It was only a matter of time before Delius Klasing, the German publisher behind the magazine "bike", could no longer afford the Swiss split. A year ago, rival magazine "MountainBIKE" took the same step. Both titles are struggling with the increasingly difficult market conditions for traditional print magazines. Both "bike" and "MountainBIKE" are still available in Switzerland, but without Swiss-specific content and in the same form as they are distributed in Germany.

The total of 3148 Swiss pages in 256 issues were produced by Martin Platter over a period of 22 years. In all these years, Platter has helped shape Swiss mountain biking at all levels, with racing always being one of the hobbyhorses of the Switzerland pages in "bike". When he started working for bike in 1998, Cadel Evans and Alison Sydor were the overall World Cup winners and Nino Schurter was just 12 years old. Platter will remain loyal to the sport, continue to write as a freelance author for papers such as the "Neue Zürcher Zeitung", but will also intensify his commitment to the industry association "Velosuisse" in particular.

The withdrawal of "bike" is particularly hard for marathon sport. The once popular discipline is now overshadowed by cross-country and downhill races and receives little media attention. Martin Platter has always stuck by the sport and reported extensively on it. The marathonists are now losing something like their local mouthpiece.