Women's Cycling magazine

[smurfalicious]

Call me a snob but the cover doesn't make me want to pick it up and page through it. I've been designing magazines for 10 years, and a glance at their homepage fails to impress.

Hmmm, and how many start ups have you been a part of? Perhaps they're at that tender age where they're still hiring and some writer who had a tiny clue about PhotoShop slapped it together. The thing with start ups is getting yourself out there, making yourself known, and if you have to show up in less than your best outfit sometimes you do. Further, I can't read graphic design so while you might make things purdy and get people to look, it's us writers who keep it going.

Further, the content is too scattered - trying too hard to cover everything, which means nothing will be covered very well. There should be two editions: Women's Cycling: Road, which would include touring, and Women's Cycling: Mountain which would include cyclocross. Riders interested in one are rarely interested in the other, and by trying to cover all of it in one book, we might see one page article on each. Not really enough to satisfy anybody.

Okay yeah they're taking a broad sweep here but there are horse magazines that cover a lot of topics too and they do very well. Perhaps they don't cover ranch roping, or cutting, or hunter over fences every month, but when they do it appeals to those people. And when they cover other topics it's still interesting to their readers because their readers love horses and different aspects of the sport still offer insight to those in different realms. For example, I didn't know there was a sport where you worked cattle horseback with a dog. Now I do and I enjoyed reading about it even though I have no plans of taking my afraid of cows Aussie out and trying it.

As far as one not being into the other, are you serious? The people I know have a stable of bikes complete with road and mountain bikes because they love it all! I have to sit myself down tonight and write a bike priority list because I want a BMX bike, and a cross bike, and a hardtail, and a fully, and a cruiser, and, and, and....

High school and college? Ummmm.... who cares? They can't afford subscriptions. I was DIRT POOR in college, my ride was 8 years old and I loved my little greybeast to death, but I couldn't even afford new brakes when I needed them. Riders in those age groups probably want to know the same things the rest of us do: what performs, what doesn't, what events are coming up. You can have a feature article about each once a year or so, but a section devoted to both is excessive.

A lot of people. The CU Cycling team around here is pretty awesome. They pass my happy but all the time. And the fact is a lot of women hang it up after college so if you're going to cover women's racing, that's a BIG chunk of it.

And uh, I know plenty of college kids and high school kids that can manage a subscription. It's not that much money. My ex's son ages ago wanted nothing more in the world than to get an after school job to buy some Mavic Crossmax wheels and he was 15. Kids do have money, whether it's from baby sitting, lawn mowing, or after school jobs. If you need proof that kids can buy magazines pick up a copy of BMX Plus and read the clearly written by a youngin letters section.

It IS a bad time to be starting a mag - which means it is SO MUCH more important to make sure your best work is out there, to be sure that you will satisfy your readers and make them want to pay $15 for 3 issues, which will ensure advertisers (who pay the bills!) are willing to part with money to put this magazine in the hands of those readers. They need to be able to see a return on investment - I don't see that happening here. I see this as a doctor's office magazine special: Keeps you occupied for 10 minutes, and completely not worth stealing the subscription info for.

I'd love to see cycling magazines devoted to women - but this is not it.

Da'aaaaang Debbie Downer! Yes it could totally esplode and suck, but you have to give them mad props for trying. My boss was the editor of Bicycling for over 10 years and he too thinks it's a bad time but has the utmost hope for them. I do too. If you read the blog, they actually seem to have some decent chops. And all of the girls at work are foaming at the mouth to do some freelance. Huzzah bike money!