Unlike the standard bike you learned to ride as a kid, you sit on a seat but the handles are behind you. You lean left or right to steer, and it even comes with electronic antiskid brakes. It zooms around at a top speed of 12mph on a lithium phosphate battery that can be charged to 80 perceny capacity in 20 minutes.

The first 100 YikeBikes will be road-ready by mid-2010 in New Zealand as well as the U.K. and selected other countries in Europe. The YikeBike…a controllable, rideable urban bike.

Buy for $4900 from YikeBike

Bikes don’t have to be complex to be functional and cool. Take the 2009 Specialized Langster. It’s a more subdued-looking bike, but far classier and cheaper than a lot of others.

It’s an aluminum, single-speed that’s got a combination chainring and sprocket. What this means for the novice cyclist out there is (1) less to break down, (2) easy maintenance and (3) fewer pieces means less weight. Yea, it might not be so great for grinding up long hills, but at least you don’t have to worry about changing speeds and gears.

It’s got a carbon-legged fork (so it’s light), a super comfortable Body Geometry Toupe 143 saddle, a carbon-wrapped seatpost to mute vibration, drop bar handles, Alex Race 32 rims on generic track hubs, and a long head tube that gives a comfortable, fairly upright position when you’re riding. All this and it weighs just 18.9 pounds!

This is a fab commuter bike at a great price. New to cycling and just want to ride flat areas around town to get in shape? This is your bike that won’t break the bank.

Buy for $550 from Safety Cycle

Its got 25 pockets and Dakine designed the bag around them all. For instance, there’s a fleece-lined sunglass pouch up top, keeping your fragile specs safe and at the ready. There is a variety of other pockets perfectly sized for toiletries and snacks, two padded gadget pockets, sleeves for a laptop and water-bottle holders on each side.

Available in black, herringbone, and brown tweed, the Network Pack is well thought out.

Buy for $90 from Amazon

We’ve seen a plethora of great iPhone accessories for the car, but few for cycling lovers. Well, Dahon (the makers of great folding bicycles) has come up with an iPhone mount that uses your pedal power to charge the iPhone as you go.

It’s the iPhone Bike Mount with ReeCharge. The company’s new BioLogic bike mount for iPhone and iPod touch completely encases the phone in a waterproof shell. Unlike most traditional waterproof enclosures the BioLogic has a welded touch-sensitive membrane for a front panel, which allows the phone to be used even when encased. The mount allows the case to be pivoted 360-degrees for use in either portrait or landscape mode.

Coolest feature: The ReeCharge system (formerly FreeCharge), which pulls power from a bike’s generator hub to charge not only the iPhone, but other electronic devices.

It’ll be out next January (bad timing to miss the holiday buying season) for $59.

Commutes are getting rough and expensive. It’s time to look at a simpler form of transportation that improves your aerobic fitness. Here comes the Dahon Mu One. It’s been updated for 2009 and it’s Dahon’s most affordable fold away with an improved ride and comfort that even a standard bike rider will be impressed with.

What changed? Cleaner cable routing, better stem height and adjustment for folding, grease ports on hinges and better handle bar catches.

Dropping the brakes, gears, and cables, the Mu Uno weighs in at only 22 pounds. The hand brakes have been replaced with a rear coaster brake, so practice your skidding! The Mu Uno folds easily in 10 seconds. In its folded form, it is held together with magnets and can be carried effortlessly to fit under a desk or in a tight closet. Which means you don’t have to lug around chainage.

For maximum power and minimum add-ons, you can’t beat this bike.

Buy for $522 from Amazon

Gas-guzzling leaf blowers are old hat, not to mention the exhaust they spew and the mess of having to formulate two-stroke mixtures. With improvements to lithium-ion batteries, the Worx WG540.5 Leaf Blower is competitive with their gas-powered peers: 120 mph blower speed; exceptionally lightweight at less than 5 pounds; charges in about 30 minutes.

Some reviews we’ve seen are reporting exceptional battery life of six-hours plus and happy neighbors who aren’t complaining about the noise.

Buy for $130 from Amazon

When I look at the Paracord Bracelet Parachute Cord Survival 550 I can’t help but think of James Bond in GoldenEye…he’s in a jam, he shoots a high-tension cable out of his watch at the ceiling and he’s all of a sudden free of the bad guys. The Survival Strap is much the same thing.

It’s made of up to 26 feet of military-grade parachute rope that can support 550 pounds and unwind in seconds. You simply unravel it and you’ve got a strong rope for any number of uses. It’s got either a stainless steel shackle or an optional plastic buckle and comes in a variety of colors.

Neat feature: If you end up having to save your girlfriend from rushing waters, just send your story to Tough Gear and they’ll replace it for free.

Buy for $19 from Amazon

It’s a single LED light that secures to the underside of the cooler lid with double side adhesive tape. Lift the lid and on it comes. But unlike the typical refrigerator, the Cooler Light will shut off automatically after 20 seconds regardless of whether the lid is shut completely. So grab that soda fast.

Buy for $10 from Amazon

It’s got an in-built, digital, 50-watt amplifier, down-firing 8-inch woofer, and four, three-inch, omni-directional drivers. You can plug it in with the 240V power cord, or use the rechargeable 12V NiMh battery and external charging kit.

My brother-in-law has two of these on his outdoor deck. You can set one up to feed both channels, or like him, have one for left and one for right. It receives its signal from up to 350 feet away via one of two different transmitters – the ICT-111 with a iPod dock (as shown in the photo), or the brand new UAT250US that connects to your standard DVD player, AV receiver and CD changer as well as to your PC via USB. You can then transmit music from iTunes, RealPlayer, MusicMatch, Windows MediaPlayer and many more. The only bummer on this speaker is the transmitter comes separately.

