JUL 2, 2010 – 12:00AM

I am what is known in tech circles as a late adopter.

I am a geek and love my gadgets, but I tend to wait for the second or third — or later — generation of the latest and greatest so at least the worst of the bugs can be exterminated and the price can come down to mortal levels.

Same goes for the Next Great Thing on the Interwebs.

I heard about Twitter long before I Tweeted my first Tweet. I had a Facebook account long before some of my now-Facebook-addicted young co-workers, but I went a long, long time before writing on somebody’s wall (and I still haven’t uploaded a suitable profile picture of myself, and apparently there still isn’t anything on my mind).

That said, I was pretty quick to jump on the Foursquare bandwagon.

For those in the dark, Foursquare is the latest craze that everybody-who-is-somebody is using (unless they’re using rival Gowalla). Like so many Internet crazes, there doesn’t seem to be any way for it to make money, yet folks keep throwing coin at it anyway. And ugly allegations about security concerns have arisen as well.

Basically, Foursquare, a smartphone app, uses a cellphone’s GPS to allow members to check in to locations and broadcast their location to friends.

Walk into, say, a Starbucks (only if you can find one of those elusive coffee stands), check in, then shout it out to your friends via e-mail or Twitter or Facebook. Check in a place more than anybody else, and you become “mayor” of that location … until somebody wrests away the crown. Check in enough places fast enough or far-flung enough and earn virtual badges.

During my recent vacation to Colorado, I took Foursquare out for a spin, and I have to admit I found it strangely addictive.

All the time I was firing up Foursquare to see if there was another check-in nearby.

I checked in to a half dozen or so spots in Denver International Airport alone.

After taking a train to the top of 14,000-plus-foot Pikes Peak, I was disappointed to learn my cell-phone service was spotty, so I couldn’t get Foursquare to work.

Sitting on the train just before departing on the return leg, I had a moment of signal clarity. I refreshed the list of available nearby check-ins and was stunned to learn nobody had make Pikes Peak’s peak a check-in. I furiously (as if there were dozens of other Foursquare users on the train trying to beat me to the punch) thumb-typed it, hoping to be the first to enter it as a venue, gave it a quick once-over and punched “send.”

Yes! Foursquare thanked me for adding a new venue. I got bonus points and everything.

Alas, in my haste, I was the first to make “Piles Peak” a venue. Nice typo, tool.

And, as it turns out, there were a handful of Pikes Peak entries already; the spotty signal just didn’t bring them up when first I checked.

Oh, well.

Anyway, I spent a good part of the week firing up Foursquare and checking in all over Summit County (note to self: Choose your friends wisely. Broadcasting to the world you’re perched at, say, the top of Pikes Peak is a sure way to have your unattended house looted.)

And I pondered the possibilities of Foursquare on the bike.

I thought about all the places to which I like to ride — Bloomington Beach, Blackjack, Fall Leaf, Twin Mound (it’s not as sexy as it sounds) — and thought about being the first to add them to Foursquare, assuming I can spell them better than, say, Piles Peak.

Then I thought about the main drawback to Foursquare: It’s too easy to spend so much time looking at your cell-phone screen, you don’t take the time to look at the world around you.

It’s OK to be nose-to-phone in line at Starbucks (if you have to be at Starbucks, that is), but not at the top of a 14,000-foot mountain. I have to admit, I regret some of the time I spent staring at my cellie and not at the beautiful scenery around me.

That said, I think there’s a place for Foursquare in cycling circles.

I think it’d be a great way to hold an alley cat race.

In the no-tech version, cyclists race around a city, dropping off or picking up packages or messages at various locations. The first to make all the stops wins.

Sounds perfect for Foursquare: Ride around, check in with Foursquare, ride fast, win.

It’s a match made in app heaven.