So if Singletrack did a road issue, say twice a year would you buy it? To include all things dropbar road, cross, touring , monster cross etc

Would it be called ‘Singlelane’?

I could be tempted if it covered stuff like commuting and touring, not just Lycra Road Ninja racing.

Don’t be mixing cross up with road. Some roadies are incredibly parochial. If they’re not polishing their hubs they’ll be putting their socks through yet another boil wash. Mud doesn’t go with those guys.

That’s why an alternative would be good. If it has drops it’s in.

No. I doubt the staff know enough about road cycling to make it a good read and the last time I looked at STW the photography was poor and a good road magazines all have great imagery.

The genre seems well covered already, why would STW attemp a new road magazine? Cross is growing but a whole mag?

Yeah a whole mag but geared to MTB folk who ride road/ drop bar bikes. Most mags are just a bit meh.

As an MTBer that also rides a road bike, I can safely say that the roadie mags all turn me off pretty drastically, because the focus is always on speed, fitness and buying the latest flashest kit to make you that 0.00001% quicker. Thankfully no MTB mags, least of all STW, are essentially an “XC racer world” take on Mountain Bikes, so would be refreshing to read a roadie mag that had a take on it that was more about the enjoyment of just being out on a bike, the kit that allows you to just have fun, and nice places you should go to to take in some memorable routes.

So I’d be interested for sure…

What Mboy said is what thought.

The forum would be full of MTB threads…

APF

No

the forum would be equally middle class, snobbish and deluded by marketing and advertising as the other. Questions about lots of really interesting everyday stuff would come up, but the general gist will be of conformity and how to buy/spend money on things. The occasional bright spark of a really interesting thread will pop up, then it’ll go back into the same old slush. People will ride bikes and be interested in bikes though!

Yeah a whole mag but geared to MTB folk who ride road/ drop bar bikes.

That sounds awful. Tales of fat lads averaging 15mph to the nearest cafe and then scoffing cake and drinking coffee all morning. The articles will probably be swamped with those annoying macro photos of flapjack that everyone who’s shitonabike and doesnttakecyclingseriously tend to take.

Dont want to see that. I dont think anyone does. It’ll probably put people off the sport.

I wanna see pictures of fit pros in lycra attacking hills in the big ring. Tales of proper racing.

Inpsirational reading for when you’re sat in the cafe.

but i like cake

It would be called road.cc

Its all cycling and getting your ass off the sofa ennit.

You mean Singletrack isn’t a road mag? 😯

It would be called road.cc

this.

and hopefully a bit of this;

http://www.patisseriecyclisme.com/

Would I buy it?
No. There are plenty of mags in an already crowded market. Trying to shoehorn another in would be a bit silly.

I think apart form boutique projects and the odd short-term cash-in or cyclings current popularlity I don’t think anyone with any foresight would launch a magazine or any sort. ST towers have already aluded to having to work out a future for themselves without magazine sales and its reckoned magazines generally will have disappeared in the next 5 to 10 years. There’ll be a tipping point where sales drop to a point where shops and distributors no longer want to bother with it and they’ll all disappear.

i love my road bikes aswell as my MTB’s but ive completely stopped buying road mags..same s@@t every time i open one

I do think if they get the online/offline balance working as a business model then rolling that out into a road.cc based mag would make a lot of sense, tbh.

Would it be called ‘Singlelane’?

More like ‘Cyclepath’

🙂

I think apart form boutique projects and the odd short-term cash-in or cyclings current popularlity I don’t think anyone with any foresight would launch a magazine or any sort. ST towers have already aluded to having to work out a future for themselves without magazine sales and its reckoned magazines generally will have disappeared in the next 5 to 10 years. There’ll be a tipping point where sales drop to a point where shops and distributors no longer want to bother with it and they’ll all disappear.

Sort of. Magazines won’t disappear but the way they are delivered and consumed will. I’m already only buying Dirt and occasionally MBUK electronically (I don’t buy STW as the editorial is just not interesting for me).

Attempting that would be commercial suicide.

Naff suggestion: some South African cycling mags have road at one end and off-road upside-down at the other end so you get 2 mags in one. Off road racing is big in SA because of the dangerous roads and nice dry trails.

Doubt the staffers have time between writing an off-road mag and dealing with floods!

CTC / audax mag covers the bases for non road raceng and bling kit.

Currently reading ‘The Obree Way’ and he reckons the difference between good kit and top end kit is minimal. Proper bike set up, training, breathing and pedalling more important way to go. Of course if everybody thought like that the mags would have nothing to write about.

NO. In the biggest font I can muster.

There was talk of a road bike/biking article in ST – it never appeared, I think it got shouted down. I said I’d stop my subscription. 😈

the difference between good kit and top end kit is minimal

I think everyone agrees with that.

But even a 1% betterer bit of kit equates to an extra 100m over your rival for the same effort for each 10km covered.

and top end kit tends to look lovely too 🙂

Well

Singletrack isn’t like any other MTB mag – and hence it’s why I buy it – I’m exactly the target reader.

I also ride a road bike, really enjoy it but I’m not a roadie and roadie mags hold little interest. Most of my road riding has been on my own or with one mate until recently when I found a local club without an attitude.

So if there was anyone who could bring out a road mag issue to appeal it’d be the Singletrack boys.
Twice a year sound about right for my level of interest.

I’d like to see articles that mirror the sorts of questions asked in the forums.

– reviews to help buy a bike
– what to expect at different price points
– the different group sets
– Frames
– Wheels – how much !!
– something to drool over

– some adventures similar to the offroad stuff in the mag
– road etiquette – riding in a group etc

Count me in

reviews to help buy a bike

I can do that.
1) Lightest you can afford. 2) Pick the one you like the look of. 3) If choosing difficult, the same brand as your roadie hero who wears the team jersey you buyed.
8)

No, if I want a road bike mag I will buy one. I don’t.

talking of new road mags, I had a flick through “Cyclist” in WHSmith last week, the new roadie mag from Dennis publishing.

In short, I thought it was a poor mans “Rouler”. they have tried to mimic the journal type appearance of Rouler and feature higher end stuff but the general lay out and articles werent much cop at all. I got the imnpression their market was rich newbies given the Wiggo article which was a bit same-y as so much has been written about him in the last 12 months.

Some of the editorial team are from CW, others are from Men’s Fitness, it shows. It was very fact-based and lacked any real emotion. It didnt make me want to put the magazine down and go out riding in the same way Rouler or ST does.

I buy CW before and during the Grand Tours but its just repeats for the rest of the year, anytime now they trot out the winter clothing, how to winter proof your bike and what training wheels articles….
Like I dont need to read a magazine before I go to the supermarket to buy food, I dont need a magazine to tell me what bike to buy.

I completely agree, BristolPablo. It was very generic, and seemed very dull. Those magazines pop up every few years.

Erm.. no, sorry.

STW is (cough) unique and long may that continue.

A roadie mag would dilute and not add to the cause. Though saying that CS and ProC have dropped off my radar over this last year and trying to compete with Rouleur would be pointless IMO.
Even that mag Peleton that occasionally appears is a bit to samey to Rouleur.

Nah, stick to MTBs, you have a unique market, just build on that.

It’d be full of the same old drivel articles from ‘mates’ and have endless articles about riding your road bike in the snow.

Sorry, I’m out.