LiveCycle is the first wireless cycling computer and mounting system for iPhone and iPod touch. Leveraging the advanced features of the iPhone and iPod touch, LiveCycle provides users with a hi-res color interface, real-time performance feedback, GPS feature, data file system, and performance analysis.

You then fire up the free companion app and get access to all the usual data: speed, cadence, calories burned and so on, but on the big screen and in easy-to-view color. If you have GPS in your iDevice, it will also use that to let you know where you are. My favorite feature is called “Chase Rider”, and it is like nothing so much as the ghost-driver feature in Super Mario Kart. It will remember past rides and play them back so you can race against your own best times. Neat.

As both a nerd and someone who is physically active, there are few things your writer loves more than combining a love for gadgets, stats and sweat. The $99.99 LiveRider iPhone kit turns your iPhone into a serious bike computer. Sure there are countless apps that can track your speed or map your route using GPS, but serious cyclists want more (and more accurate) info at their fingertips. LiveRider has two different hardware components: a wireless frame-mounted sensor that measures both speed and cadence, and a combination shock-absorbing mount/wireless receiver that pulls data into your iPhone or iPod touch. The companion app puts all this info at your fingertips, as well as data from the iPhone's GPS and tilt sensor measuring inclination and mapping your route. You can even use a chase mode to race towards a goal or attempt to beat your previous best time.

There are a number of Bike Computer apps in the App Store--Cycle Meter, Cycle Tracker, and Cycle Watch, just to name a few--and while they all do the job of tracking your speed, route, time, and miles, none of them are really all that accurate. Plus, it's just sort of a pain to pull your iPhone in and out of your pocket or bag to access its cycling functions. There are mounts, but these don't solve the accuracy problem. The solution? Enter: LiveRider. LiveRider measures speed, cadence, power output, calories burned, and lets you compete against your best times, like most apps on the market. But, the other hardware it comes with is impressive.

LiveRider claims to be the first wireless cycling computer, placing a magnetic sensor near the back wheel that measures speed and pedal cadence and beams it to your iPhone or iPod Touch, seated snugly in its frame-attached mount, via a 2.4 GHz wireless receiver plugged in to the device's 30 pin connector. Then, the free LiveRider app gives you real time data on speed, cadence, power output, calories burned, and the rest. The system also taps into your device's GPS to keep track of where you're going and uses its accelerometer to measure inclination. But the coolest feature, as Wired's Charlie Sorrel points out, is a Chase Rider mode in which you can compete against your previous best times on any given route—yup, just like the ghosts in Mario Kart.

LiveRider attaches to a bicycle and allows you to record your cadence, speed and session time. It will play music in the background, chart progress and more.