With the Tour de France coming into view a monthly reminder that you can get supporter kit from Prendas. As well as getting some nice kit it helps keep the wheels turning here, paying from everything like website hosting and photo accounts to funding route recons to ensure insightful stage previews for the Tour de France rather than relying on the race roadbook and Google.
Take your pick from the summer jersey, a cap with a new design or comfortable Coolmax socks. all sold via the friendly British shop Prendas Ciclismo who ship around the world.
There’s also a house-keeping discussion below where your feedback would be appreciated.
One thing that’s under review and subject to technical design and most importantly reader feedback is the use of a paywall. Fear not, this blog is neither disappearing from sight nor inflated with self-importance. It will remain free to read for all so you can get all the usual content here just as normal, from race previews to the usual mix of views and comment. Half of the fun of this sight is the interaction and engagement from readers and riders around the world.
Instead the idea is a premium “supporter” article from time to time for subscribers. Think of it as a glorified tip jar where, rather than just drop money into a pot, you get something back in return. Also if there was a plain tip jar and you donated it’d probably be annoying to get asked to make another… and another; it’d feel bad asking too often as well. Instead a small quarterly subscription matches the ongoing costs and expenses to keep things going here.
There are two motivations behind the premium supporter content idea:
the difficulty of selling the banner ad. I’ve had some fantastic sponsors but finding new ones is hard and detracts from the time available to write pieces on here, sales and web metrics are not as fun as covering the races and topics in and around the sport. Recently a new sponsor agreed to sign up for the summer only to back out at the last minute
the regular model of generating income from a website relies on getting clicks and this can be a race to the bottom. It’s an incentive to pad the website with non-stories and surround them with sad things like Outbrain links which pay for clicks and page loads. This site will remain a tiny corner of the internet free from lists, clickbait headlines, Lance Armstrong, pop-ups, paid content, press releases copy-pastes and insulting Outbrain suggestions
That’s a plan anyway. Feedback would be welcome in the comments or email.
If none of this interests you, no worries, I’m grateful to all those who have bought supporter kit, it’s a genuine help but it’s not compulsory and there’s no hard sell either, a monthly reminder which people can take or leave.