I bought all the videos and shouldn’t have to pay again for those I have. I at least want a discount. Oh, not that one? Errr… it’s a disaster that the ToS isn’t on TrainerRoad this year. It has ruined it for me. No? Third time lucky…
I quite like both designs and I’m sure they’ll grow on me (and frankly be forgotten like most of the above!). Keep up the good work making this sport and this community more inclusive. As far as I’m concerned that has always been a core value. Much more so that flags and COA.
Any chance of a stencil set with a sharpened goats claw or tusk so I can do a neat job??
You need to earn your butt branding, good sir! Perhaps the Minions can rig up a saddle with trainer-powered branding iron on it so you can pedal your way into it?
To be honest I had never noticed the negative connotations of the old flag. Guess I’m lucky. And I love the bleeding eyes.
But I totally understand why you need to do this, and the laser goat is epic. I will ride under it and honour it and truly suffer in epic glory of our new flag.
I’m going at it as change is good but I will miss the bleeding eyes. I ended up a poster boy for Col collective most notably because they had to cancel last season. At the top of Hautacam- a @#$& climb - got a shot I will always remember. I think not so iconic in new motif? I like a more classic look -Molteni, Bianchi jerseys 
I think I want the suffer obey and everybody hurts somewhere on there. Really helps on the climbs
Its interesting. I too have considered my feelings long and hard about this change. In starting, 100% agree. The video quality remains top shelf, the workouts are as hard as ever, and the step changes in science based workouts (4DP) and the whole approach, yoga, strength, and the Mental toughness are without peer. I would also hazard a guess that the big brother Wahoo (that also comes from a street fighting background) has helped Sufferfest immensely in fast tracking alot of the development needs that @David.McQuillen.KoS and GVA (im too scared to tag that).
I also totally understand the 9->7 days change for TOS, esp in the context of a global pandemic and health reasons, but the timing with all the other changes isnt great.
I guess what Im having trouble assimilating is what seems to be a migration away from the idea of the country of Sufferlandria, a diminishment of this identity. I completely agree that the flag colours needed to be changed (ala Germany) and that maybe the bleeding eyes could be a spider, but in all it feels like Sufferfest is losing some of its edginess - the IWBMATTKYT, the #morethanyou, the torture chambers, the idea that reveling in the pain of that 8th hammer, channelling that pain to be something good is fading away.
Will this make me leave Sufferfest, HELLS NO! Im here for the workouts - but I guess im lamenting the growing up of a brand, the dilution of edginess to broaden appeal. I also feel sad that new joiners will never feel the trepidation that we used to feel. Sufferfest was intimidating, the flames, the celebration of misery and the build up to the actual workouts, followed by the elation when you conquered a workout, and realized that it was painful, but a “fun” kind of pain.
I am also aware that its such an honour to to be able to engage with the founder and chief suffering officer himself on things that its a privilege (and NOT a right) for us as Consumers to voice our opinion on.
If she could shoot lasers out of her eyes, we might have done that. Having said that, the moment that Abi tells me to hold boat pose does strike me with fear.
Just to clear up that this wasn’t designed or led by an agency or even by Wahoo more broadly. Rather, this was led by my team and I – with the designs done by us. All too important to outsource.
While I respect that everyone has different opinions about whether they love/hate the new identity, I’m pretty sure that an image of a heraldic goat shooting laser beams out of its eyes and representing a mythical ‘nation’ wouldn’t really be considered ‘bland corporate culture.’ As for the question to Wahoo - that’s really a question for me, as I’m the one who has taken the decisions here…Wahoo’s CEO (who I report to) has given my team and I compete creative freedom to do what we feel we need to do to bring as many people as possible into Sufferlandria. Making elements of our identity more welcoming, fun and inclusive is one way we are doing that.
Exactly. And we see this too. For every person who is attracted to the intimidating nature of The Sufferfest, many, many more are put off by it and never gave us a chance because they felt we were ‘all about suffering and only suffering.’ This meant that it was hard for us to grow and that’s not a great place for a business to be in. We have seen that small changes in how we talk about ourselves over the past year have made a difference – more than half of our subscribers have joined us in the last year. They’ve due to the more welcoming messaging, but are staying for the characteristically edgy, fun and effective workouts (which will always retain that personality).
I am a relatively new citizen of Sufferlandria and think the penguin that appears in Full Frontal is my personal spirit animal, but the pushback the laser goat seems to be getting only endears it (him? her? they?) more to me, especially as someone who is most motivated by competition with myself rather than others. I am all in on the engagement we have with each other and the ruling class of Sufferlandria, the quirkiness of the training videos and our devotion to them, the science backing many of the features in the platform, and how the company supports and raises awareness of so many great causes. I am not sure how a laser goat can possibly be construed as bowing to political correctness or corporate blandness of any kind, and look forward to meeting more of the creatures of Sufferlandria as I ride more. I am hoping for an extremophilic, quantum tunneling tardigrade that lives in the lactic acid vents off the Sufferlandrian continental shelf.
Whilst personally I will lament the old branding going I do appreciate the reasons. Friends were put off by the name and branding even though I was a massive advocate. If SUF remained unchanged and didn’t evolve it would only attract weirdos like us lot.
I’d be interested to know the male/female split of Sufferlandria. I suspect all cycling training platforms are male dominated but how does that compare with other apps?
I first got involved by buying videos. I loved the humour and workouts in the pain cave. As the technology evolved I still loved the humour, but I am sold on the science, the training programs and doing the work. I can understand the need to appeal to a wider group of people that might have been put off by the name or symbols, but I will miss them. Living in Canada I never made the flag association with Germany but I wonder why it took so long to change for that reason alone. One of my fondest memories is riding RAMROD in my (long ago shredded) bleeding eye socks. While doing one of the climbs I passed a guy who said Hey Sufferlandrian. We chatted about the mythical nation and the logos briefly but he couldn’t keep up and acknowledged that he needed to spend more time in Sufferlandria. Maybe that will happen with a laser goat in the future, but the best part remains the improvement of my cycling as a member of the nation.
I really do not like the laser goat - it seems childish. I did like the previous flag, which has been used by Sufferfest for years. I do not understand the reasoning behind get rid of the old flag. Early German flag? Maybe. The real solution would be to adopt the Italian flag colors (green, white & red).
Even with the new flag, and change of name to SUF, “suffering” is an integral part of the app - its part of what makes it so great, the humour, being called a Sufferlandrian etc - and as the recent videos have shown that’s not going away. I do wonder if it would be worth making an introductory video for new users to explain how the app works, how the 4DP and training plans work, but also the humour and culture being Sufferlandria, that while it sounds a scary place it’s actually about being the best version of you through giving everything to your workouts, using the MTP, and doing yoga and strength work.
If the reasoning behind the new flag is to eliminate what some have linked to Nazi heraldry then why is the same black, white, red flag background still the logo on this very page? There was time to bring a new product from brainstorming through production, time to find a link to the all red background flag of the Nazi era, so there must have been time to generate a new JPG for the forum … or not.
