Lance Armstrong: What's next?

With Lance Armstrong's European racing retirement just a couple of weeks away, what's up next for the seven-time Tour de France champion? At this point rumors abound on what his next move might be.

In the short term he's still racing the Tour and with his chance of winning the overall completely gone, his only opportunity is to go stage hunting. Bill Strickland, author of Tour de Lance, picks stage 13 as the most probable.

Strickland points to the final climb of the day, the Cote de St. Ferreol, as the location where Armstrong could make his move.

"Armstrong knows that climb well: The last time the Tour finished here was in 2005, and Armstrong, along with favorites such as Jan Ullrich, Alexander Vinokourov, Ivan Basso and others, powered an escape that held a 20-second gap over the field to the finish."

Stage 13 could be lucky for Armstrong, however it might be a gut reaction for the peloton to mount a chase and not allow the Texan out of sight. I'm wondering if Team Sky might just not organize to assure he never gets more than a couple of pedal strokes ahead of the bunch. I haven't heard about any war of words lately between Garmin-Transitions and RadioShack, but they might take this as one last opportunity to stick it to Armstrong. But hey, maybe Garmin-Transitions director Matty White is a bigger man than me - I'm just a vengeful guy who enjoys sticking it to a rival.

After the peloton rolls into Paris, they complete their ceremonial hot laps on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées and Armstrong unclips for the last time, where does he go from there?

If nothing else, Armstrong is a man with plenty of options in front of him: philanthropist - continuing to work at his Livestrong Foundation, director of RadioShack - possible owner, triathlete, weekend warrior, full-time dad, Twitter pro, or maybe sales guy at Mellow Johnny's?

The most obvious is his continual involvement in the Livestrong Foundation as a spokesman. Already he is rumored to be attending some Livestrong rides which would obviously kick-start any event through the atmosphere. Just look at the crowd he drew at his "Twitter rides." Thousands flocked for a chance to ride with him.

It was no secret that Armstrong had a Hawaii training camp in preparation to his European campaign. Another Trek sponsored athlete who made a guest appearance at the training camp was triathlete Chris Lieto. For those not familiar with Lieto, he was second in the 2009 Ironman World Championships and holds the course record for the bike portion of the race. Naturally Lieto's appearance was a bit of a publicity stunt, however Armstrong was sure to have been picking Lieto's mind about triathlon. And don't forget - triathlon is how Armstrong originally entered cycling. Also it doesn't require the rapid surges that so far Armstrong hasn't been able to respond to in this year's Tour- it's an endurance activity, something at which Armstrong excels.

With four children and another on the way, Armstrong could just stay busy at home with his brood. Imagine all the kick-ass pinewood derby cars he would have time to construct! "Come on kids, into the jet. We're going to the San Diego wind tunnel for pinewood car aero testing."

And then there's Twitter. With two point five million Followers on the micro-blogging site he is one of the kings in the 140 character form of communication. I'm sure Michelob Ultra would kick him down a few bucks to causally tweet, "Chilling with the family, got ‘Band of the Month' playing on iPod, drinking a Michelob Ultra - perfect". I think he could cover his house payment alone with a couple of those messages a month.

Or how about team owner? Take the Livestrong Foundation and develop the team into their marketing strategy. Makes more sense than their current sponsorship by a company that has no market interest in Europe where the team mostly competes. And while he has his hand out, get Trek, Michelob Ultra, and Nissan to kick in a few bucks as well. I'm not sure how well the Nissan LEAF would do chugging up the Alps with several Madones bolted to the roof, or how good the taste of the Michelob Ultra is (I'm not a fan of light/watered down beer), but regardless it'd be good advertising. Just don't combine the two at the same time. Marketing disaster in the making. Also probably not a good idea to have the U-23 team sponsored by them either.

Hopefully whatever Lance Armstrong continues to do he won't forget to stay involved in cycling and continue to grow the sport in the U.S. His name and reputation have surpassed cycling. With the Tour of Colorado scheduled for 2011, here's to hoping that Lance uses his influence to encourage more states and companies to sponsor stage races in the mold of the Amgen Tour of California. How about Michelob Ultra Tour of Texas? The Nissan LEAF Tour of New England?