You hit the nail on the head, Tom!
I haven't picked up a copy of Bicycling in ages and ages, but it was changing even when I was reading it.
But you sure are right. Once Papa Rodale was gone, things really changed. My wife, Marnie, subscribes to Organic Gardening, but suddenly got a copy of Organic Style in the mail: they'd split the magazine, and switched her subscription without asking at all. Their criteria? Maria said it herself in an article published in a Pennsylvania newspaper in August: all the newish Organic Gardening subscribers and *all the female subscribers* were summarily switched from OG to Organic Style. In other words, Maria and her advisors decided that no woman could really be interested in real gardening, composting and the like; women were interested in softer things, organic pseudo-style--or, to use the expression I hate, "life-style"). Marnie was not amused, and she almost cancelled her subscription, though in the end she managed to switch back to Organic Gardening.
But such is the thinking (if you can call it that) of Maria and her crowd. I can only imagine what's going on with Bicycling.
Sadness, that Bob Rodale's seed has yielded such a crop. . . .
nath dresser
in sunny and warmish Spring Green, Wisconsin