Wtf, My Hero Is Destroyed
 

I was reading trackgenie.blogspot.com and they showed me this link to FGG:



here, i'll post it here:

http://www.fixedgeargallery.com/adverts/rates/


Basically, i guess fixed gear gallery gets paid for their reviews and i know that's not totally uncommon, it just sucks because can you really trust a a website's product review if they were paid by the producer to review it? Honestly.

I'm terrible at grammer, btw.

so what?

If you've noticed the "FGG Jackass of the day" thread probably lets you know how much respsect FGG has around these parts.

I quite think you can. In a world where a website gets burned at the stake by its fans for even so much as thinking of advertising, it would certainly behoove FGG to keep their reviews clean.

no ****. go read the review of Alien bikes. It's a god damn joke. You can tell the reviewer thinks the stuff is absolute ****. When he talks about the hub you can almost hear him laughing.

Buzzards gotta eat, same as the worm.

I'm rocking the hubs, they are fine. Review was spot on about the positive things.

I don't know if you've ever read a review on that website, but they tend to fall heavily on the positive side of the scale. I think it's a good website, but not one I'd go to for product review.

Since they're probably receiving said products for free, of course the reviews are going to be positive, or at the very least on the plus side of neutral.

Are you gonna kill the golden goose?

I've always found the fgg reviews to be uninformative puff pieces, left field jackassery or some combination of the two. One of the stupidest things I ever read in a bike frame review came from fgg:

"As I mentioned previously, this bike is a thing of beauty. No ugly welds, no cheap paint, no extra bosses, hangers, etc. Incredibly clean and simple, as a dedicated track bike should be. The one exception is the conspicuous drilling for a rear brake. Milwaukee, and even more so, Waterford, would benefit from leaving the rear bridge undrilled, as it makes an otherwise gorgeous frameset look like a conversion from the rear."

*facepalm*

*facepalm* indeed.

It bothers me to see how many FGG submissions say "donation coming!"

Wtf? I think some of them are sheep and would actually pay if it were a requirement, but most are probably under the mistaken impression that a) they have to pay, b) donations are the polite norm because FGG is non-profit and primarily funded by them.

Since when do money-making ventures get so many donations? Or am I mistaken, and despite all that advertising they don't manage to make a profit? FGG seems to obfuscate what they really are.

I've been wondering about the donation thing for a while. Can the 30 or so sponsors flashing down the side of the page not pay the fees? Or has this small site become a full time job?

A simple piece of software could rotate the sponsor links, post those images every day and do a better job of turning them right-side-up and cleaning up the email text.

A piece of software could also probably write those reviews.

OMG! capitalizm sux

^^ You have missed the point

I'm not saying the hubs suck, but go read the review. He acts like them eliminating the freewheel threads is the smartest thing anyone has ever done.

In terms of donation/ads, how is this site different?

I'm not baiting, just not very familiar with fgg.

Since the sale of bikeforums to the marketroids that bring you the wtf banner ads you're probably loking at now, a lot of the communitarian cachet seems to have dropped out of having a red star. Who knows where fgg is in relation to bikeforums now... I wouldn't donate to them though.

Yeah, donating to them made more sense back when he didn't have 100 ads all over the place. But I'm sure he's doing just fine financially now.

One thing's for sure. At least when you're browsing FGG, you aren't getting database errors every time you refresh.

you should read the review of the Don walker frame.

+1

Just about all magazines do the same stuff, each on a different level of course. Having worked for a few bike companies I vouch for this fact (Im not exactly at liberty to say which mags of course lol)

They were honest with my review...in fact, i thought it kind of got a bit harsh, since I am not the one painting my bikes, but its part of the products and therefore gets the same scrutiny.

DW

I missed this...and yes. it was painful. The bike performed better than anything he had ridden, but my paint sucks...ouch!

DW

So wait, Fixed Gear Gallery is the OP's hero?!? WTF?