Cost of living crisis and Singletrack – An appeal

This needs to be in lovely print as well

Problem is, it takes up a lot of space having a lot of pics (that’s why reviews are better done online imo), and if you are using users pics, they need to be a dab hand on the ol’ picture maker, else it looks shit on the page.

@tomhoward, this is a very good point.

@mark, I was going to donate something earlier but then wondered if actually gifting someone a digital membership would be a better way to spend the cash? Is having more members better than cold, hard, cash?

Can I just ask if I anyone is having problem with the merch pages – doesn’t seem to want to show me very much – have you all bought the coffee and beers already?

Can I just ask if I anyone is having problem with the merch pages – doesn’t seem to want to show me very much – have you all bought the coffee and beers already?

I suspect that is exactly what has happened.  Stock does seem very low now

Which is a good sign I hope.

Jigsaw in my basket for Dad’s birthday present 👍

Can I just ask if I anyone is having problem with the merch pages – doesn’t seem to want to show me very much – have you all bought the coffee and beers already?

Sorry, i bought some coffee

A ‘thumbs up’ reaction is coming in an upcoming release (After the theme update). If that had already happened I’d be clicking the ‘thumbs up’ icon on lots of posts on this thread 🙂

👍

However, my input was to be the first contributor under the nom-de-plume ‘Amanda’ in order to stimulate submissions from genuine partners.

Were you in that VW advert too “At weekends my name is Mandy?”

I like the idea of a regular ‘everyday’ ride section. It would really highlight the diversity of geography and styles of riding.

I know some don’t like the first person stuff, but I think a “How I got to here” concept would be fun. There’d be people who’ve only just found the sport and others that pre-date Sturmey Archer. I recently went back to the woods I first rode an MTB in 30 years ago (still not on Trailforks) and it certainly made me reflect.

Oh Mandy well
You came and you gave without taking
But I sent you away
Oh, Mandy
Well, you kissed me and stopped me from shaking
So I “P”d you today
Oh, Mandy.

@mark

If, as you said earlier on the thread that, you have no problem getting mtb product to review hence FGF why are you reviewing deep fat fryers in the article? What mtb products got bumped to include the cookery section?

If I want to learn about cooking equipment I wouldn’t be on a mountain bike website?

I guess you’re not a fan of chain waxing?

@Mark Why did this weeks FGF only contain a passing mention of Brie? I’m sure some readers are interested in shoes made of questionable mathematics but I only buy the mag to read reviews of creamy dairy products.

@chrismac

I guess you are new to FGF. We’ve always thrown in the occasional curveball to FGF. Nothing got bumped because we have infinite space in a web story. We were once sent 48 boxes of chocolate biscuits – We put them in FGF.

We also post music videos in every FGF too although occasionally one or two may have a passing The Chain style link to riding bikes.

FGF is a fun bit of editorial that we use to show off the new stuff that’s arrived. Charlie this week has been very vocal about his new toy to the point where on his stag do last Saturday outside a pub in Todmorden one of the group said, “Hey Charlie, do you think that bloke over there has an Air Fryer? You should go and ask him!”.

Oh, and if you click the links underneath his contribution this week and buy one we get a commission 🙂

Most of the chat in this forum has nothing to do with bikes – Sometimes FGF likes to reflect a little bit of that.

Apologies for annoying you with this.

Here’s an idea for an article. Which kitchen appliances can be used to wax your chain?

Bonus points if you manage to get pictures of someone being spoken to sternly by a fireman as smoke pours out the kitchen window.

just re subscribed to digital membership. i love this place. dont come on so much nowadays, but would hate to see it go.

ps, can charlie source some XXXL stw t shirts ?

He’s listened and he’s busy sourcing.

🙂

I was about to subscribe for a year, but it appears to suggest an automatic renewal in a year’s time. Is that correct?

STW is ace, been a full subscriber for years and would have no stress paying what I need to in order to get that fresh magazine smell and feel of the paper every few weeks. The stories and images are full of inspiration and unrivalled!!

I was about to subscribe for a year, but it appears to suggest an automatic renewal in a year’s time. Is that correct?

Yes that’s right. Once you have subscribed you can go to your subscriptions settings n your account and click the cancel button. That will cancel the future payment but you will remain a members until then.

I think we all know prices of everything have gone up – so if you don’t put subs up you are effectively cutting them, which is nuts. I don’t actually know what I paid last time but adding the cost of a pint once a year is not going to break the bank – I suspect I’m not alone in this here.

