tour Divide and I think that was a while back. I am a fan of the new look though and the photography is exceptional but the content is very samey. As a habitual magazine purchaser in the past when this happens it's normally time for a change at the top and I really can't help but feel the mags range of interest is narrowing gradually all the time. As for the brouhaha with the CX thing iirc the mag had several articles in the same issue (?), just drip feeding some other stuff would be nice, funnily enough the inclusion of e bikes seems to be less contentious than the CX/gravel stuff.
Just renewed mine, I was digital only but i have come to hate reading things on a screen! so good old paper copy for me!
I bought a P to get rid of the ads. I've tried to read the digital mags but they don't work that well on the phone and to be honest from giving the mags a skim when I see them it doesn't feel like I'm missing much. It feels like it's moved away from it's original ethos that drew me to it in the district place to become a slightly higher quality MBR alike.
I picked up a copy of cranked in whsmith after getting stuck in a station and subscribed based on that. For me it is a far more engaging magazine because it stays away from much of the MTB magazine tropes. The longer articles work better and the good quality paper and photos hold my attention better. It feels like a more robust version of the stw of old.
The front-page is slow for news so I tend to go elsewhere for that. The stw powers that be might not be excited by it but the forum is the only USP they have at the moment, and that's being made a mess of right now.
Been a subscriber for a few years but have been thinking of cancelling recently. The last few mags have been pretty much longer story articles which I've always struggled to read and to be honest, I just don't have the attention span to read those type of articles anymore #millenial
I certainly think a bit more diveristy wouldnt be a bad thing
They get enough stick when including a little bit of CX, scuba would be a step too far.
I quite enjoyed the extra CX bits. I had a P for a fair while and in the end it was the payment card lapsing that did for it. I'd been considering dropping it for a while- probably three things combined. I realised that when a new issue turned up I still hadn't read most of the previous one, I got tired of being lectured about e-bikes and I started to think 'I've read this before' when reading articles.
In the end it turned out that while I couldn't summon up the effort to unsubscribe, I also couldn't find it to sign back up again.
When they tried the CX suff in the mag, it was a relatively long time ago (was it not?). The cycling industry and the forum dwellers have generally become more interested with CX and Gravel riding since then (no not everyone, before you reject that comment based on your own personal view), so I don't think it would be as contentious to try it a little bit here and there now.
Your other problem is that many forum dwellers are very opinionated and also very black and white in their views. Any changes or differences in opinion are very hard to deliver without a tirade of abuse and negativity from what is in all probability a small percentage. This might or might not be a problem.
Talking of CX, has anyone else recently had a visit to STW redirected to STW/gritcx? I'm not averse to it - top story at the moment is a new Ti bike, so even if it was a recumbent DH unicycle I'd be interested - but just intrigued to see the broader focus.
As it is if you haven’t sold within a couple of days then you probably aren’t going to sell at all
or you're just asking too much. anything reasonably priced goes without too much bother ( not that i've sold masses ). anything not priced reasonably ends up being re-listed over and over and over again. some folk just don't get the message.
In relation to the back issues a couple of people have mentioned,
The magazines need to be converted to a format the new forum understands (I don't know the technical details here) and this is a manual process. It's an ongoing concern but obviously STW is kinda busy just at the moment for some reason. They'll get done over time.
 It’s an ongoing concern but obviously STW is kinda busy just at the moment for some reason. They’ll get done over time.
My point was motley don't try and sell what you don't have, be honest about it and keep people informed. Not sure how much info actually was contained in Marks message, I've read it twice now and it doesn't really tell us whats happening apart from wanting more cash from people.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b42w9y
"Ethan Zuckerman was one of the early architects of user generated content on the internet in the mid nineties. He created the code that lead to the pop up advert which he still regrets today but Aleks finds out not for the reasons you would think."
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</p><p>Well done, you completely failed to understand my point. STW star of the day.</p><p></p><p>I'm looking for a set of cranks, I go take a look at the classifieds...</p><p></p><p>What I find is a complete mess of this, that, the next thing and everything in between. No convention of post titles; some vague at best and others completely useless. I look through the first three pages but realise they only cover the last 3 days. Realising my mistake I use the search box only to realise it's forum wide and unless I am very specific with regards to brand or model I face the same problem. Disheartened, I sod off and just buy them on ebay where I can actually find what I'm looking for.</p><p></p><p>I really fail to understand why organising the board better is such a contentious issue?</p>
The magazines need to be converted to a format the new forum understands (I don’t know the technical details here) and this is a manual process. It’s an ongoing concern but obviously STW is kinda busy just at the moment for some reason. They’ll get done over time.
