Singletrack Staff Blog

Seems Asda need us super cash rich magazines to help make them more profit? according to this email sent by ASDA to all magazine distributors.

So, assuming you have just read that lets recap..

ASDA, as a retailer in the newstrade already gets the following from us magazine publishers…

- 25% of cover price on full no risk sale or return*
- Magazine’s delivered to stores at our cost
- Unsold copies are binned - not returned

*We get 52% the rest goes to our distributor, Warners Group Publications

That seems a pretty good deal to me already. Now a 25% margin is not bad but in retail terms it’s not that great but then this is all Sale or Return, meaning they only pay for what they sell and any mags that are left on the shelves when the new issue is ready just get binned and they don’t have to pay for them. This whole system is the reason why there is such a disgusting amount of waste in the magazine publishing business. Have a look at our plans for trying to do something about our own contribution here.

So despite the fact we have to print 25,000 copies of Singletrack to sell 16,000 with the rest going to waste, ASDA now want to have the option to have a Double Page Spread (DPS) ad in Singletrack; they want us to pay £2450 just to be allowed to sit on their shelves; they want our distributor to pay up £10k for the priviledge of supplying them at all; they want publishers to pay for in-store promotions every month; they want sales forecasts set and if they are not met, they want to be compensated for the difference; and incredibly they want a 2% bonus to be paid to them based on the total turnover of every magazine on their shelves and this bonus is to be backdated to 1st January 2008!

I’m staggered and I have one thing to say to ASDA…

Fuck Off!

Is slide them up and down a lot. ;^ O

Fortunately there was no damage to my nether region.  It did however give Chris & Tim at Mojo another chance to remind me of the folly of carbon parts on Mountain bikes (well in there opinion). ;]

Sim and I are on deadline duty tonight. While every issue this year had gone to the printers on time and with the minimum of silly-hours worked (apart from my traditional ‘lost weekend’ that every issue costs me), this issue has been a crush. It was partly having lots of people away at press-launches, partly the sucky weather that made photography hard to get done and just a general lack of panic.

We’re nearly there though - only a couple more pages to proof and I should be home by 3am… A pity then, that Sim and I both have to be up early in the morning. Fortunately we’re off to do fun stuff. Sim is going to a press launch in Durango to see Trek. And I’m going to France to do the Tour De Mont Blanc for the next issue - and then have a week and a bit of holiday down there.

So, while we can both see the silver lining, getting the last pages done has been a drag. And obviously neither of us has packed yet…

The things we do in the name of authenticity, eh? We could have done our lightweight camping test and shoot in Todmorden park, or Ed’s garden, but we chose to ride up a huge great hill in the middle of nowhere and camp up there instead. After all, it’s mid-July, how bad can the weather be?

Nearly bad enough to give Mark hypothermia as it turned out. Wind strong enough to blow a tarpaulin off its big rock rigging and enough rain that the villages at the bottom of the hill had flooded. Nevertheless it was fun and informative. I’m never going to skimp on camping gear again… (Not that I did this time…)

There’s a magazine to write all of a sudden. Where have the past few weeks gone? Through a combination on Press Trip silly season and house hunting/moving, I’ve accidentally left myself a whole bunch of words to do in double quick time.

Interview transcribing first (with Singletrack’s “Colnago-Ergon” Race Team), then the Head-to-Head test (Pace 303 v Whyte 19), then the Cannondale Rize review, then the XC Race Shoes group test I reckon, and finishing off with as many Grinder product reviews as I can bash out.

I must remember to organise myself better for issue 44!

*Well, kind of cash poor as well!

