Cycle World ceases print publication

Cycle World magazine is going to cease its print publication next month, although it seems the mag will live on in an online format somehow.

According to a press release floating around the Interwebz, Cycle World’s corporate owners, the Swedish publishers at Bonnier, are selling the title off after October’s print edition. Bonnier is selling the magazine’s digital assets to Octane, a finance group which focuses on motorsports products. Octane is also getting the digital assets of Motorcyclist, Dirt Rider, Motorcycle Cruiser, UTV Driver, ATV Rider, and Cycle Volta as part of the deal.

That’s a huge catalogue of stories and photos from back issues, meaning Octane has a major motojournalism asset on its hands, if it’s used in a clever fashion. The Cycle World website still gets a lot of traffic, too. 

Octane hasn’t said too much about its plans for the magazines, but it seems at least some staff are coming over with the deal, meaning we can likely expect a continuation of new content.

It’s not a surprising move, as Bonnier’s been shopping Cycle World around for months, an open secret in the motojournalism industry. Bonnier already axed the print edition of Motorcyclist back in 2018, to focus on digital publication of that title after taking it from 12 issues a year to six. Cycle World, also a monthly, was turned into a quarterly, and Bonnier shut down Dirt Rider, Sport Rider and several other motorcycle titles it had acquired over the past 10 years.

This move means there is currently no newsstand motorcycle magazine with an industry-wide focus published in the US. Rider, the last monthly that covered the entire industry (sportbikes, cruisers, ADV bikes, etc.), hasn’t published a print edition in months, although it’s possible Rider may return. The niche motorcycle publications – ADVMoto, RoadRUNNER, The Horse, etc. – are still mostly publishing, but they tend to only print six issues a year. As far as that goes, even American Iron, formerly a powerhouse of V-twin publishing, also stopped its print run this year.

That means when you go back to the magazine shops this fall, you’re going to see very few US mags, and the ones left will have a focus on dirt biking, adventure riding, touring, choppers, that sort of thing. Here in Canada, Inside Motorcycles and Motorcycle Mojo are still printing every month or so, but Cycle Canada is all-digital now and Canadian Biker is getting harder to find. Still, they’re all in business, which is more than can be said for their formerly gigantic competitors in the US.