I’ve dealt with Rob a few times in the past (mostly on the personal side) and he is a good guy and really, really smart. I was a bit surprised he shared as many $ details as he did, but overall, the pod does a great job illustrating all the additional costs associated with manufacturing bike frames, as well as underlining the fact that the value of a product is much more than just the sum of its parts.
Stop me if you have ever heard me say those things before. 
I actually thought the most valuable part of the discussion was, and I’m paraphrasing heavily here “look, by the time we make a profit, the distributor makes a profit, the dealer makes a profit, and all of us pay our staff/benefits, you pay to support world tour teams, etc., it’s not like we’re driving around in sports cars and flying in private jets”.
$8-10k doesn’t go very far in today’s dollars when you take all of that into account.
I like subtle when it comes to bicycle paint schemes, so Factor wasn’t high on my list prior to the podcast, but being willing share that much info moved them up my decision ladder for sure.
Soooo…yes and no here. In Rob’s case, almost certainly true. He is a relatively small fish in terms of his factory and brand.
In terms of the bigger factories, well, let’s just say I have been driven to dinner in a Merc S500 by the owner / manager of a factory more than a few times. 
That said, those factories tended to be some of the largest ones in the industry and they make their $$ through volume at the lower price points in the industry. The high end stuff is a much smaller piece of their overall business.
Already did. Between Ronan’s Performance Process and the Discord channel, I find myself pretty engaged still even though I’m listening to the podcasts less and less.
Certainly a nice ride, but I’m not sure that demonstrates they are inordinately killing it
Same, an hour after sending email. Happy.
S500 is definitely not “killing it”. You see cars of that value or more every day here in the SF Bay Area. Hell, a Tesla Model X had about the same MSRP as an S500 before the recent price drop and I see about 30 of those on my daily commute each day. Now if they were driving you in a Maybach or a Flying Spur, that’d be a different story.
beats the hell out of my Subie Outback.
Yeah…not really comparable to the areas we are talking about.
However, the point is that the owners and managers of the major bike factories in Asia are doing quite well and Rob’s description above is not really indicative of that.
That guy is so overrated. He’s below mediocre and it’s perfectly obvious which relationships he means to foster and which are regular “loaner for review and bye bye”.
GCN live from sponsorships so I was never surprised.
I joined EC because I like the role they have in cycling media, regardless of how much their content I consume.
I like some of their “deeper” articles and tech related stuff, especially by James Huang. On the other hand, I’m not a fan of their race-related coverage.
Contrary to other comments above, I think Abby Mickey’s content is better than the rest of their professional cycling stuff. I guess is personal preference and because lately I’ve been following women’s cycling more than men’s. Simply because I find their races more exciting.
Despite all of this, I still have some grudge with the Cyclingtips debacle. I was a paid subscriber with the intention to support their business, model independent and not funded by ads. Although, the Chainreaction discounts probably paid for the subscription even if I had to message Andy every time I needed to use one code.
Then suddenly I started seeing ads in their articles, they got private capital funding and eventually Outside bought them. So, I can’t help but feeling a little cheated. I have no problem with people making a profit or doing what’s necessary to survive, especially in such a tough industry. I just wish they were more transparent and didn’t play the victim card when all that happened was the consequences of their actions.
So I find their discourse about independent journalism a little cheap. They wanted to have their cake and eat it. They went the private capital route, it backfire so now they’re trying to be independent and member funded again.
To be clear, I have nothing against trying different strategies or correcting their mistakes, it’s part of any business. What bothers me it’s them pretending to be the victims of corporate media when they were the ones who opened the door. Obviously, I am not talking about the employees that had no part in those decisions.
Anyway, that was my rant. A lot of words to say that I have conflicted feelings with EC.
Were they not trying to do member supported before Outside bought them?
Still, the sales pitch did sound cheap to me too. And by cheap, I mean they used to talk like they were a local NPR station always on the verge of going out of business. Too much guilt trip for a for-profit business IMO.
At least the Escape Collective has toned it down a bit.
Yes. Sorry, I wasn’t clear. That’s the issue. I was a paying member. Their pitch was that you pay and in exchange you get no ads and independent journalism. Basically the same as now with EC.
But then they sold a share of the business, introduced ads and were ultimately sold to Outside.
So “member supported” and “independent” were good until they got a better deal from a private investor.
Then they complained when Outside slapped them in the face and went back to their pitch of “support independent journalism”, “private capital is evil”, but it was their decision to sell out to private investors.
I don’t blame them for doing business but I don’t buy their rhetoric that they were victims of big media and that they’re champions of independent journalism.
I don’t think it went down quite like that. It went something like Wade Wallace raised capital by selling a portion/merging? with BikeExchange because otherwise Cyclingtips wasn’t making it. BikeExchange sold their portion to Pinkbike which was then bought by Outside.
You’re right, but that’s no different to what I’m saying. They switched from being member funded to using private capital. That’s the opposite of being independent. It’s also against the “promise” they made when selling subscriptions.
I don’t criticize them for trying or having to get investors or switching models. But they also have to admit they stopped being independent when they went that route and that the downfall of CT is a consequence of their decisions.
Again, nothing wrong with making mistakes or trying different strategies. I just feel that their discourse is bit hypocritical and not transparent.
I support them because I like some of their content and the role they have in cycling media. However, I have conflicting feelings due to how they handled the CT situation and I don’t buy their pitch of being champions of independent journalism.
Didn’t they put out an announcement that their subscription only model is not working and they’ll be out of working capital by the end of the year?
Not sure what’s different this time than Cyclingtips last time, I’m guessing they’ll have ads again soon enough, especially with the same Wade Wallace steering the ship.
But hey, maybe they’ll get lucky and get bought out again too. Rinse and repeat.
Exactly… I have no issues with that tho, it’s a tough industry.
I just find their discourse of independence a little hypocritical considering how things unfolded.
It’s still an entirely different entity than CT, I don’t care if it’s the same people. Values change, people are allowed to express that.
They have made some statements near the beginning of the year that they don’t have enough members to survive long term. Since that time, they have made statements that for the time being, they are going to remain ad-free. Not sure what changed, presumably increases in membership, but haven’t heard that explicitly.
They have always said they will likely eventually have ads….from day one.
I think you’re using the term “they” to be kind and not name names. I respect that so I won’t use their name either. I assume most of us know anyway. I also understand that you value the content and are a subscriber, so I don’t mean this as an attack, but more to explain why I don’t hold it against them the way that some people do.
In a way, by using “they” when we’re talking about one person, it clouds the reality that one person made the decision to sell (right or wrong), not the whole of the team, and that led to the eventual decision by the employees, the users, and even that person, to express regret and take a massive risk to do something new. That person has admitted they made a mistake, even if it may have enriched them. We all make mistakes, but not all of us are willing to dig back in and try to fix that mistake, even if it means a new model that may upset some subscribers. For that reason, while I’m sad it happened, I don’t hold it against them.