A veritable encylopedia of bicycle adoration, the slick new Cyclepedia app sports an elegant iPad UI plus interactive recreations of ‘100 bicycles that changed cycling history’.

Created, although presumably not actually coded, by erstwhile film director Richard Loncraine (Richard III, Wimbledon), the new highly interactive app features everything from classic curly-lugged Hetchins through to fold-up commuters and some pretty amazing carbon record-breakers – all selected from the vast collection of Michael Embacher, author of the original Cyclepedia book. Compared to the literary version, however, Loncraine’s app expands the two-wheeled content to a new level of interactivity.

For the real bike addict, there’s a timeline loosely covering over a century of technical development complete with articles, engineering drawings and original advertising material. For the data aesthete, several interchangeable modes of information navigation allow users to filter and browse the catalogue of two-wheeled steeds by chronology, geography, manufacturer, material and even weight, each mode having its own unique form and visual style. And when you’ve found a bike you fancy, each of the 100 models is then available for full screen exploration with 360 degree rotation and an additional 20 times magnification of its components.

At 790 Mb it’s certainly not the lightest app out there. But regardless, scratching our two-wheeled itch just got a lot more interactive than flicking through the annual Cycle EXIF calendar. Though we have that on order too.