Originally Posted by
merlinextraligh
... My bet is that it's largely a result of what manufacturer's would work with them financially. You can click through to buy those bikes. Pretty sure Bicycling is making some money on that ...
+1.
If a mfr feels their sales pipeline is strong enuf (in their own view), they might well just choose not to 'give away margin' to the magazine, in exchange for the extra exposure.
FWIW, in my experience, how to tell if a sales pipeline is full enuf:
If you come in one day and find that pretty much the worst thing you can imagine has in fact happened, and you and your boss both say "oh well" (as opposed to "oh s***"), then the pipeline was probably full enuf.