Personally I prefer digital – there’s too much stuff piling up in my house as it is. This also means for me I’d favour cheaper production quality on the paper mag – I don’t want something that looks too posh to chuck in the recycling when I’ve read it – hence I don’t buy it.

You’ve got three devs, I’ve got that for an entire university, with one of the posts that I can’t recruit to.

I’m going to buy a sub and FML.

ok, **** this, just had the popup every few minutes and also whilst trying to typing this.

get a grip you fannys

Hi Mark, thanks for a very honest update of where things are at.
I have been a reader since issue 1, a subscriber since 2006 and a lifer since 2016 and still look forward to the next issue dropping through the letterbox.
I was wondering if it’s possible to promote and make it easier to use the Singletrack links to on-line retailers? It’s not until I read posts like this that it occurs to me and I’m sure, like me, 90% of us buy stuff on a regular basis without using your links. I’m not sure I even know where to find them or who you have links to?
Just a thought.
Good luck in these tough times.
Shack

Klean Kanteen (I had to typed that bout 10 times bloody autocorrect) arrived today, very nicely made and will come in handy. water tight with only a half turn. well worth a look if any left in the merchandise shop

@Mark

Perhaps worth having a buyer’s guide section, unbiased but with the affiliate links? There’s the review section now (the link to older pages has disappeared though) and you can click the tags for products in certain categories, but it doesn’t cater for “I want a tyre for winter / I want a bike but not sure what” kind of things. It would be great if it included all top products in a category even if they haven’t been reviewed (to be unbiased and maintain credibility), e.g. don’t (like other sites) do a buyer’s guide for dropper posts and not include 2 of the best sellers.

Many thanks to whoever bought an Air Fryer off the links in last week’s FGF. That’s bagged us £10 in commission 🙂

An update on work behind the scenes:

The new site theme is almost ready for release. Today we are hoping to get our hands on it on our testbed server to make sure it’s fully operational (It’s been built and tested so far on our techs’ dev area). If all goes to plan we could be ready to launch it tomorrow.

Although this is a seemingly cosmetic/design update it’s far from a simple task. Our site consists of a complex mesh of multiple systems and databases from the forum integrating with our membership system to our API connections to outside servers (Pocketmags is just one example). We have a great many plugins that need to be checked to ensure that play nice with our theme, not just in our dev areas but when they are actually put under the load of 50-60k visitors a day.

What I’m saying is we expect bugs. Bugs that may not exist on the dev site and may also not show up on the testbed site but annoyingly could turn up when 50k people are hitting it right after launch. We have stress test tools but as is the way with complicated software there’s nothing quite like the ultimate test of letting the masses kick the crap out of it 🙂

The forum software itself is one piece of software out of more than 30 individual pieces of software that make up the whole site. All that software is a combination of proprietary and commercial systems that have to manage everything from the icons next to your username and the ads to the payments gateways for the shop and our membership system and paywalls.

So, we expect some glitches. The entire team is on standby to spot and fix them. There is nothing else our tech team will be doing other than that once the new theme launches.

The new site theme is almost ready for release.

Praying for a full Lings-style makeover! 🙏🙏🤣🤣

Can we have a wobbly Mark head in the top left corner!?

https://www.lingscars.com/

FFS @the-muffin-man! It was supposed to be a surprise!

Soz!!! 🙁

Pocketmags is just one example

Hmm, I never did get that to work 🤣

 If all goes to plan we could be ready to launch it tomorrow.

Exciting!

I know lots of people have asked lots of questions about what we do and how we do it and also loads of you have suggested things we should maybe try. Lots of things are already on the list and others are not. This has got me thinking about maybe doing a live Q&A about all things Singletrack over something like Google Meet.

If I scheduled something like that, would anyone turn up? It would probably be at some slightly out of office hours time to allow as many people a chance to tune in. Is that something anyone would be interested in?

Yep, I’d be interested

Mee too, time dependant I’d be up for it.

Made a couple of donations

Why do it as a meeting, requiring people to be available for a specific time period, and taking up everyone’s time with topics they might not be interested in – when it could be done as a forum-based Q&A? Make the thread members-only and delete it after a few days if you want don’t want it sticking on record. Just a suggestion to consider the format to improve participation. I know some people love a meeting though, even if it’s an online one 😉

Face to face questions and answers can sometimes be better. Just a thought

Do a Saturday or Sunday ride, then Q & A in a pub. – Can be streamed.

I’m in for that mark, so long as it’s not in the next three days as I’m on hollibobs with limited net access.