Comments on: The Struggle Within

By: Stephen Baum

Stephen Baum — Fri, 04 Mar 2016 16:50:06 +0000

Here’s my perspective.
I happen to enjoy JRA, DC and those beer guys rambling on about gear, bikes and beer. The chats about 135 mile long races in the mid West I don’t quite connect with. Why? Because I’ve never done one I suppose. But I listen to most of them. It’s about riding a bike. I like bikes.
I look at MBR kinda like a club as opposed to a service. You pay your dues for the operation and administration of the club because, as a whole, you feel like it’s the right place to be or you’re get something out of it. Be it camaraderie, information or a hangover, you join because there’s something drawing you to it. The content may not always appealing to me but I’d rather listen to a couple guys talking about 100 miles of gravel and the 20 miles uphill in a head wind again than a couple thugs shooting up the neighborhood or watch the clip of a campus police officer bitch slapping someone 40 times in the 90 second news story.
My point is, you join a club because it offers some kind of support. It makes you feel good to surround yourself with like minded people. You know not everyone will be passionate about everything equally, but on the whole, it’s a place you like to spend your time.
I like this club. I support this club.

By: Matt Leonard

Matt Leonard — Wed, 24 Feb 2016 18:00:00 +0000

Just my two cents/rambling… But I’d support a pay per episode format. For me, it’s hard to rationalize paying $X/mo(yr) for content when I don’t know what is coming. I don’t enjoy the JRA podcasts, and that seems to be the majority of what gets published (31% according to my handy dandy excel skills). I guess if there were a schedule released on the 1st of the month, I could say, “Oh man, those sound like shows I’d really like to listen to!” and pay up ahead of time. But I think that model would be really difficult; especially to schedule shows 6-12 months in advance.

In terms of general feedback, I’d enjoy more interviews with athletes/promoters/etc. Shop talk with 3 people drinking beer and shooting the shit isn’t appealing to me. I can get that at my local shop. But I can’t get Todd Wells thoughts on current events in mountain biking. And for me, that’s something worth paying for.

By: MBRBen

MBRBen — Wed, 24 Feb 2016 15:57:56 +0000

Not so much slow down as take a step back and add some perspective to it. Yeah, like I said, if I knew what 5 years from now would look like, I’d pay me, you, and everyone else some money with my stacks of cash. I do know that I’ve had the feeling and I’ve talked with several others who have the same feeling – we don’t bother clicking on things anymore. I don’t know the “right” or “best” answer, but the click and run model just isn’t the way to go.

By: Greg Heil

Greg Heil — Wed, 24 Feb 2016 15:35:47 +0000

Hey Ben, I think you make some great points about how the current pace isn’t sustainable, and about how things will need to begin slowing down at some point. However, it seems to me that perhaps some outlets out there can’t afford to “slow down.” Some content and business models are based solely on that “as much as possible, as fast as possible” mentality–basically, they can’t afford to slow down… if they do, they might simply die. It’ll be interesting to see how different outlets continue to adapt and evolve over the coming 5-10 years.