Dave, are you suggesting the media squids and magazines to all go full Consumer Reports and buy all their bikes to remain impartial? Given the niche-ness of mountain biking and the diminishing nature of ad buys across the board, I'm not sure that is economically feasible. With the exception of a few sites, I think that most reviewers in the bike industry are unafraid to say publicly in their reviews when - advertisers be damned - anything has been less than great. Cam and Pete have instilled that in the reviewers on NSMB and likewise I have a lot of time for reviews written by Travis Engle and the Mikes, Kazimer and Levy over at Pinkbike. The best advice a consumer can take is to have their internal bullshit detectors set on fleek and to establish their own notions of value.
June 5, 2018, 9:05 a.m. - Dave Smith
Dave, are you suggesting the media squids and magazines to all go full Consumer Reports and buy all their bikes to remain impartial? Given the niche-ness of mountain biking and the diminishing nature of ad buys across the board, I'm not sure that is economically feasible. With the exception of a few sites, I think that most reviewers in the bike industry are unafraid to say publicly in their reviews when - advertisers be damned - anything has been less than great. Cam and Pete have instilled that in the reviewers on NSMB and likewise I have a lot of time for reviews written by Travis Engle and the Mikes, Kazimer and Levy over at Pinkbike. The best advice a consumer can take is to have their internal bullshit detectors set on fleek and to establish their own notions of value.