The Cophenhagen Wheel, a project of MIT’s Senseable City Lab, transforms an everyday bike into “a hybrid e-bike that provides feedback on pollution, traffic congestion and road conditions in real-time.” And yes, that’s an iPhone mounted on the handlebars.

Thanks to Nathan Yau of FlowingData
for the heads-up on this. Nathan writes:

The wheel stores energy when you pedal and brake, and turns on auto
pilot through your iPhone when you’re feeling lazy. Your iPhone is also used to switch gears and lock and
unlock your bike.

On top of that, or rather, inside the wheel, there are sensors for
torque, noise, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, and location. Look back
on the environment around you, from the your data’s point of view, and
optionally, share your data with the community to contribute to a closer
view of your town.

I love this idea of passively capturing data while you cycle. There is so much environmental data available to us all the time – temperature, ambient noise, light levels, pollutants – why do we not have devices to easily capture all this information?