Rouleur
Delivered to Stack subscribers in Jul 2024

by sevfurneaux in August 2012

Fascinated by every aspect of road cycling, Rouleur is all about quality. With great quality photography and writing on virtually every page, everything from the contributors to the paper stock is the best that money can buy. Definitely the sort of magazine you’ll want to hold on to for a long time to come.

www.rouleur.cc

Name
Guy Andrews

Job title
Editorial director, but just editor really.

What is Rouleur?
A magazine for road cycle racing. It’s for road racing enthusiasts who want to do a little more than read race results and post-race sound bites and look at pictures of finish line celebrations and podiums.

What makes it different to the rest?
Our work is largely originally commissioned. We use contributors and photographers that have other interests other than sports reporting and photography. We also don’t ‘do’ product tests and gear reviews, because the majority of our readers know already, in their own minds, what they want to buy. We like to get behind the scenes at the races, the nitty gritty, if you like. We rarely set tightly controlled briefs; contributors know we trust them and like them to bring to Rouleur their take on the world of bike racing.

Who makes Rouleur?
The best contributors in the business.

Who reads it?
Those cycling fans, riders and industry people that realise there’s a bit more to it.

Why do you work in magazines?
Because it’s what I know. I trained as a designer and magazines are a media that is realised in physical form – as a designer that’s what it’s all about really. We set out to get back to the old philosophy of the Sunday supplements, when they would run 15-page photo stories and send journalists on assignments that were about real life, not celebrities and cooking, or both as they now seem to be – magazines should always carefully consider what stories they want to tell. All that and the fact that I love the smell of printer ink.

Aside from the print magazine, what else are you involved in?
We’re always focused on print, and this includes books, magazine related products and events to support them. Our book publishing side is about to take off in a new and exciting direction. We also just relaunched our website, which is pretty exciting too.

What would you change about Rouleur if you could?
I’d find a really generous benefactor who would allow us scope to follow more races in parts of the world it’s currently too expensive for us to get to. And we’d really like a tea person [can I say lady?] in the office.

Can you pick a favourite issue of Rouleur?
Not really, because it will always be about the next one.

Where do you see Rouleur in five years?
Hopefully as a part of a bigger niche publishing business. Rouleur has a pretty large subscriber base now, even for a consumer title, so I hope that this will continue to grow. So in five years? We will still be doing the races and stories that make bicycle racing so special. After six years doing Rouleur to date, we’re a long way from running out of ideas and inspiration.