by Steven K. Roberts Silicon Valley, California October 30, 1991 “Pardon me, do you have any Grey Poupon?”— unknown cyclist on RAGBRAI, passing me on a 90-degree day as I cruised easily with Cusco on the stereo and ice water circulating through my helmet. Shakedown post-mortem Well, I’m back at the lab. Three months of adventure…

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A delicious find in a musty box of media from the Bikelab epoch, this is the Nomadics page from a late-1991 issue of Whole Earth Review. RU Sirius did a little piece about my Nomadness Report journal, and from the perspective of 30 years later as I add this to the archive, I am delighted…

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The bicycle adventures never could have happened without wonderful help from sponsors, volunteers, and media… a three-way symbiosis that I wrote about in the Reaching Escape Velocity book (where to look if you are contemplating a massively audacious project and need to figure out how to get industry support). BEHEMOTH in particular, being so technology-intensive,…

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This magazine focused on the future was sponsored by Philip Morris, and I vaguely recall a photo-session in Building 4 at Sun Microsystems, a few months before departure (no landing gear or other frame attachments, but the fabric RUMP packs are done). The photo was done with studio lights and a sweep, then paleo-shopped onto…

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After 3+ years of intensive development work, BEHEMOTH finally got some road time… beginning with RAGBRAI in Iowa, then a languid yet difficult mini-adventure up through Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan. It is dreamlike in retrospect… not an open-ended life epoch like the first two versions of the bike, but a sort of frantic escape from…

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This story was written two years before I landed in San Diego to begin the Microship trimaran project… teaching at UCSD. At this point, I was on the road after 3 years of BEHEMOTH development in Silicon Valley, beginning a speaking tour with a mobile lab and trying to figure out what I was going…

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by Laura Myers, Associated Press Middlesex News September 5, 1991 Nomad Steven Roberts and his ‘Behemoth’ Mountain View, Calif. — Steven Roberts lives in ephemeral “Dataspace” when he’s on his bicycle built for too much computing power, at least for most ordinary human beings. But the high-tech nomad, who has peddled his computer-burdened Behemoth more than…

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This local newspaper article came out during a dreamy phase of my wanderings… not only was I at last on the road with BEHEMOTH after 3.5 years of development in Silicon Valley, but I was traveling with a lovely friend named Susan, barely visible in this photo… out in front of my bike. She was…

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Milwaukee, Wisconsin Filmed August 18, 1991 (aired in October) This is an unusual piece… showing BEHEMOTH actually on the road (rather than under development in Silicon Valley, later during speaking tours, or as historical context during the Microship epoch). I had just crossed Iowa and made my way to Milwaukee for the IHPVA (International Human-Powered…

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This took place during the intense BEHEMOTH tour – just after doing RAGBRAI, and before heading up and around Lake Michigan. I was visiting at the behest of Master Appliance, sponsor of my wonderful little butane soldering irons. The visit was announced a few days earlier in the same paper. by Michael Burke photo above…

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