Hello Friends,
Just us, checking in from the end of summer (unless you’re one of our Southern Hemisphere readers…we’re not trying to be hemispherist). It’s been a busy time for us, Padraig travelling here, there and everywhere, coming to terms with some new work, and Robot slipping into the publisher’s chair to try to fulfill the promises we made to everyone when we started TCI.
We’re really happy to say we brought in some dazzling contributions from Maureen Gaffney, Christina Sinkovec, Julie Snyder, and Fez Aswat, as well as consistent input from the always entertaining Stevil Kinevil. Speaking of whom, our podcast, Revolting, has grown an enthusiastic audience, to go along with stalwart listeners to the Paceline. Overall, we are seeing a two-fold increase in readers and listeners over the last six-months. The trend is positive and encouraging.
We’re really looking forward to seeing what our various contributors bring to us from their summer adventures, as well as seeing new voices come into the mix.
And because no business properly exists until it has t-shirts, very shortly a big box of these will be landing at TCI HQ. Our Podium Favorite subscribers will all get one for free. In fact, we have reached out to all the PFs for sizing info. If you’re a top-level subscriber and didn’t see the email, maybe check your SPAM folder. It turns out, emailing folks from [email protected] might not be the most effective means of communication. For everyone else who might be interested, these will be in the TCI store in the coming weeks.
For all the growth and good times we’ve had, we need to acknowledge the contributions of our sponsors Shimano North America, No22 Bicycles and Project Fuerza. To be able to cover our costs and pay our contributors on time is a big deal. It represents a great leap forward from the first year of bootstrapping the site. Subscription income allows us to pay ourselves, which is no small thing.
In fact, subscriber growth is our primarily goal for the rest of the year. It was always our intention to live on what people were willing to pay for our content. That’s where true independence comes from. We think of the small sum paid monthly by each of you to be our read
er mandate, a sign that we’re moving this thing in the right direction. Please know that we can’t achieve our goals via sponsorship dollars alone, and that, actually, we don’t want to. If you haven’t yet subscribed, please do consider it.
Finally, I hope you all feel that you have input. Many of you reach out, either in comments or by email, and we appreciate that. Never hesitate to tell us what you think. The site is yours in many ways.
We hope you’ve had a great summer and are as excited for fall riding as we are.
Warmly,
Robot and Padraig