During my extended layover in Santa Cruz and Soquel, working on the third bike version (eventually named BEHEMOTH), I spent a lot of time relaxing on the spectacular beaches in the region… textile and otherwise. Somewhere in there I made friends with some folks at Lupin Lodge, and enjoyed a few visits in exchange for…

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This just delights me… Out West was published by Chuck Woodbury from his motorhome, and every issue was a treat… a substantial collection of quirky vignettes, profiles, discoveries of small-town wonders, entertaining tales, and folksy humor. I was a subscriber for years, and was thrilled when he published this little mini-review of my own zine,…

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BEHEMOTH computerized recumbent bicycle console with Macintosh

Over the years of taking BEHEMOTH onto stage for speaking gigs, one of the biggest crowd-pleasers (especially among engineers) was the folding console. This is where it started… a mechanical design by David Berkstresser, lots of sheet-metal parts, then an arcane assembly of hinged surfaces attached to a shock-isolated aluminum substrate and held in place…

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This is my short review in 73 Magazine about a little book from the iconic Bob Heil, K9EID, packed with useful ideas and mini-essays about amateur radio. I was a columnist for the magazine at the time, writing about the bicycle projects, and every now and then would review a book or product for my…

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by Steven K. Roberts Santa Cruz, California February 11, 1990 The photo above is by Maggie Victor, from post-earthquake Santa Cruz in 1990. Titled “Where old bicycles go to die,” it was published in the Nomadness journal as a sort of graphic counterpoint to the high-tech BEHEMOTH… though the project yet had so much uncertainty that…

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by Steven K. Roberts N4RVE 73 Magazine February, 1990 This is not a normal equipment review. There are no lab test results and no objective comparisons between this unit and anything else on the market. My new ICOM 725 did not arrive with a 73 product-review assignment attached, nor have I really given the issue much…

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The decision to use a Macintosh Portable in the console of BEHEMOTH was significant, and led to a very interesting bicycle-mobile work environment (with handlebar keyboard and ultrasonic head mouse, both mapped to the Apple Desktop Bus) than would have otherwise been the case. Apple donated the machine, and the Mac-related press loved it. MacWeek…

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I just love the tone of this… the author doesn’t take me too seriously, and has wonderful fun with the story. It was written while I was in Soquel (near Santa Cruz), working on the bike in a lashed-up combination of workspaces that included a garage and my old school bus…  by Andrew Brown The…

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This is the third and final part of my little series about wireless networking in InfoWorld, and like the others (packet radio and cellular data), it fell directly out of a subject dear to my heart. I was an avid amateur radio satellite user, as well as being deeply involved in packet radio. This article…

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Here’s a fun bit of personal technomadic history from 1990… an earnest attempt to broaden the nature of my adventure by building a community of fellow wanderers with a wide range of skills. The possibilities were enchanting, and this document generated loads of interesting correspondence while BEHEMOTH (the third bike version) was in development. Although…

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