Lance Armstrong joins cycling social network Strava

Whatever else can be said about Lance Armstrong, it's hard to dispute his competitive nature.  It's arguable that his confession to Oprah Winfrey recently was done as much to ensure he can continue competing in triathlons as it was any moral urge to confess to his past misdemeanours.

With that ban from competition still looming over him however, it seems he has turned to a more social form of competition.  It's emerged that he has joined Strava, the social network for cyclists.

Strava is a site underpinned by GPS.  Members track the rides they complete using their GPS device, upload the details of that ride to the website, and are then ranked against other members for particular 'segments' of the ride, so your favourite hill for instance.  The fastest rider in each segment is crowned the king of the mountains (KOM).

It's primarily the preserve of the amateur cyclist, although there have been instances of pro riders turning up and blitzing the competition.  Seeing Armstrong on the site however is something few would have predicted.

Michael Horvath, chief executive officer of Strava, told Bloomberg he has no plans to ban Armstrong, who was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles for doping, from posting his rides on Strava.

Some Strava users have called for Armstrong to be banned from the site. “We want to be careful not to become a police state,” Horvath said to Bloomberg. “We are not going to say who can use Strava and who can’t.”

Armstrong’s Strava page shows little contrition regarding the accusations againt him. His one-line Strava biography reads “According to my rivals, peers, and teammates I won the Tour de France 7 times.