That kinda sums up what is funky about STW at the mo.
It’s an ongoing concern but obviously STW is kinda busy just at the moment for some reason
Thinking of more obscure in-jokes for fresh goods friday?
For the For Sale/Wanted ads
Rotorburn do it well by firstly making it harder to post an ad so stopping spammers
https://www.rotorburn.com/forums/index.php?forums/complete-bikes.33/
https://www.rotorburn.com/forums/index.php?forums/downhill-bikes.104/
https://www.rotorburn.com/forums/index.php?threads/for-sale-template-you-must-use-one.49148/
Categorising the for sale sections, enforcing a template to make sure you have enough info to actually sell the item and modding the hell out of it!
Most buying and Selling is now done through facebook groups 😉
The magazines need to be converted to a format the new forum understands (I don’t know the technical details here) and this is a manual process. It’s an ongoing concern but obviously STW is kinda busy just at the moment for some reason. They’ll get done over time.
If that's just a sheer number/resources thing then would it be possible to have someone write up the process and get some willing volunteers to take 1 or 2 of the old files and re-do them?
I would:
a) get rid of the chat sections keep it all subject related
That is one of the most stupid things I have ever heard of.
No Picolax
No Ling
no Mangeto Dog
No Sudo Cat
No Bullheart.
Your suggestion is rubbish.
I'm happy that my small contribution goes towards producing the magazine, for me personally, the forum comes second to that. If the forum went to save the mag, then I'd be totally cool with that.
The mag may not set my world on fire every time it falls on my mat, but it's always welcome, and every edition is clearly a labour of love, I like the way it's written and published, hell even my g/f enjoys the occasional travel piece in it. If you* want these sorts of things to exist then you have to be prepared to put your hand in your pocket, which I've done since issue 4-ish I think, and will continue to do so.
* collective us.
Mike I'm clearly not talking about anything that proscriptive. Why is it so hard to have a serious conversation on here without someone being a tit and taking it to the nth degree? I'm trying to suggest something helpful and as usual the only responses I get have nothing to do with what I actually said.
It worked fine on the Descent World and Southern Downhill forums and they had a fair turnover, sections were added or deleted as necessary to keep the sales boards orderly.
Of course if this forum software hadn't fallen off the ark we might not need to do that and just use tags instead but since modern software is another taboo I figure this is the least offensive option for the luddites.
Mike I’m clearly not talking about anything that proscriptive. Why is it so hard to have a serious conversation on here without someone being a tit and taking it to the nth degree? I’m trying to suggest something helpful and as usual the only responses I get have nothing to do with what I actually said.
My point was actually it worked really really well just the market has changed and facebook buy/sell groups make things way easier and kind of remove the classified section of forums.
Oh, apologies then! I totally misunderstood what you said.
I'm not sure that's universally true though, the airgun forums I'm on have pretty active classifieds despite the easy availability of Freeads. The classifieds on here have a good turnover. Even a fiver or tenner for a years selling access would still be massively better value, less hassle and a more targeted audience than eBay.
Facebook is just a cobbled together nonsense, you would be relying on the time lines to remain constant or it even showing up. Producers are getting sick of the reach restrictions and I reckon the tide is going to turn soon.
Facebook is just a cobbled together nonsense, you would be relying on the time lines to remain constant or it even showing up.
Yeah, sold 2 frames, 1 set of forks, bike, collection of wheels and a few other bits in the space of 6 months using Facebook back in Oz, you post an ad to a group, somebody tags their mate, they tag a mate who was looking for something and you suddenly get targeted adverts to people who were not even looking seriously that pings an alert to their phone.
The Singletrack product for me is the print magazine and the forum - inseperable.
The magazines need to be converted to a format the new forum understands (I don’t know the technical details here) and this is a manual process. It’s an ongoing concern but obviously STW is kinda busy just at the moment for some reason. They’ll get done over time.
That's nice, and I know I'm shooting the messenger here Cougar but why is this my problem? I'm paying to get access to the back catalogue and for 5 months I haven't had access to it. Plus it's still being promoted as part of the subscription package but STW can't deliver on it.
Again it shows the contentious attitude, which I why I'm not supporting them any more.
