Podcast: 25 years of history in bike media. A retrospective with James Huang and Jens Staudt
If you think Bikemedia today, you think mostly online. You think of YouTubers and influencers unboxing, presenting and maybe testing products. This wasn’t always the case. Hard to imagine, but print was king and our main source of information. There are only a handful of editors or writers out there which experienced this transformation to the media as we know it today. James Huang and Jens Staudt are two of these dinosaurs.
In over 100 minutes of history in the development of bike media. Covering the rise of online reviews and online race coverage. The influence of people like Alex Rankin and Clay Porter, the rise of Pinkbike, centralization of power under media houses and some ideas on how bike people would like to consume information in the future.
What do you do when you're looking for information on a new bike, the latest component upgrades, or race results? You pull out your smartphone and do a quick online search. In just a few seconds, the information is right at your fingertips. This instant access to content is now the norm, but it wasn’t always like this. Before the internet was ubiquitous, and even during the days of dial-up modems that couldn’t handle video or image-heavy sites, the go-to source for bike news was still print magazines. While Europe continues to have a strong print magazine culture, especially for special-interest-publications, the winds of change are blowing hard against old school media houses. In the US, many bike magazines have either switched to digital formats or shut down entirely, largely due to dwindling advertising revenues. It seems like "go all in on digital" is the motto for 2025. But this digital-first world wasn’t always the case.
Bzzt-tzzzzzz-piep-piep-bzzzzzt-rrrrrrr-tzzzzzz
– The sound you heard before entering the age of instant information
Get ready for a deep insight you might have for the first time. This episode will take a look back at the evolution of bike media over the past 25 years, focusing on the shift from print to digital journalism. James and Jens share their personal experiences navigating this transition, highlighting the challenges they faced, and the profound impact technology has had on how we consume and share information. They discuss the early days of bike journalism, the growing credibility of online media, and the race to be the first to break news. This discussion explores the major shifts in how media is consumed and how technology is shaping the future of bike journalism.
The conversation also examines the rise of online media, which has been driven by lower overhead costs and the ability to deliver content quickly and more accessibly. With print media's high operational costs, many bike magazines were forced to embrace the web or shut down.
Another key topic is the role social media has played in journalism: The delicate balance between speed and quality in content production, as well as the increasing demand for in-depth storytelling that could emerge from the fast-paced nature of digital media.
As digital media has exploded in growth and channels, maintaining high-quality content has become a bigger challenge. James and Jens explore how outlets can adapt by engaging their audience more directly, creating curated content to cut through the noise, and shifting towards subscription models as a way to sustain quality. They also emphasize the growing importance of individual voices in the media and the need for outlets to better understand their audience’s preferences and needs in order to stay relevant.