One of the things that I thought was stange about the Lance Armstrong press conference that took place earlier today was that Lance made repeated allusion to the notion that cycling was one of the best fitness activities he could think of. This struck me as strange because I had never heard him speak of cycling as an activity instead of a sport.
I mulled Lance’s words over for a while and came to the conclusion that I expect Lance to endorse a line of cycling gear after he retires from professional cycling. The most obvious partner for this activity would be Trek and/or Nike. These companies are already Armstrong’s and Team Discovery’s sponsors, so it seems like a no-brainer for the relationship to become deeper.
I’m thinking that there will be Lance Armstrong co-branded products, in the same way as brands have been created around legends like Eddy Merckx. The difference is that Merckx has a very direct involvement in bike product development at his company, while I expect Lance to be more of a strategic advisor and product endorser.