Why Rouleur is adding a paywall (the changing landscape of cycling media)

Friday, July 4th, marked a significant event in the cycling media space: Matteo Cassina, owner and publisher of Rouleur, announced via email and LinkedIn post that Rouleur would be adding a paywall.

Below we share that full, unedited email, whilst also encouraging readers to visit the LinkedIn post Matteo shared, where you will see comments from across the cycling media landscape.

My name is Matteo Cassina, and I’m the publisher of Rouleur.

I was born near Lake Como — I know, how lucky is that — and I grew up riding bikes. I loved everything about cycling: the freedom of riding, the ritual of fixing and customising bikes (I painted my first BMX 27 times), the heroes of the sport and the way it pushed me to become a better athlete.

My professional path took me into finance, where I spent many years working in large, fast-paced institutions, including a role sponsoring a pro cycling team. But after almost 25 years in that world, I reached a turning point. I wanted to do something more meaningful — something that could outlast me. I wanted to build a company with values and purpose, one that creates and amplifies emotions, produces beauty and tells stories worth being proud of.
So just before the world shut down in 2020, I took over Rouleur. A bold move, some might say, but it has been one of the most rewarding decisions of my life.

Now, nearly 20 years after Rouleur first launched as a beautiful, printed cycling magazine in the UK, we’ve evolved into a global multimedia platform. We cover the majesty of pro racing, the pursuit of performance, the joy of travel by bike, the technology that fuels the sport and the cycling culture that binds us all together.

Through all of this, we’ve remained a small, family-run business — independent and not chasing growth at all costs. In an era when most publishers are cutting back, we’ve chosen to do the opposite: producing more content than ever, maintaining the highest standards and building a fiercely engaged audience.

Everything we do, we do with that audience in mind. No programmatic clickbait, no race for empty traffic, no clutter of annoying pop-up ads. We tell the stories that matter — from inside the peloton, from mountain switchbacks and back-alley workshops, with depth, care and authenticity.

But quality journalism is hard to sustain in a digital world where content is expected to be free — and where AI platforms increasingly harvest and reproduce work without supporting the humans behind it.

That’s why we’ve made a big decision: going forward, most of our digital content will live behind a paywall.

It’s a bold move in today’s media landscape, but we believe in preserving the value of what we do — and we believe our readers want to be part of something meaningful. Paid subscribers are transformative for Rouleur. Your support not only gives you access to our best work — it directly and sustainably funds the writers, photographers, editors and creators who make it.

Free content has become a trap. It pushes publishers to create shallow, sensational, algorithm-chasing stories — designed to drive traffic, not insight. Rouleur was never meant to be that kind of platform.

To those who are already members, thank you for your support. You have enabled us to come this far. If you are not yet a member, we’re asking you to join us so together we can go even further.

If you’ve read this far — I appreciate it. And if you have thoughts, ideas, or feedback on how we can improve, I’d love to hear from you personally. You can connect with me on LinkedIn and drop me a message anytime.

Whether you’ve been part of the Rouleur story since issue one or just discovered us this week, thank you. If you believe in independent, high-quality storytelling in cycling, I warmly invite you to become a member and help us write the next chapter.

We’re not chasing scale. We’re chasing meaning.

And we’d love to ride with you.

With gratitude

Matteo Cassina
Publisher