Except they still have competition and some of their former employees may soon be in direct competition with them. It does also seem like they are losing a lot of members in the Veloclub right now. I don’t know how much ads vs. Veloclub membership means to their bottom line, but in an ad market that is already tightening they will be hit on two fronts.
I really don’t see the huge upside to this. Sounds more like a traditional approach to cost cutting that somewhat backfired.
I let mine go. You can still use it for one location and I’ll use one of the competitors if I need to. Sucks, because I love trailforks, but I loved CT and Peloton even more.
I’m genuinely sad at the demise of CT. I really enjoyed most of their content and writers, and was happy to pay for it. I don’t see anyone in the market offering exactly the same type of product - detailed and apparently unbiased reviews, genuine investigative journalism, the occasional long-form ‘essay’-style piece, several good podcasts - and I think Outside’s first mistake was not realising the site’s essential niche/USP.
As others have mentioned, they will have lost a lot of customer goodwill over this, and it also isn’t a good look to advertisers, so I would be very surprised if this was the goal from the outset.
The wider question, of course, is how do you monetise print/written journalism in a world which has become very used to accessing it for free? I seem to remember reading somewhere that in real terms the New York Times only pulls in 1/4 of the revenue it did pre-online publication, which perhaps illustrates the scale of the problem. Also, while anecdotal, a friend of my wife’s was a freelance journalist (in the legal world) and has switched careers, simply because fewer and fewer outlets were willing to pay remotely sensible money for her work, despite a very good c.v. and track record. It’s not a business I’d want to be in if my family was depending on me as the main breadwinner.
That said, I wish the old team a great deal of luck with their new venture and the podcast.
It boggles the mind the way they did this.
Velonews fell apart a long time ago (Fretz left, Connor Fasttalk left, Case left, etc) . It seems like they should have kept the CT crew and let them produce all their cycling content.
It does make sense that they could have one managing editor for all the sites with a bunch of writers and tech editors writing the content.
I think they underestimated how popular the personalities were via the podcast and social media. Now all their properties just become a generic cycling news sites with lots of overlap.
Agree completely, and this after the related demise of Peleton Magazine. I guess i’m gonna try Rouleur now, seems to be the only quality cycling pub with any depth left.
I’m torn. MTB Project works reasonably well where I live in CO, but it’s really nice to have both to reference, especially when traveling. Definitely not keen to keep supporting Outside, but I haven’t let it lapse yet. Still mulling that one over.
Don’t forget AllTrails in the mix too
I signed up as an early pro TrailForks user, so get 50% off the initial price for life. But, I don’t like supporting Outside. I’m still not sure what I’ll do. I suspect I’ll cancel when TF renews in around Sept 2023. A real shame. I really think TF is good for mountain biking. Strava segments are so hit and miss as far as being rideable courses, and TF focused on complete trails, so you could plan a day around TF, but Strava would just be confusing if there’s 4 segments but no obvious way to link them up etc.
Given I’ve now seen what we can lose with CT imploding, I’ll be happy to pay a decent amount for whatever Caley does next. Given CyclingPodCast has also faded from it’s former glory, I really hope Caley’s new venture includes 1) the deep dive articles Ian did, 2) a group of journalists following the GT’s with daily updates that include talking about the food and wine etc. The experience of getting the daily on-site look into the tour, the podcast recorded in some bustling French cafe etc. I felt like I’d watched the stage live and was also enjoying some local wine at the end of a long day.
This is my case too. We (as in everyone) have been so used to getting things for free but if nothing else this implosion has shown that this money goes to real people and helps them to do real things.
I know I’d happily pay a fair bit to support the CT refugees. I have zero interest in any of the other sites for free or paid.
Hopefully many more feel this way and actually put some money down.
But that’s the thing, a lot of people were paying for Cyclingtips under the impression that this wouldn’t happen. Or at least that was my impression. I don’t know if they just took on too many staff members too quickly or bought too many bottles of rosé at le Tour, but I guess the numbers didn’t add up.
I paid the regular price one year and then it lapsed and they did their $9.99 for 12 months deal.
If Caley gets something going and it includes the “on the ground, podcast done at a bar with Rupert, Dane and Caley” factor, then I’m happy to subscribe at a decent rate.
I’d pay double if they get Lionel from the cylingpodcast to provide a daily cassoulet review.
I am finding that things I subscribe to are less about what I get, but more about the community they support. Examples being things like Bikepacking.com, who do send me a few nice magazines a year, but I don’t have time to read them, and the subscription is just to support them as they grow cycling/community in a direction I appreciate. So I don’t want a photo annual from CT, I don’t want a t’shirt or mug, I just want the community they provide and to live vicariously though their following the the GT’s and spring classics.
Fair…but I certainly don’t regret spending what I did on CT. But… I also don’t regret pulling my money when Outside blew it all up.
I also paid because, regardless what happened, CT have me value.
Velonews and Cyclingnews and the like have never really been worth much to me.
Oh 100%. I don’t regret subscribing at all, but I wonder why that model didn’t work and what Caley et al will do differently this time.
I assume they won’t sell to Outside. 
Or anyone for that matter.
Haha, well played.
We obviously don’t know the particulars of CT’s financials, but based on what has been said on podcasts previously, my guess that what “didn’t work” was being part of a larger media conglomerate.
So when other Outisde properties were struggling, cuts were needed across the board, not just within the struggling properties.
When a larger corporation is feeling the financial pressure, rarely does one division get to stand on the sidelines, no matter how successful they may be. The on,y bottom line that matters is the one for the entire corporation.
Yeah, my impression was they were doing fine until they got sold to Outside. Caley/Wade said Veloclub was profitable right up until the end. I was proudly a paid Veloclub member for multiple years. I was shocked when they offered the Outside version of their membership and it was CHEAPER…and then a year later it was basically dead.
The following is paraphrased from what Wade has said in the past. In 2016 or 2017, Wade sold a portion of the company to BikeExchange, in order to expand more rapidly. This is what led to the hiring of Caley, et al. Basically he lost that portion of the company in unfavorable circumstances when that had financial difficulties. Eventually ownership ended up with Outside and we all know how that went.
CyclingTips was already wholly owned by Pinkbike when the latter was bought by Outside Inc.
And at that time, Pinkbike was also already majority owned by a VC firm.
I skipped a step, and shouldn’t have. Thanks for the additional info.