The Outcast Junior is made from UV stabilized, ABS plastic and can stand some pretty harsh elements. We were impressed by the sound, despite it not having a dedicated tweeter, as well as its design and battery life.

Buy for $500 from Amazon

Buy for $160 from Amazon

Buy for $35 from Amazon

In celebration of Woodstock exactly 40 years ago this weekend, we present the sleep system that would have made a weekend of sweat and mud a little more bearable. It’s the Coleman QuickBed with MP3 plug-in. It’s got a built-in amplifier and a set of speakers so you simply plug in your iPod or MP3 player and you’re sleeping with tunes. It has a built-in QuickPump that runs on four D batteries that inflates and deflates your mattress hands-free (translation: no blowing it up and passing out).

Buy for $59 from Amazon

“Hind sight is 50/50″ they say, but when his Dad ate him out for this bozo move, he should have handed him one of these…The Bushnell BackTrack GPS personal Location Finder.

So you’re out in the woods (heck, how about in an unfamiliar shopping mall and parking lot?) and you want to return to where you started. Your simply mark your starting point into the BackTrack, turn it off, go to your destination, turn it back on, and press one button to start your trek back. You then simply follow the arrow on its display back to where you started. The simplest ideas are so impressive.

If you’re in to the techie side of it, the unit uses a High Sensitivity SiRF Star 111 GPS receiver and a self calibrating digital compass. When you set your starting point, the information is stored on the unit’s built-in memory. You can store up to three locations.

It uses two AAA batteries and weighs about the same as a small cell phone. Bushnell says the batteries should last for about a hundred uses. It’s lightweight, small and a breeze to use.

Buy for $50 from Amazon

There’s a bunch of different models from 300 to 1000 watts depending on your weight, how much internal storage capacity you want and how far you want to travel. There’s even a gas-powered model and most of them come in five colors. The battery life is determined by the weight of the driver, load and the terrain the cooler is driven on, but reviews we’ve seen show speeds up to 13 mph and a range of up to 15 miles.

So if you can see yourself or your wife cruising the camp grounds on this without laughing your ass off as you drink the beer she brought you, then the Cruzin’ Cooler is wacky but worthy.

Buy starting at $160 from Amazon

So here’s an interesting solution…a floating, waterproof, wireless speaker you can use with an iPod, iPhone, MP3 player, computer, home stereo, TV, ANY audio source. It’s the PoolPOD from Audio Unlimited and it’s got a 900MHz wireless connection for up to 150 feet to a docking station where you simply plug your device via a 3.5mm or RCA output.

The sounds isn’t fantastic but hey, would do you expect for a waterproof speaker in a ball? We thought it sounded pretty good for a $72 wireless speaker that says no to water.

Buy for $72.00 from Amazon

It’s the Char-Broil Urban Infrared Gas Grill. In simple terms it generates infrared energy by using a simple sheet of perforated stainless steel to convert the output of a standard gas burner into a blue-colored infrared flame. This small, patio sized unit has two burners that put out 20,000 BTUs under 340 square inches of cooking space and can reach temperatures around 700 degrees F for high, even heating. Each burner has an individual temperature gauge.

So a stainless steel, propane-fueled, small footprint gas grill with infrared cooking for $269. Not bad.

Buy for $269.00 from Lowes

Yea, it costs a little more than a broken tree limb, but who wants to duck tape a flashlight to a stick?

Buy for $99.95 from Hammacher Schlemmer

If you do any sort of meaningful cycling, prudence suggests you carry a spare tube, portable pump, and multi-tool with you so that you can address any technical difficulties that might befall you on your ride.

You can cover two of those three bases with Blackburn’s AirFix, a mini CO2 inflator that features nine common tools built-in, including 3/4/5/6/8mm hex keys, a chain tool, and steel core tire lever.

Normally $40, BlueSkyCycling is currently selling the AirFix at almost 70% off. Stock up so you always have gifts on hand for your cycling buddies!

Buy for $12.98 from BlueSkyCycling

CNET last week called HD Radio one of the decades biggest tech flops and it’s hard to argue that point. Put together the facts that radio stations failed early to make the financial investment in broadcasting equipment and HD’s creator, iBiquity, failed to mirror XM Radio’s smart move of getting sat-ready radios in cars years ago, and HD has had a tough road. That’s now changing with the first handheld HD Radio just out from Best Buy.

Made by KRI and sold by Best Buy under the Insignia brand name for just under $50, this little handheld beauty gives you regular FM stations as well as those enhanced with HD channels – which if you didn’t know are radio stations that piggyback onto an FM station and broadcast additional content like music, talk, sports and more for free, most of it commercial free.

The first thing you notice is the audio difference between analog FM and HD is dramatic. The frequency will first lock in on the analog signal and then the digital kicks in two to three seconds later with an ‘HD’ symbol confirming the station.

It’s got 10-station presets, a nice, bright, 1.5-inch LCD color screen, a 10-hour, built-in rechargeable lithium battery, an included USB cable for charging, headphones and arm band.

This unit works best outdoors depending on the signal strength of the station your listening to. It sounds great, is cheap enough and it’s lithium-battery holds an acceptable eight-hour charge in our tests.

Buy for $49.99 from Best Buy

If you want to carry your beer in the coolest way possible, Timbuk2′s new Dolores messenger bag has you covered.

Its sharp looks will catch eyes, but not many will suspect that you’re hiding a dozen beers in what otherwise appears to be a standard messenger bag.

Bonus: a red anodized bottle opener is attached to the side of the bag.

Buy for $110 from Timbuk2