A Letter from the Editors

Friends,

We have not communicated with you for a while, mainly because we’ve both been busy trying to keep all the plates spinning, all the balls in the air, and all the clowns stuffed into the clown car in preparation for the circus. In fact, that’s not a bad metaphor for the bike industry in 2023. Tragic over-forecasting of demand for new bikes and all the parts that go into them, caused a massive inventory spike, a frenzy of discounting, and a slashing of marketing and sales budgets.

This last factor actually cost us a number of sponsorship opportunities, as companies just didn’t have money to spend on media. If it weren’t for our friends at Shimano North America, TCI would likely have gone the way of all things last year.

Our response to the challenges of 2023 consisted of reducing our own budget for hosting and infrastructure, reducing our own personal income, and taking more non-TCI work to make ends meet. And lest this sound like a tale of woe, the pressure on us to drill down on the business of TCI was a resounding positive, even if it came with a few challenges along the way.

You’ve seen fewer pieces from us, and more from contributors, which is not at all a bad thing. We did not, in the process of reducing our budget, cut the rate we pay contributors.

You might have noticed also that we changed hosting providers. This was likely more evident on the backend of the site, than the front. We lost some data. We lost some emails. We spent time putting the pieces back together that we both would have preferred to spend writing. But c’est la vie.

Lastly, and most importantly, we experienced a major disruption to the subscription system. Many of you have written to let us know that your subscription stopped being charged (thanks to those of you who have dropped some bills in the Tip Jar to make up the difference). The cause of that problem is a bit mysterious, but a tech consultant seems to have straightened all that out now. If you would, please take a second to check on the status of your subscription (by logging into your WordPress account). We do depend on that money to pay our contributors and keep the lights on.

So…will 2024 be the circus that 2023 was? We’ll see. Probably. At times like this (at all times really) we try to keep to a basic idea, with faith that it’ll carry us through our days, no matter how challenging they get, and that idea is: As long as we are riding our bikes and writing about it, everything else will work out.

Thanks, as ever, for your support,

The Independents