Surely if B.A. send you a text saying that your flight’s been cancelled, it should be more ‘Sry M8, yr flites bin cancld. LOL! xxx’

So Matt and I got to spend six hours in Stuttgart airport. At least we wangled the comfy chairs of the BA business lounge while we waited to get on the evening flight. Anyway, we made it back in the end. Now it’s Wednesday of our deadline week and there’s still a distressingly large amount of the magazine still to do. AND it’s raining. Which isn’t bad in itself, only we have to sleep out in it tonight as part of our lightweight camping article/test. I guess that’ll give it all a pretty good testing. We’ll have to ask Matt in the morning. He’s drawn the short straw for the tarp and bubblewrap…

Today we rode the cable car up to 6000 feet and then rode the last 1000 feet to the summit of er.. mm. what’sit.. er.. Mount Dazbighillun or summat.. anyway.. we spent the rest of the day riding down some seriously entertaining singletrack..

So, while we were riding down we got to thinking.. What is Austria actually famous for? We made it our mission tonight to come up with ten reasons that Austria deserves to exist. We roped in help from many quarters including Ryan Leech and his lovely wife Caryn at dinner. Plus Thomas Oehler and our guide for the day Mattus Rose (Who doesn’t actualy come from Austria at all but from Slovakia).. But this is the best we could do.. feel free to add to the list of you think we have missed anything. So in reverse order we came up with….

10 - Arnold Swarzz. swarsh….shrww// Arnie!
9 - Motzart
8 - Sigmund Freud
7 - Kurt Valdheim (Occasional war criminal)
6 - Herman Mayher (He pissed about on snow at a high standard apparently - we don’t really know)
5 - Incest - a game the whole family can play
4 - Veinr Schnitzel - deep fried meat of unspecified origin - may or may not be animal based
3 - The Sound Of Music
2 - Basement Conversions and home security DIY
1 - Falco!

Off to Italy tomorrow. Who knows how that will turn out.

I’m in Kaprun for a few days courtesy of Diz at Over The Edge holidays. She’s showing us (Me and Sanny) what they do over here. We got in around midnight last night and e were up at 7 ready for an early start only to be met with heavy rain and cloud. The plan was to do a ride/lift combo up to 6000 feet and then spend most of the day doing a 10km descent! Instead we are sat in the hotel waiting for the cloud to lift and the rain to stop.

Funny thing happened on the Ryan Air Cattle Flight out..
Our flight attendant ‘leader’ was clearly Dutch. We worked this out from hish accshent. He was in charge of the flight ’safety’ talk and was really not happy when he didn’t get EVERYONES attention. After stopping half way through, the rest of his talk went something like this…

“Pleeesh! I need everyonesh attenshun. Thish is important and you ALL HAVE to lishun. Itsh legal! However(sh), if you don’t want to Lishun if you raish your hand now a flight attendant will come and help you and your bagsh leavesh the plane and you will not be flying anywheresh today.. For shure!”

There’s a bike event happening this weekend here called Bike Infection - got to love the Europeans and their cool turn of phrase when it comes to these things. Not sure what it’s actually about yet but Ryan Leech is in town doing some exhibition stuff so we have plans to catch up with him tomorrow.

Cloud looks to be lifting a bit now so going to go get some kit on… More later

Apologeesh to any Dutch readersh

Sanny’s turn now….

Hellosh!

Breakfast was a veritable cornucopia of meat products, pastries, nuttella and cereal which closely resembled the consistency of the bottom of a bird cage. I think I may well have made myself diabetic given the volume of food shoveled in. Fair play to the twists, they know how to put on an awesome spread. The only sour (kraut?) note was the couple of twists at the table across the room who snaffled all the chocolate croissants. Gits! Still, with the rain lashing down, they probably felt the need to demonstrate their efficiency in hoovering up the breakfast bar what with it being too wet to leave their towels by the pool……….Der Shanny

I appear to be incapable of going to bed before 1.30am… So, despite being dog-tired, I stayed up until, yes - 1.30am last night. Perhaps I should start setting an alarm in the evening to remind me to go to bed…

At least I got a swift ride in under blue skies yesterday evening - a world away from what the purple-black clouds were threatening when I set off…