We made a lot of digital media in 2025, and you consumed most of it. Here are the numbers behind Escape’s 2025.
Stephen Tauro/Unsplash
At the end of a whole year in the content mines, we come back up to the surface carting a lot of reader and listener data, which we then use to determine where to aim our journalistic pick-axes in 2026.
What did Escape Collective members love? What did you hate? What made people sign up? What did you comment on?
Let’s take a look.
Total stories: 1679 (4.6 per day) (1,607 in 2024)
Paywalled stories: 1067 (63%)
Total podcasts: 341 (yes, that is nearly one episode per day)
Most paid member signups
The number one indicator of a “good” story for us is the number of members it signs up. There are exceptions, of course; sometimes we love a piece that doesn’t convert very well. But fundamentally, we’re in the business of selling our work to all of you. The more buyers, the more effective the product.
The Secret Pro: Pogačar’s air of arrogance (Secret Pro)We need to talk about why jersey sizes are getting smaller (Wade Wallace)The Secret Pro: Pogi and Primož, the weird attitude boys (Secret Pro)New US tariffs are going to wreak havoc on the bike industry (Suvi Loponen)Threaded #48: Best mini to mid-size electric tyre inflators – 19 tested (Dave Rome)Introducing Escape tyre testing: Get ready to rethink accepted wisdom (Ronan Mc Laughlin)The curious case of Mauro Gianetti’s disappearing ‘doping incident’ (Iain Treloar) How Komoot lost its way (Suvi Loponen)Your stomach can’t handle Mathieu van der Poel’s Roubaix fueling strategy (Alex Hunt)Fit check: Testing 13 cycling jerseys for dad bods (Wade Wallace)How to be a tourist at the 2025 Tour de France (Caley Fretz)2024-25 Escape Collective Transparency Report (Wade Wallace)Ineos have no bikes for 2026, and options are running out (Ronan Mc Laughlin)Threaded #45: The best sliding T-handle hex keys (Dave Rome)There’s a wildfire outside (Caley Fretz)
There’s some calendar context required behind this list. In short, identical stories will convert new members at different rates depending on the time of year. The Secret Pro’s success was largely down to where it was placed in the year: At the beginning of the Tour de France. That success was further boosted this year because we opened the whole site up for free the week prior; there were a bunch of new folks lined up and ready to sign up, and they all did so in a few days after we turned the paywalls back on. Every story we wrote that week overperformed (and yes, this means we’ll experiment with “free weeks” more next year).
What else do we notice? Many of our top-converting pieces answer a big (or small) question. What electric inflator do I need? Why is my jersey so tight? WTF is going on with the Trump tariffs? What do the pros really think? Stories that answer questions with authority and good reporting always get folks to sign up.
A site made up entirely of this type of post would get pretty boring, I think, but we certainly take note of where our bread is buttered.
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Did we do a good job with this story?
👍Yep
👎Nope