Argh......cyclingnews.com

csp

I have just joined the cyclingnews.com forum. There are numerous threads already complaining about the new site, including a "Did you join the forum because the new site is bad?" thread.

jimmythecuckoo

That is a bad forum already the Cyclingnews.com one...

fanboi's a go-go I call it.




(well I don't, but you know what I mean)


If people are going to register on here to complain about it, I might register on CycleChat to do likewise.

TheStone

Why, why, why!!!!!!!! Do they hate cyclists or something???

They took the excellent cyclingplus forum and ruined it.
Looks like they're now doing it again with cycingnews.
Bikely is also being merged in somewhere a mostly doesn't work anymore.

3 of my favorite sites!

redddraggon

Taylor Phinney on Twitter wrote:

For the record: I prefer the old website. New one looks exactly like BikeRadar.com... No point in having two of the same websites!

Even Taylor Phinney thinks it's crap

csp

There is now a "Full Archive" link on cyclingnews, leading to the old site, no longer updated, of course, but it's still good for PTP research.

csp

This is a good substitute:

http://www.roadcycling.co.nz/

GroupOfOne MkII

Jeez, even the nice teams database appears to have been mangled.

Instead of being able to click on a team's name and see all the team info, riders and their DoBs etc on one screen, you now have to click on each riders name to get the info.

simon_e

TheStone wrote:

Why, why, why!!!!!!!! Do they hate cyclists or something???

No, more that they feel the need to 'improve' things.

I don't understand why the obvious similarity to Bikeradar - might as well port one address to the other's content. As has already been said, it looks like they haven't retained the simple touches people really appreciated (notably in News Editions) in the new layout. Between them the banner, nav bar and carousel.swf Flash-based news thingy eat up too much real estate and don't provide anything the old faster-loading, simpler, browser-friendly site didn't have. When I click through an old version News Editions loads in about half the time.

Essentially, they think like (mag) designers rather than cycling fans - boxouts with background colours, everything in 'sections' and swish graphics, with the obligatory Flash - the bane of anyone who takes useability seriously - used prominently to show they really are with the times. Animations are for cartoons. This is News, just give it to me straight!

Cute icons, tabs and so on should in theory be better than a piece of text but they probably weren't looking at the site from the regular visitor's PoV. Looking at the race results section down the LH side the old site's clear dividing titles and obvious (retro?) blue links make it easier even if it doesn't fit in with the Deep Purple colourscheme. There are 8 links for the TdS, only one of which is linky purple. Some text wrapping issues too, running 1024x768 here.

I'm not saying the old site didn't need improving - far from it - but the front page could have been changed more subtly.

3 months down the line we'll probably be resigned to it.

andrew_s

I reckon it's stage one of a plan to merge bikeradar and cyclingnews into one site.
Anyone who's registered in both places can look forward to logging on one day and finding that their old "bikefan" user id has ceased to exist and they have to log on as either bifefanBR or bikefanCN.

The Prodigy

I don't think its too bad, First Edition could be easier to spot though

don key

It may have been mentioned but i'm on auto hoover of all my favourite shiites but the new and greatly condescending British Cycling webshite is oddamGawful , especially now that they insist you trawl the whole page before finding the thing you wanted, namely the back button. I couldn't even find my horiscopic weather vain. It may all just be cycobollogical.

Ed Moses

I used to like looking at Cyclingnewa on my iPhone on the way into work and the old site was great - nice simple layout with quick access to the latest news as a single link - you could download the page/pictures and then spend 5-10 minutes reading it, regardless of the changeable signal quality on the train - the new website is unusable in this environment.

BTW did your new site designers not know that flash does not work on the iPhone???

afx237vi

At least they've gone back to listing the full race results without having to click "more". That was mega annoying.

I like the idea of permalinks for the news items, but I also did like reading all of the day's news on one page. Maybe they could have a compromise with in-page permalinks using the # thingy at the end of the URL - a bit like the archive pages on Blogger blogs.

Also, where is the calendar?!

Trev36

afx237vi wrote:

but I also did like reading all of the day's news on one page.

