Did anyone on here subscribe to any of the Outside group websites? There look to be some interesting articles appearing on the PB feed but the best stuff is behind a paywall. Seeing as the hardcopy stuff is only available in the US, is the digital sub worth investigating further?

Wondering this myself. Don’t really like digital mags though, as they’re not the same.
Used to buy Bike when Borders was still around. Bought a digital sub after that but it was never the same. Some types of reading just suit real life.

My thoughts exactly. Whilst I don’t mind reading a short piece online, is much rather have a big page if it’s a longer read and photo heavy.

I’m waiting to see how this all pans out.  The podcast with the Outside CEO was a horrible reminder of new CEO presentations given at companies I worked for that were taken over.

I do have a Trailforks Pro subscription because Trailforks looked promising but I fear the whole Outside shenanigans will have pretty much halted anyone voluntarily adding trails to it.  I have no interest in their long distance national trails, snowmobile trails, etc.

I also took advantage of the half price Beta sub as I like their content but won’t be renewing at full price as I won’t get and wouldn’t really want a paper mag.

I do enjoy PB content especially field tests, Grim Donut and their podcasts. Plus Gaia could actually be useful now View Ranger is no more (but no OS mapping).  I could easily be persuaded to subscribe to some or all if they pitch the price right and haven’t lost/ruined what I like.  But that is what I am waiting to see

turn on reader mode and you can read the articles 😉

I love a bit of pinkbike, but I’m happy to accept they’ve got a lot of wages to pay so need financial input too. I may not like it, but it’s understandable.

You can adjust settings to not see the beta (paid for) articles on the home page. In US the beta subscription comes with a paper magazine everywhere else just a digital copy and I believe prices are the same.

Timely, saw an article on PB today about saint brakes and an ad for half price off the Beat MTB subscription to $2 PM, went through the motions of signing up but need to input card details and dont fancy walking to the car to get it so aborted (why cant places just take apple pay or paypal when on my phone)

When going through the Outside sign up I didn’t realise they had so many sports genres covered, the wider monthly sub was $8, but as others have said, I would like something to read as opposed to starring at my screen more.

turn on reader mode and you can read the articles

Amazing how many websites that works on!

NB I had an Outside magazine subscription for a year – didn’t actually like the magazine at all, very different to their web site for some reason.

turn on reader mode and you can read the articles 😉

I never knew this!

turn on reader mode and you can read the articles

ha thats great thanks

You can adjust settings to not see the beta (paid for) articles on the home page.

I’ve been looking for this. Can you tell me how to turn the Beta articles off please?

Cycling Industry News reporting that Outside are ditching the print stuff anyway.

Quite how they hope to achieve meaningful ‘high quality storytelling’ on an endless feed of video shorts eludes me.

PB is kinda getting on my nerves with video content. I’m often sitting reading WFH or while family are here and i don’t want tonnes of videos, i want actual content.

STW do it with podcasts too, i don’t want podcasts, i want articles, that’s why i’m on a text based forum 🙂

Less videos, more words.

Outisde are currently in the process of shedding 20% of their editorial staff. So whatever they hoped to achieve with the purchase of Pinkbike mostly hasn’t worked to bump up the numbers of subscribers. I’ve no idea if any of those redundancies are staff from Pinkbike

Less videos, more words.

I think you’re going to find yourself more an more the minority unless substantial more amounts of people pay for what they like to read

I think you’re going to find yourself more an more the minority unless substantial more amounts of people pay for what they like to read

I think i already am 🙂

Just looking at PB, the main front page has 12 videos and 4 articles… then 3-4 results.. So it’s already 3:1 just today… Which i’m not keen on…

No. Not going to either as it’s definitely gone the wrong way since the Outside takeover.
I also prefer fewer videos. Even on here. For instance I love a tyre chat but haven’t got round to looking at the recent tyre video.
Anyway, back to PB, it’s the world cup coverage, photo epics and fantasy league in particular, that I go there for. But then there isn’t a xc fantasy league this year…rubbish.

So no to subs.

Outisde are currently in the process of shedding 20% of their editorial staff. So whatever they hoped to achieve with the purchase of Pinkbike mostly hasn’t worked to bump up the numbers of subscribers. I’ve no idea if any of those redundancies are staff from Pinkbike

It’s weird that nothing’s been announced anything on PB or Beta, when the Beta editor has posted that the plug has been pulled on the magazine…
https://www.instagram.com/p/CdwLrsjv9_N/

So redundancies will most-likely be from Beta staff and motivated simply by it losing money – it’s obviously failed to gain traction, despite heavily leveraging Pinkbike for promotion.

With my editorial hat on, I’d say there might be some potential to develop a paid premium membership tier with Pinkbike/Trailforks – but the way they have tried to do it felt a bit rushed and haphazard. And didn’t really offer enough benefits to win over the hugely sceptical PB comment section.

Outside Layoffs

I’m also not a fan of video content, I feel you can dip in and out of an article and skim over if you’re in a rush whereas with a video you’ve got to commit to the whole thing. If I want a video I’ll generally go to YouTube rather than through a website.

With Pinkbike/Beta, to me it didn’t feel like Beta added anything. It felt more like they just decided to take certain bits that always used to be on Pinkbike and then put them behind a paywall on Beta. I’d happily pay for quality content but it feels like there’s less and less.

I don’t know how long articles take to write but in theory a video can be shot in real time and be faster to make. However a quality video needs so much editing and production that I bet articles are easier/faster.

It felt more like they just decided to take certain bits that always used to be on Pinkbike and then put them behind a paywall on Beta.

They didn’t do that at all.

They took bits from the print mag and put them online behind a paywall. Some looked interesting, but many were a bit “meh” IMO.

The declaration about “more video” should be read in the context of them culling print mags, not as an intention to have fewer online articles (which PB do quite well IMO).

They took bits from the print mag and put them online behind a paywall. Some looked interesting, but many were a bit “meh” IMO.

But are they things that would have ended up on PB normally anyway ? I think probably yes.

First one for example
Yeti 160E Long-Term Review

Can’t see any reason that wouldn’t have made it anyway.

next.
Opinion: It’s Time For Women To Have a Presence at Rampage

Again… if there was no Beta/Paywall, the odds are that would have still been an article on PB.

So are they actually creating more content than before and putting some behind the paywall, or are they doing exactly as they were, but charging….

In their defence, as with STW, if you pay staff, you need to make an income…. so i’ve got no issues with them doing this.. Just needs to be something that would make me pay and i’m not seeing that yet.

Again… if there was no Beta/Paywall, the odds are that would have still been an article on PB.

If there were no Beta, they wouldn’t have existed. They were Beta content. Created by Beta staff.

They were just cross-promoted on PB.

but the PB staff could/would arguably have written the same articles ? Maybe not the Yeti one, but certainly the women at Rampage discussion.