Is Cycling Weeky losing the plot?

Pork Sword

I've been buying the rag on and off for the best part of 25 years... however, I just can't get my head around the fact that last weeks magazine hardly mentioned the Three Peaks Cyclo Cross race and that Cadel Evan's winning of the World Road title didn't even make the front page!

I for one only buy it for the race coverage it used to give... I can handle the fact that it's now printed on very thin A4 sized paper and that your fingers get covered in ink after reading it for 10 minutes, but not the fact that they think they need to fill it with diet advice and Sportive related topics...

I can see the magazine go belly up if they carry on like that as I see plenty of well-read but not paid for copies left on the shelves of some well-known shops!

Coyote

The switch away from focusing on racing started a couple of years back. I suppose most of us get our news on pro racing from the web these days rather than wait till the comic comes out. Add that to the upsurge in sportives and the like and you can see why they are doing it.

I'm with you though - those photos of some models arse all over the cover and a tiny pic of the new world champ in the corner, roughly the size of a stamp, is really, really annoying and shows they don't have the balance right yet IMHO.

ynyswen24

CW's editorial direction is not much different from the difference between Cycling Plus and ProCycling. Just as CP is designed to attract a different readership to PC, though the two will overlap. There's no point to CW merely printing the same story that they will use in CyclingPlus.
Fewer people are racing or time trialling, the growing market is leisure riding leading into sportive riding. Cyclocross, much as I love it, is a niche market within a niche market.
Coyote is right, you knew already what the results were from Eurosport, t'internet, teletext...The truth is probably that IPC did their reserach, just as Future Publishing have, and might well have concluded the comic would go 'aris up if they didn't take the direction they have.

disgruntledgoat

Lost the plot a long time ago in my opinion. It gives more coverage to "buy yourself fast" and faddy training tips than even domestic racing. I remember a training tip as well, responding to an enquiry from a reader, telling people they should NEVER put their fingers on the brake levers when riding on the drops. When the correct answer was, of course "Who cares? Do it, don't do it, makes no difference"

However, when I stopped buying it 5 years ago it was because it was always the same clique of about 8 riders who were in it in varying combinations every single week.

turnerjohn

anyone also notice the price ?! keeps going up (like most things I spose) but its to expensive for the few interesting articals in it.

ju5t1n

Agree with most of that, it was only during the TDF that the cover didn’t focus on weight loss of some sort - it’s turning into a flippin diet magazine.
On the plus side Hutch’s column is usually pretty funny, but at £2.60 a week I sometimes feel the joke’s on me.

petejuk

Complete rubbish more often than not. Occasionally a good article. Only occasionallly though. I do agree Hutch's column is quite funny.

fast as fupp

but it only takes a couple of minutes to read the hutch pages in the wh smith reading library

Gazzaputt

I find it's fitness sections to all hot air and no substance. Never give any real advice as what they have on the page is from a book that it seems they are not allowed to quote.

This week was all about a raw food diet but it never gave any real details as the article was based on a book that they cleary had no rights to quote on.

I thought the reporting on the worlds was good but the 3 peaks appalling.

Pross

Agree, I just started buying it again and even thought the fitness tips may be useful for someone just starting back and needing to lose a couple of stone. This week's looked interesting as they were promising to cover someone doing exactly that but the multi page article just went on about how good the cyclist in question used to be and how he likes a few beers and junk food. I know it's going to be a series but I suspect it will just be written like a diary with how he's getting on. If it gives meal plans and training tips that are useful in the real world of a middle aged cyclist (i.e. trying to fit in training and making meals around work and a young family) then great.

Other than that I can read dozens of the pros training routes as long as they are somehwere north of the Midlands (or in one recent week Belgium - that'll be a nice Sunday morning potter then!!?) or a four page review of a sportive that could be summarised as "rode up a few steep hills, roads were quiet / busy, food was good / poor and the ride was well organised / poorly organised. My time was ** here are the times of a couple other people for you to laugh at / gaze at in admiration".

Gary Marshall

I used to pick it up unquestioningly ever week but eventually realised i was usually ahead of the stories thanks to the web and the rest was pretty dull.

They have a hard task to reposition and i think the sportive /leisure angle is probably the only viable market for them. Is the target market now people like me? late 30's used to race/train but now just rides for pleasure with the odd sportive ?

Naturally now i just flick through it in Smiths, buying the odd copy here and there.