Everyone and their brother, up to and including Shaquille O’Neal, is on Twitter. So it’s no huge shock that Lance Armstrong, who you may remember from his time spent kicking frogs off his tires throughout the past 10 years of the Tour de France, is also on the social networking media mogul thingie.

What is surprising is that he announced his return via Tweet.

Just did an interview with AP announcing I am doing the Tour de France in 2009. about 18 hours ago from TwitterBerry

I mean, yeah, that’s kind of awesome. And it’s similar to Barack Obama dropping the news about Joe Biden being his vice presidential running mate via text message — too bad Biden didn’t get it, zing! — in that it shows just how quickly most of the older people in this country (or at least the ones that populate the generation in between my parents and I)  are moving towards complete technological saturation.

And sure he may be pimping TwitterBerry (or whatever the hell that is — grow up and get an iPhone already, Lance) and he may only be following 10 people (to the 7,000+ that are following him) but it’s a legitimate effort from a legitimate superstar. And that’s not only intriguing, but it provides hope in some nerdy-blogger way that one day, every athlete will turn into freakish semi-clones of Gilbert Arenas.

In the 10 or so years since I was 13, Lance Armstrong has undergone an image evolution … in my mind. First, he was the really awesome niche sports story I was vaguely aware of. Then, in high school, he was like my idol; please believe I rocked a LIVESTRONG bracelet. I have no excuse. I would say it was because I went to a private school that had a dress code, and I desperately needed to express myself with meaningful plastic jewelry … but I have no excuse.

Then he became sort of boring, in the same way people eventually got sick of Michael Jordan. And then he became annoyingly earnest former cycler Lance Armstrong. And now, after deciding he wants to ride in the Tour De France again, he’s just cycler Lance Armstrong. We’ve come full circle.

Except the Lance Armstrong whose LIVESTRONG bracelets I wore would never have been scared of catching a crepe in the jawpiece:

The seven-time Tour champion, who is making a comeback after three years in retirement, said in an interview in The Guardian on Tuesday that he is concerned about his safety.

“I don’t want to enter an unsafe situation but you see this stuff coming out of France,” said the American rider, who has many critics in France. “There’re some aggressive, angry emotions. If you believe what you read, my personal safety could be in jeopardy. Cycling is a sport of the open road and spectators are lining the road. I try to believe that people, even if they don’t like me, will let the race unfold. Yeah. There’re directors of French teams that have encouraged people to take to the streets … elbow to elbow. It’s very emotional and tense,” he said.

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