Last year, Garmin-Chipotle was on the cutting edge of modern communication with blogs and Twitter feeds from races.

But this year, America’s cutting edge cycling team has been usurped in the virtual world by seven-time Tour de France winner/cancer crusader Lance Armstrong.

LA’s been Twittering like crazy in the lead-up to his comeback to cycling, with Team Astana at the Tour Down Under, and it’s quite interesting. Now, I don’t know for certain whether Lance or an underling is actually hitting the publish button, but his Twitter site is updated often enough, from enough locations, that it appears to be legitimately Lance.

There are reports of him training in Austin with Taylor Phinney, training in Hawaii with Chris Carmichael, and pal-ing around with Big George Hincapie in Australia. Plus, there are updates about visits by anti-doping control! (Oh, and Armstrong reports that the former head of Discovery Channel was on the flight that crashed into the Hudson).

Hincapie, Phinney, Carmichael, Johan Bruyneel and Garmin’s Christian VandeVelde, David Zabriskie, Tom Danielson and Allen Lim also are on Twitter. There are more, but these are the best so far.

My money’s on Zabriskie to be the most entertaining among cycling’s Twitterers, considering two of his recent entries: “I just cut a hole in the massage table.” and ”turning 30 in a few hours. watching 24. just shaved my head.”  

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