I’ve wanted a bike for a couple months now and I think Yahoo! and Electra just made me forget about that James Perse bike that I’ve been attempting to steal from the West Village store. 20 specialized Electra bikes were dispersed to NYC, San Francisco, LA, Toronto, UK, Australia, Singapore, Tokyo, Copenhagen, and Vermont. Five of those Flickr bikes will be sent out on special assignments that will be decided upon by Yahoo! users. The rest were divvyed up between some of Flickr’s most prolific photographers and a select group of others.

So how does this thing work?

The bike is rigged with a Nokia N95 that snaps a photo every 60 seconds when the bike is in motion. If it remains motionless for more than three minutes the motion sensor will trigger a sleep mode. Because it’s located on the front handle bars you can rotate the unit 180 degrees

Each of the 20 bikes has its own Flickr account where you can view the photos and see exactly where it was taken. There are three solar panels that ensure the phone is juiced and five hours of sunlight will keep it fully charged, but there is an AC adapter in case it’s a little too gloomy out.

If you’re interested in the “Start Wearing Purple” campaign then check this out. The color purple apparently emphasizes innovation and imagination.