BengeBoy 

Got the new 2009 Bicycling Buyer's Guide today in the mail. Cover story: "Why You Need a New Bike This Year." Inside, letter from the publisher saying even though there is a recession we should all buy new bikes this year. Same message repeated several times in the guide.

I found the layout, typography, etc. more confusing than ever. The photos of the bikes are so small they hardly qualify as bike porn - more like bike porn flash cards.

Anyway, started looking for which bike companies didn't really support the buyer's guide this year.

Specialized - no bike ads - just one page of shoes.

The Great American Trek Bicycle Making Company - not a single ad that I can see.

Did Bicycling Magazine and Trek have a fight? Is Bicycling now completely irrelevant to Trek? Or is Trek cutting its promotional budget that much?

kr32

Trek has Lance, that is all the advertising they need.

BluesDawg

But both Trek and Specialized had two-page ads featuring their unbelievably expensive carbon-framed full suspension bikes in the Buyer's Guide issue of the sister publication, Mountain Bike.

bikinfool

I find Bicycling itself for the most part irrelevant, and annoying in that they keep sending it to me even though I haven't subscribed in years. FWIW the buyer's guides in all the mags pretty much suck these days...seems about 15 years ago a few magazines had some decent guides.

The Great American Trek Bicycle Making Company? Bigger importer than they are manufacturer...

Monoborracho

Hmm. I'll have to look again. I thought they had an ad for a 2.1 or one of their Madone series or whatever they are calling them. They have completely dropped their Pilot line. Trek's prices got pretty crazy and then they put pressure on their dealer network to sell only Trek.

My two closest LBS shops, both of which are independents, dropped Trek. Or rather Trek dropped them.

oilman_15106

Always wondered about these "buyers guide" issues for anything including bikes, camping gear, fishing etc. Do the manufacturers buy the space to put their products in the guide?

bobbycorno

Buycycling has been irrelevant for a long time. Maybe Trek's just figuring that out.

SP
Bend, OR

ModeratedUser150120149

Yep, Bicycling Mag has about as much to do with cycling as Madonna.

As a newcomer to road cycling I read a few of the the mags. Then I realized they were just ads for more expensive bikes. Then I read their web site. They had a request for people to take a survey. Just for funnsies I took it. Or should I say I tried to take it.

As soon as I put in my age a pop-up appeared telling me I didn't fit their criteria and the whole survey vanished. Suspicions confirmed.

The owners have a right to do what they want with their magazine. On the other hand I have a right not to pollute my mind with their age biased, superficial material.

Whiteknight

I bought one copy of that mag. Once home I looked at who published it. That was enough for me.
The publisher is located close to here. Also publishes Prevention magazine and has an organic farm close to Allentown.
Explained the lack of quality in the articles published in the bike mag.

RonH

Who needs Trek?

toddtone

So what the heck does that mean? I live (close to) here too! Rodale is a fine company and tries to do the right things. They have a long history of giving back to the local community, and certainly have supported cycling and other healthy habits for many years.

But I don't really dig their Bicycling mag.

BengeBoy 

Bicycling Magazine does, if they want to survive the recession.

I don't think any "hobbyist" magazine in any field (cameras, motorcycles, skiing, whatever) can survive over the long term if the top 3 or 5 makers aren't in there every issue with significant ads. That's why it was surprising to me to see the "buying guide" issue w/no Trek ads. And with almost no presence from Specialized.

t4mv

But now they're *really* irrelevant because they don't have Style Man, my only reason for cracking the covers...

I wonder if I ditch my *cough* Performance *cough, cough* membership if the subscription will go away?

tom cotter

Bicycling mag has been irritating for years. Do they ever say a bad thing about any product they review? I mean years ago Car and Driver magazine took a picture of a car in front of a junk yard. The message was clear, and funny!

I do find one thing about bicycling mag that i like- Their series on BikeTown. Giving bikes to people and then following their stories-good stuff!

Kurt Erlenbach

The trouble with Bicycling, and to an extent BF, is that there really is only a limited amount that can be written about riding your bike. BF is better, becasue ride reports and life events provide a constantly changing source of conversation. Bicycling, like all hobbyist magazines, is just a delivery mechanism for advertising. That's OK, becuase sometimes it's good to look at bike ads. But after about three issues, you've read all they have to say about cycling, and all that's left is the ads.

