Over on ze Twitter, Inside Minnesota Soccer made an excellent crack about the overlap between cyclists and soccer fans. However, the actual point of similarity isn’t in the activity (playing soccer/riding a bike) but in being a fan of the activity as done by professionals and semi-pros.

Seriously:

• In Europe, it’s mainstream. In the US, it’s fringe. Sure, soccer’s gotten a bit more play mainstream in the US due to Beckham playing in the MLS and the US team qualifying for the upcoming World Cup. The same could be said of bicycling in the Lance Armstrong era, along with a few other notable Americans (most of whom have been caught doping, oops). At the same time, racers and teams and players and sides are only easily named by a sliver of society.

• The best US athletes in both sports end up in Europe. MLS blah blah blah. Continental cycling squads blah blah blah. The best and most talented and fastest and etc. all sign with Euro sides. Who wouldn’t? There’s more money, more races, better fan support, and like it or not, a higher level of play/racing in Europe.
• Both are relegated to weird times/channels on the telly. Again, go to the UK, and the evening match featuring Chelsea is on a major channel in prime time. Here? Well, it gets back to the European thing. Soccer fans rely on TiVo and broad cable packages to pick up even MLS matches, let alone international contests. Cycling fans are stuck with the drooling stupid that is most cycling coverage on Versus. And if it’s not the Tour de France, expect to see week-long races condensed to 2 hours of coverage if you’re lucky, and one day classics squeezed into an hour with commercials.
  

• Fans of both soccer and cycling dress funny. Soccer jerseys are brightly colored and emblazoned with advertising logos. Cycling fans who also ride may wear team jerseys, which are brightly colored and emblazoned with advertising logos. Various sides and cycling teams could hold contests for most appalling color combos.
• Proximity. In Minnesota, the NSC Velodrome is next to the home of Minnesota’s only pro soccer side (name pending). Self-evident. Catch Thursday night racing one night, and a pro soccer match the next. Sleep in your car and you won’t need a new space!

From a participation viewpoint, bikes are seen as toys in the US, thereby driving a lot of the antipathy to cyclists on the roads. Soccer is seen as a sport for pee wees, and not a pro-class sport like baseball or football. Oddly, cycling is often part of the rehab for various soccer injuries among pro players, as it’s used in a lot of knee injury rehab regimens.

In summary: Soccer fans should not run over the cyclists at the NSC, and the cyclists should give a cheerful wave to the soccer hooligans. We’re all wanna-be Eurosport geeks.

CNN is presently carrying a Mental Floss article on the role of the bicycle in promoting mobility for women – both physical and social.

People have asked me repeatedly to make my cue sheet template available.

One issue with that: Typically, I lay out cue sheets using Adobe InDesign, which is not a particularly common piece of software on most home/work PCs.

I have finally done a version that uses Microsoft PowerPoint, which is a common piece of software. I’m trying to figure out how to build a working PowerPoint template (.pot), so right now what I have is a PowerPoint Presentation slide (.ppt). Text should be selected and replaced with proper directions. The fold lines and panel numbers are included.

I printed my cue sheet for today from this document, just to prove it kinda works. Beyond the kinda works, no other guarantees or warranty should be implied. I’m not sure I’m going to provide ‘support’ to the template, either, although if you have a question on it, go ahead. I just can’t promise useful answers. This is not really what PowerPoint is meant to be used for, so I’m kind of working against purpose in order to be working in a common software.

Cue Sheet Document – Microsoft PowerPoint (ppt)

We will be going south into Dakota County. There will be some rollers and one climb, but is not especially ‘hilly.’

Map will be available soon. I had a choice between eating dinner and sleeping or making a map with my spare time last night. Dinner and sleep won. I am a bad person.

So, living here in the land of ALL BRIDGE ALL THE TIME, I’m getting a close-up view of how messed up US transportation policy really is.

A lot of infrastructure’s been neglected, or taken for granted, in the era of ‘no new taxes’ and small government. One bridge collapsed. Others are on the line for replacement, and were even prior to this collapse.

A 10-lane bridge with a bicycle crossing has been proposed to replace the I35-W bridge. That’s fine. I’m in favor of building as many roads with suitable infrastructure for cyclists as possible. There’s debate about building the bridge to accomodate light-rail transit (LRT) as well. A line is under consideration to run very near there, over a bridge that is basically fine… but would need a huge overhaul to handle trains.

It’s being said that the feds won’t help fund such a construction project, but will only replace the bridge with a similar bridge (no rapid transit). This is pretty messed up. If when infrastructure needs drastic work — and many highways, as well as bridges, do and will — if we cannot adapt them to forward-looking uses, what’s the freaking point? We can add lanes for more car traffic, but not mass transit, under this formula. What?

Cranky.

For those of you following the link from the Natural Search Blog on in-house SEOs, you’re probably thinking: eh?

This is, in fact, a site about cycling safety.

My personal site on online marketing, also in development, is located at www.betweenstations.com.

You probably want to go visit that site, not this one, if you’re an online marketing geek.