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This is a bicycle performance/route tracking application. It's aimed at people who are a bit more serious about their cycling than I am, but to balance it out I'm perhaps more serious about my iPhone toys. The main idea is to use the iPhone's GPS function to track your route, speed, and elevation, along with tracking the total ride time (including the ability to pause the record so, for example, stopping at the store doesn't screw up your overall average speed calculation). So far, except for the mapping, the functions are fairly similar to the small mechanical speed/distance tracking device I got for my bike a couple years ago. But the differences are in the details (and the extras.)

The mapping feature is, of course, not to be sneezed at. It not only shows your route against the standard iPhone version of Google maps, but adds pointers at each mile-post along the route. You can also display the map as you ride. (Positioning the iPhone so it can be viewed with safety to both rider and phone involves a Bracketron bike handlebar mount.)

You can either run metrics on each ride individually, or if you ride the same route and want to compare performance, you can save it under a name and associate new rides on the same route with that name. In addition to the numeric metrics of date/time of start, total ride time, total distance, average speed, fastest speed, maximum climb, and estimated calories burnt, you can do a graphic display of speed or elevation against the route mileage. A calendar view will show you icons for which days you recorded rides and whether the ride was better or worse than your average for the route.

But wait ... there's more! You can set up the app to generate automatic Twitter, Facebook, or email messages providing your stats and route location, either at regular intervals during a ride, or at the completion of the ride. And it is able to do text-to-speech renderings of responses to those postings. So you not only can post your progress as you go, but get feedback (they suggest "from your coach" but we know that's a crock) while in progress.

Although the name of the app indicates it was designed for cyclists, it lets you code routes as Cycle, Hike, Run, Skate, Ski, Swim, or Walk. I haven't checked it it to see if this affects any of the functionality other than how the route is labelled.

Now, the one big problem about this app is that it eats power due to the constant GPS usage. And if you set your phone not to sleep in order to use the map function continuously, it will eat it even faster. (It will continue recording your route data even if you let the phone sleep.) Back at MacWorld in February, I noticed that one of the hot popular products was external booster battery packs for iPhones, laptops, and gadgets, and my immediate thought was "what in the world would someone need all that power for?" Well, as often happens, now I know what they'd be useful for. So now I have one. It'll be interesting to see how long a full charge will last with sort of app running. I was thinking -- since it turns out I won't be painting pottery tomorrow after all -- that I might take a bit of a ride and try it out, but then I decided I really need to so some work around the house instead, so it'll have to wait.

Cyclemeter has a mid-range price: $4.99. It's sophisticated enough that you'd hardly expect it to be a two-buck app, and in fact if it weren't for the skewed pricing expectations of the app store, I'd call it under-priced. Although I plan to use it with the handlebar mount, you can get the stat-tracking functionality with it just sitting in a pocket or bag. So for anyone who happens to have an iPhone and who happens to do any significant biking at all, I'd say what the heck, give it a try!