Except it's clearly Ronan joining them, not James. The talked about accents, speedsuits and everesting being the qualifications of their 3rd host.

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I wrote this, you should read it:
https://www.slowtwitch.com/...n_Swimming_6700.html

Ah - that makes more sense. Ye olde brain remembered them mentioning the three of them. Forgot the descriptive flair around the third host.

Welp - they've launched their new venture Escape Collective (escapecollective.cc), and by following along on the socials, it looked like James wouldn't be joining until the 11th hour when it worked out.

They announced their prelaunch today for $100/year. Caley, Dave, Iain, Abby, James, etc, etc, etc. Was a pretty quick yes for me to sign up, and I really hope they hit their goals.

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I wrote this, you should read it:
https://www.slowtwitch.com/...n_Swimming_6700.html

I suppose I will sign up as well. I still am a Veloclub member, but I don’t even bother going to the website.

Do they say what sort of content they'll provide? I'm really hoping for live coverage of racing events.

I mean it says right on their page what they’re going to cover, and based on the people signed on (Dane Cash, Jonny Long, Kit Nicholson, Jose Bean) I’d say they’ve got road racing pretty well covered…

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I wrote this, you should read it:
https://www.slowtwitch.com/...n_Swimming_6700.html

Also Cosmo Catalano, which I'm hoping means more How the Race Was Won. :)

Yeah, Dane and Cosmo podding together ( per Dane’s Twitter) will certainly be deep enough into racing for me!

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I wrote this, you should read it:
https://www.slowtwitch.com/...n_Swimming_6700.html

Good catch

Those who know my spiel must be damn tired hearing me harangue about it, but Cyclocosm does really fine work breaking down racing. (unfortunately no direct embeds. Incidentally, I think cyclingtips paid him in 2016.

Also, just paid for it

Ironically, not 5 minutes after I plunked down my $99, I got a notice for a $13 refund for the remainder of my CyclingTips membership I cancelled months ago. I never asked for nor expected a refund. Good of them to send it.

Yep, easy decision for me to sign up for an annual membership.

I signed up too! I hope they make the membership goal. Really excited to see the content they put out!

This is cool, thanks for posting this.

Does anyone follow other sports (and their gobbled up brands) under the Outside brand? I don't but am curious if there are similar things happening in the climbing, hiking, etc publishing worlds.

I loved the ‘no f’ing NFT’s’ bit on their launch page - soooo good.

I’m really rooting for them: trying to be additive more than extractive. It’s a bigger conversation. Freakonomics had that recent two part podcast on private equity and this read-aloud essay on the 3-part process by which platforms become ‘shitified’: https://ia804707.us.archive.org/...enshittification.mp3

It’s so relevant to Outside and other platforms where there’s a pivot from being consumer-first to shareholder-first. All of Cyclingtips recent Instagram content is “sponsored”; I unfollowed. There’s zero value for me; it’s one big infomercial with no real valuable information.

I talk to bike industry peers about this often, this topic of being additive and not purely extractive. Patagonia is an example: they contribute to materialism, accept that, transparently wrestle with the ethics of that continuously, try to be value driven and be honest about where values are compromised for the sake of serving other values; it’s complicated.

Maybe that’s the best we can do: try to be more additive, be transparent about opportunity-cost decisions, strive for more value alignment, earn trust and honor the trust bestowed. I think about this often with my little firm a lot.

Then there are parts of our bike ecosystem that don’t seem to wrestle with morals and value alignment; they monetize consumers with no value added, serve us infomercials, pop-ups, pay-to-play reviews 90% written by the manufacturer, clickbait headlines. They push sponsored athletes to post pure sh*t, push discount codes and infomercial drivel and burn through venture capital, gaining eyeballs, but not building the trust needed for creating long-term firm value. I’m glad to see Escape Collective pushing back. I’d like to see more manufacturers, media outlets and athletes push back, remain consumer/follower-first and additive as a long term strategy that recognizes firm value won’t spike this quarter as it might with the infomercial approach, but maybe the firm/sponsor/manufacturer/media outlet will retain consumer trust and be better off far into the future. I hear chat in that regard and I’m hopeful. I hope Escape has a positive influence on other media outlets.

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wovebike.com | Wove on instagram

+1, and bumping this back to the top.

Really want them to get this project over the line; numbers have stalled at 75%... Need my regular fix of Iain, Dave, James, etc.

Now at 90%. I think I can, I think I can.....

This bump of thread ended my procrastination.

More than happy to pay for good content.

I went to their discord. Yikes. I guess I am not used to discord.

Did someone say "Dischord?"

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

They look like they're stuck in the waiting room. ;-)

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no sponsors | no races | nothing to see here

Out of step ON the step

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

They made their target and are on for the launch.

Amusingly, last night I got a notification from the now-defunct forum telling me about Escape Collective. Someone figured out that the forum was still there, only hidden, and managed to hack it and send a notification out. Also took pains to say the action was not endorsed or initiated by Escape. Gave me a laugh. Although the real interactive value with CT was the comments on the articles, not the forum, and I presume those are lost forever.

Clicking any of the links takes you to the new, bland CT, which prominently featured an adulatory press-release article about a new Bianchi frame. Not exactly James Huang quality.

I wonder in what MBA-speak, B-school out-of-touch spreadsheet world, this particular assassination of a community makes good business sense and will yield a great bottom line down the road?

A focus on higher profits next quarter. Lower costs for Outside Inc. Free money to place sponsored articles. Better SEO to drive more casual traffic. The 'community' at CT exists only to drive revenue for their parent company.

By parent company you mean Outside? No, they couldn't shut down that forum fast enough (just not competently, apparently), and I doubt it ever factored into Outside revenue. It was created by Wade Wallace probably to genuinely foster community. Just like Empfield and *this* forum. Of course this forum helps drive ad revenue, but I don't think it does justice to the creators of either forum to suggest they're just to "drive revenue."

Well of course those are the ostensible reasons. But the "community" -- and by that I mean what had been built between the website and all the contributors, comments on articles, forum, and slack -- were what we were paying for. I'm pretty confident that at least at one time that business model was successful or it wouldn't have ever been sold.

Given the costs they've incurred to shut down what existed and relaunch it, all the cancellations, and the refunds they've issued in acknowledgement that they were no longer delivering what we had paid for, I'm confident it will take a lot more than "next quarter" for CT to be profitable.

Perhaps Outside can eventually make the new CT profitable and the MBAs will justify their salaries. So be it. As for me, I'm taking my money and giving it to Escape Collective, not Outside.

Is the "forum" of the new venture their discord site ?