Styleman, though, was seriously cool. I remember one particularly trenchant obsservation. In response to a question about whether some kind of clothes were cool, he said that the wearer does not become cool because of the clothes he wears, the clothing becomes cool because the wearer is wearing them. I repeated that a few times over the years to my teenaged children.

BluesDawg

What I think we often overlook in criticizing Bicycling magazine is that they are the mainstream enthusiast publication for the sport of bicycling. A big part of their role is to create enthusiasm and provide basic information to people just getting started in bicycling. That is why they keep recycling the same information so often. Many of the readers are seeing it for the first time. Also, in our culture, many of the first time or returning riders are people with lots of money to spend who want the prestige of the most advanced and prestigious equipment available, whether or not they can really take advantage of the capabilities of such equipment. Of course, with the state of the economy, that is probably going to be shifting toward more economical and practical styles of riding and gear.

Anyway, some of the problems we have with Bicycling is merely that they are fulfilling their role, a role that does not serve more practical and experienced cyclists as much as a newb with a fat wad of cash and a desire to buy experience.

cyclezen

+1
Rodale has for decades been strong within their community, were instrumental in the T-Town Velodrome development and continued improvement.
Bicycling for many decades was an important part of the bike scene. But back then cycling was very focused on road/race/tour. When MTB came along, they covered a little, but hard to give it justice.
These days they are tettering on irrelevance cause they haven't found (or redeveloped) a niche. The online presence of cycling just steals all the thunder there might be for a print pub which won;t be able to give news until 3 months after they hear of it.
So they fall back on 'fashion' - both hardware, softgoods and lifestyle fashion.
The problem with a broad market mag is that given the limitations to how much editorial they can publish at any one time, they're certainly bound to not hit most of the possible audience.
They used to be counted on for a wealth of tech know-how. Now you almost never see anything with a lick of technical worth.
Their Bike comparos are bull****.
Yet occasionally they come up with some great reading, like the article about all the riders who suffered from some automotive meeting and mishap.
For them to stop wallowing in the sargasso sea of medeocrity, they're gonna have to rebuild some solid purpose,editorial and forget about whether what they write is gonna piss off Tre, Specialized or Pinarello.
not sure if they're on track to do it, though.
Having gone thru what seems to be one editor every month. It doesn't seem those editors have enough gumption to get changes made.
Th Buyer's Guide is a great example of some truly wasted paper.
Oh well; things change and often not for the better.

zonatandem

Bicycling lost me back in the very early 80s . . .

tcs

Trek is a consistant full page advertiser in Urban Velo and Momentum.

IIRC Trek advertises regularly in Velonews.

AFAIK Trek has not bought an ad in Adventure Cycling in 30 years.

Bicycling magazine jumped the shark well over a decade ago.

tcs

X-LinkedRider

+1 They pay they're 10 million a year in advertising to Lance.

X-LinkedRider

Allentown, where are you from? I am in the Lehigh Valley.

Velo Dog

Don't know if this is still the case, but when I worked for magazines, Rodale Press (publishers of Bicycling and many other mags) was notoriously, uh, considerate of advertisers. You rarely read an unfavorable review (I can't remember any serious criticism in the four years I subscribed), and there was never a knock against a product made by a major advertiser. They were shameless in ad placement, for instance putting a full-page ad on the page following a rave review.
Advertising is way down these days, because nobody's spending money, and bike companies are suffering because hardly anybody really NEEDS a new bike when his job's either gone or uncertain. So they cut back on ads, and Rodale throws nickels around like manhole covers--to cut costs, they reduce the size of pictures, edit the text down to meaninglessness and put out a(nother) useless product.

Torgrot

Print media is becoming largely irrelevant. PC Magazine folded its print business last year. Newspapers are folding daily it seems like. https://www.seattlepi.com/ I live in an area with two major newspapers today but for how long? One is trading at about $.03 a share this week. Nobody has figured out a way to sell advertising in print in the world of the internet.

torgot