As someone who got burned by Fasttalk Labs (they havent put out new content in 5 months for subscribers, but certainly have expanded in other areas) Im a bit gun shy.
BUT, they do say if youre not happy they will refund your remaining balance….so Ill give it a try and hope its awesome.
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I can tell you that CT honored that promise. When Outside bought them and everything went downhill, many, many of us cancelled and got a prorated no questions asked refund.
Also - check out their podcast. It will give you a good feel for their content and style. Spotify
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Alternative take on the situation on The Nero Cycling Podcast. I think it starts @ 30 minutes or so.
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Hot take from Nero! I disagree that they aren’t acknowledging their mistakes from the past. And Nero seems to have the timeline a bit skewed (“lost their audience because the quality of journalism declined, then they lost their jobs”). Makes me wonder if there’s some history with Wade and the Nero guys.
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I think what they’re missing is that the audience is tired of the advertising model. Also, not every journalist wants to be a YouTuber. And one final point: this isn’t YouTube vs traditional media. Audiences want both.
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If you rely on Adsense on YouTube, you do things that give you the most clicks, not the best journalism. Yes, LR does good work, but it’s much different than wat Escape does, and that doesn’t mean it’s the only model that can work. There was also an interesting conversation in the comments between Wade and Chris I think? Chris made an assertion that CT wanted to charge them $15k for a bike review, but Wade says there’s basically no way that happened unless one of the employees went rogue. They were talking about it offline, so I hope that the result of that becomes public.
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A hot take from guys that say they didn’t read CT or even “care” about it until there was some Twitter drama. Ha. If I need to go on Twitter to get the “vibe” of the situation I guess I’ll never get the “vibe.” Ha.
Also talking like Wade and Caley can’t learn from their mistakes.
They just seem mad for two guys I’ve never heard of. I’m sure there is some grey area but they really dug in to some inconsequential stuff.
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I’m in, I miss the CT team already. Was the only place I trusted for bike reviews.
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Thanks for sharing that. I’m kind of surprised at how much misinformation there was in that take. Disappointing for a podcast with a 5 star rating on Spotify.
CT did a good job of balancing goods and bads with the products they reviewed. You may disagree with their overall take but it was always a balanced take. Most of their product reviewers are moving over to this new venture so that should remain the same.
CT usually did a great mix of ‘soul ride’ type articles with a break down of the latest world tour race. Easy to ignore one and just read the other but they usually did both very well.
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I used to subscribe to a couple mags, but dropped them fairly quickly. Same with dirt bike mags back in the day. They all seem to be aimed at people who either don’t ride, or are chasing that ‘perfect rig’ that will either make them (seem) faster, or make others drool. I can get info that I feel I need without spending much/any money. 
I have never had any problems spending my money. Seeing stuff in mags that I can’t even drool over here is just pointless. 
Walking into the local bike shop after I hear goodies are shipping and saying ‘What’s new, and what can I live without!?’ Works surprisingly well. 
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Doubt it. Those guys often have a contrarian take on things. They got some flack early on for their negativity but have since done a better job of being more balanced.
My interpretation from Nero’s video (coming from someone who didn’t read CT but enjoyed their youtube content, (and I’m not sure if this is true) was;
One/some of the creators of CT sold the publication (that was then resold). That was a profitable decision they made, some of those same people are now criticizing the very thing they sold out to and our now playing the “emotional card” to get readers to pledge $100-$1000 to fund their new venture (while saying the youtube model was beneath them).
Again, this was my interpretation of what they said as I remember it, some of if not all of my interpretation could be incorrect.
There are several content creators that have unbiased opinions that are making entertaining content. Their revenue is generated from brands (Manscape/Surfshark etc) outside of bike manufactures or products they’re not reviewing (Zwift). DC Rainmaker GP Llama , come to mind).
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The problem with this logic, is that the original idea to sell part of CT, was not to get rich (as they claim), but to get some extra capital to grow the company. The hiring of James and Caley was only possible because of this investment from Jerry Ryan. Also, none of the people you listed below do the same thing as what Escape does.
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CT was sold a few years ago to one company, who then sold it to another, who then sold it to Outside. The lamenting is that the VC behind Outside killed what everyone loved about CT and turned it into just another clickbait space, which then led to them having little need for quality journalists, which led to mass layoffs. The majority of people that I see criticizing EC are people who are only familiar with CT since the Outside takeover. What that misses is that there is a large group of people (including me), who want to see the return to quality, and unbiased by capital, journalism. That is the goal of EC as I understand it.
Hope that makes sense.
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I kinda feel like the “vibe” they were mentioning is pretty summed up in this thread. I’m not on twitter either so can’t say for sure. I do find it interesting that it seemed like me linking their podcast was the first bit of negativity towards EC in this thread up till that point (that I’ve seen, could be way wrong).
I have no dog in this fight and couldn’t care either way though. 
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Fair.
I guess, for me, it just sounds like negativity for the sake of being negative. Admonishing a new operation for wanting to be supported by the consumers doesn’t make sense to me. But maybe I am just a fanboy but, before the big mess, I personally don’t think there was a better publication than CT.
I just feel the positivity here (and I suppose on twitter) is for a reason. Good people making good content. I don’t need to be privy to the full financials. Unless of course every positive review is paid for.
Even I’d CT did ask for money for a review I don’t think it would guarantee a positive review like many other sites.
I’d rather pay for good content than read or listen to ads for things I won’t buy.
Luckily it’s a free market out there. EC can try their way and Nero can make podcasts with their take.
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It kind of sounded to me like they got upset that James didn’t want to be a YouTuber and somehow took offense to that. I don’t think his intent was to insult YouTubers. I just think someone who prefers the written word was saying they wouldn’t want to do YouTube.
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I’d agree both of these could be true as well.
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I read that comment before the podcast and had the same vibe. James is good on camera but his written work is excellent. Youtube is also a click bait mess, IMHO. You need to fight the algorithm which means potentially altering your work to make it fit the space.
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That’s definitely the messaging I got from EC. And I’m familiar with their history. I can (after watching the Nero video) understand their POV. Aussie culture, from an American POV should be taken with a grain of salt. They’re quite sensitive to the woes me attitude and I can see from Nero’s perspective (not mine) as to how they feel EC could have handled the narrative a little differently.
In light of that, NERO will hear the feedback and most likely address it in their next video. I wouldn’t hold my breath though, there’s a 50/50 they’ll double down. 
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