Dead internet AI commenting honesty
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Yo if you write something existential on your eewings it reduces your guilt
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“These cranks are worth 172 hours of federal minimum wage”
Edit “…before taxes”
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Maybe im just feeling like a mega crank, but the radavist and bikepackings hyperfocus on “buy this flashy component” over literally any other aspect of bikes (like 20 to 1 to articles about advocacy, daily use of bikes, longevity , consumption , nature, captialism, accessibility, REPAIR) despite the steady acknowledgment of privilege and land recognitions really rubs me wrong
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they are watching their analytics and serving up the slop that gets eaten
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Without those sponsors, it’d be ‘crazyguyonabike’ with a slightly newer design. Or, a Guitar Ted kinda thing that just plugs along covering 10% of the scope, and dies when the over-worked hobbyist founder gets tired. Less commercial, but also less comprehensive.
Reddit guy got the drop on new kona unit with integrated steerer rack, mullet build and interesting lines.
https://www.reddit.com/r/bikepacking/comments/1q754qg/kona_unit_y_2026/
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I don’t think the pool of available writers is capable of producing much more or better content than what we have now. There’s not enough money or interest.
Most content is clearly commodity content; contrast N-1 and Escape Collective to Bikepacking and Radavist. It’s not much better.
The most recent of dozens of existential somewhere-not-America bikepacking trip reports complete with noisy desaturated digital photos isn’t any better than the same dozens of articles about what World Tour racers are doing captured with stock photos or my-first-photoshop image edits. This is even before the uncritical press release publishing. I love reading about the many different $300 helmets available, this ones 3D printed? Wow…
No one’s refusing to publish the good stuff you and I would like to read. More that it’s not being written and if it has been written it’s not being pitched. Publications go independent and member-funded and serve up the same junk as when they were part of a conglomerate.
A want for better content is clearly a want for better writers, for a variety of bicycle-littérateur capable and interested in subjects unmoored from the conspicuous consumption cycle. Where do they exist? How do we find them, and get them paid?
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With each passing year MFS/YJ seem more and more like a fever dream. Insane a few of us made a (meager) living doing it as long as we did tbh
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AREAM
Advertisers Rule/Ruin Everything Around Me
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More like this please (this is Kate Wagner of McMansion Hell, see also https://www.late-review.com/, but sadly, specifically this)
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What does it cost? I am not renewing my Escape Collective sub at 200 NZD$ a year.. I only really use it for 2 podcasts max, and its mostly road racing. The UX is terrible so it can be hard to actually find content you know they have. I will keep blogging. As I have since 2000. It’s pretty hard getting stuff noticed tho.
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It all pushes me more into participating in this forum and some others.
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To be fair the bikepacking com print journal is zero reviews and near zero adds. Just stories
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I would love a print version of coverage from their first TDF! There are dozens of us(maybe?)
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Unfortunately i don’t think Kate is regularly writing about cycling post head injury. you could sign up here, but it’s 3y out of date
Oh ffs. I lost my brother to head injury (depression=suicide) last year. I wrote this a while ago. Head injuries are an interest of mine, having watched how it has fucked up my bros life for the last 44 years. I really hope your friend has good support Blakey. I think the only thing I ever put on Substack was actually this story.
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I don’t know kate beyond being a reader of mcmansion hell first and then the late review and derailleur. But hope she recovers. Sorry about your brother, that’s awful.
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Thanks Blakey. Ive listened to so many stories/podcasts of cyclists with head injuries. My bros was a car accident tho.
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Same thing happened to my brother. A car accident gave him a subdermal hematoma and changed him. He’s a completely different person now, and a pretty horrid one at that. (Frontal lobe injuries tend to make people racist and constantly angry.)
Dealing with that for over 30 years has not been fun. You have my sympathies.
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