Select the 'First Addition' heading and you then get all the news on the one page,

I don't like the new site, it's to messy and to slow, Keep it simple for best results.

afx237vi

Trev36 wrote:

afx237vi wrote:

but I also did like reading all of the day's news on one page.

Select the 'First Addition' heading and you then get all the news on the one page,

I don't like the new site, it's to messy and to slow, Keep it simple for best results.

Cheers. Hadn't noticed that.

drewfromrisca

I've stopped using it to be honest. It takes too long to look for stuff. I don't like change!!!

Noodley

I too have stopped looking at it, as can be seen from my awful Suisse PTP results...

Pokerface

On a similar note, the British Cycling website has also been revamped - and is also the dog's breakfast.

I also d this type of thing for a living (design) and sometimes wonder how some companies stay in business when they are dishing out this type of poop.

scottfrasernz

I agree with most of the comments especially the problems reading the site using a BlackBerry.

However the RSS feed works very well on the Berry (and also seems a much faster way to get the news from the site on a normal browser as well actually):

http://feeds2.feedburner.com/cyclingnews/news/road

The race results RSS would help with some of the other problems but seems to be down at the moment.

jimmythecuckoo

Pokerface wrote:

On a similar note, the British Cycling website has also been revamped - and is also the dog's breakfast.

It seems EverydayCycling members have come off worse. The mileage log page is rubbish.

Tusher

Yuk, yuk and double yuk.

Decided to give it a few days 'to get used to it' but I can't- many thanks to whoever suggested 'autobus.cyclingnews.com' on the first page of this thread- works purrfectly. (I run my etch-a-sketch on Linux, don't know if that's a factor).

Do I gather that bikeradar and cyclingnews are merging soon? They may as well.

Love the weekly podcasts though.



Oh, and I can't stand the new Cycling Weekly site either. Why did they have to change it?

I dunno, the polis are getting younger, you can't write a cheque in Tescoids anymore and I have more wrinkles.

Sigh. Just not fair.

magliaceleste

The new cyclingnews website is rubbish. I was going to register just to voice my opinion, but I can't be bothered. I don't think anyone is listening judging by the number of unhappy posters on there.

The irony is, I actually really quite like the Bikeradar site....but I don't want Cyclingnews to be more of the same.

Ah well, someone will set-up an alternative.

andrew_s

Pokerface wrote:

On a similar note, the British Cycling website has also been revamped - and is also the dog's breakfast.

It's even worse than the new cyclingnews, which is saying quite a bit.
You'd have thought that the week before the Nationals, there would be some reasonably prominent information, but all I could find was an acknowlegement of the date on page 3 of the calendar, and a couple of old articles, one of which listed the starters (as of 2nd June).
It runs like a dog too.

donrhummy

I don't know about other people but it used to be my main source of cycling news every day but now I rarely visit it. It's just a mess and makes it very hard to find news.

The previous layout wasn't pretty but I was able to quickly see the stuff I wanted to read about. now it takes a lot of effort to figure out what to click to read new road-cycling news. PLEASE fix this!

Noodley

I visited tonight for the first time for a few days and I still do not like it. I read two stories then left. I used to be on the site for ages. Oh well, if that's 'improving' the site I'll have to go find somewhere else for my regular news....

tomilinski1

Hopefully if you vote with your mouse it will go back to the old - friendly version we all love!

I for one won't be using it as much now - my usual lunch break scan is not possible any more - everything takes too long to load!

I wondered if Bikeradar would take over from Cyclingnews when it first arrived on the scene - why can't they offer different things rather than shared/recycled content and layout??

Annoyed - very annoyed :x

jimmythecuckoo

what his signature says!

phil s

The new CN makes me want to smoke crack :x

Kléber

I don't think the site is that different or much worse...

...but I'm visiting less because it is more of a pain to navigate, each news story opening on a seperate page. Perhaps forcing each story onto a seperate page generates more traffic and page impressions but because it's less user friendly I'm not visiting it as much. Why doesn't each news page have a link to the other current news stories?