Armstrong has indicated he will race for his new team next year, including in the Tour, but he wants to sign riders with a view to achieving a long-term future. And the 37-year-old believes he can produce better form for next year's Tour, even though he is still in the fray for a place on the podium as the 3500 kilometre race nears its finish in Paris on Sunday.

Heading into yesterday's 40.5km 18th stage time trial around Lake Annecy, Armstrong was in fourth place at three minutes, 55 seconds behind race leader and Astana teammate, Alberto Contador. Contador was leading Andy and Frank Schleck (Saxo Bank) by 2.26 and 3.25 respectively. For Armstrong's own team to develop beyond the short-term while pushing the message of his global cancer awareness program, he will need rising stars such as Bobridge, who excel on track and road.

Bobridge is the Australian under-23 open road champion and a world championship silver medallist this year in the individual and team pursuits. "Our goal will be to continue to win the Tour for years to come. We have to find the right person to do that," Armstrong told the Herald in an exclusive interview before Wednesday's 169.5km stage from Bourg-Saint-Maurice to Le Grand-Bornand.

"I would love to have a kid like Bobridge. He is complete and he is aggressive, which is really cool to see for a young guy - no fear. But he needs the right program to develop him, I think." A major stumbling block for Armstrong if he is to recruit Bobridge is that the young rider has already signed with American team, Garmin-Slipstream, on a two-year contract. However, Armstrong said he would closely monitor Bobridge's progress, and would be on the lookout to sign him up when the opportunity arose. "Oh yeah," He said. "After we saw what we saw in [the Tour] Down Under we have already signed up for that fan club!"

Armstrong said he had held informal chats with riders during the Tour about their availability but that no direct head-hunting had been carried out. "Not in a formal way. Nothing has been signed with anybody," he said. "But I think there will be a lot of interest from the current teams and peloton."

Armstrong said Bobridge was not the only Australian he was keen to sign, indicating he was also interested in South Australian Stuart O'Grady (Saxo Bank) and Victorian Simon Gerrans (Cervelo), a controversial late omission from this year's Tour. "I know Stuey has a contract," Armstrong said. "I know Gerrans has a contract. But definitely guys like that I would be interested in. Simon, I really enjoyed training with him for a couple of weeks in June. I know he is contracted with [Cervelo] for another year." Gerrans was desperately unlucky to be omitted from the Tour, and was stunned to hear the news after returning to France from the US where he had been training with Armstrong in Aspen.

The Australian has not spoken of any wish to leave Cervelo but Armstrong said he "would be keen to have that discussion [if his status changed]". "He is a smart rider, a scrapper. When he gets in the right move, he is a winner. And based on what I saw in Aspen, he is a hard worker," Armstrong said of Gerrans, who last year won a stage of the Tour on the mountain finish at Prato Nevoso in Italy and another in this year's Giro d'Italia.