This coincided with a major event… stopping by Atlanta to visit Oki, which donated a 491 cellular phone. This was very new technology, and for a while it was mounted just below the console of the bike. But as BEHEMOTH developed, it was completely integrated and computer-controlled. Much more about this is in my Cellular…

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Book Review by Doug Mink The Boston Cyclist July-August, 1988 Computing Across America: The Bicycle Odyssey of a High-Tech Nomadby Steven K. Roberts. 1988. 347 pages, paperbound, $9.95. Who among us hasn’t at some time wanted to pack up his or her bike (or car) and head out to live an interesting life on the road, exploring…

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This CNN piece is from a time when I had wrapped up the Winnebiko II adventure, and was embarking on a random speaking tour via a converted school bus. The Computing Across America book was finally published, and I was starting to think about the third bike version (the one that would come to be…

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Part 6 in the Tech Nomad series Steven K. Roberts, N4RVE 73 Magazine July, 1988 Here Today, Gone Tomorrow? Sometimes I have no choice: I must turn my back on the Winnebiko and trust the public to leave it alone. And yes — to answer a frequent question — it usually makes me nervous. For…

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This is one of a flurry of cellular industry trade journal articles that popped out in 1988, covering the somewhat audacious and absurd addition of a 3-watt bag phone to the bike (at the cusp between the Winnebiko II and BEHEMOTH versions). If you’d like video from exactly this time, there is a piece on…

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by G. Smith Earth Island Journal Summer, 1988 In 1983 Steven Roberts sold his house and spent the money on a bike. For the next three grueling years Roberts pedaled from one side of the country to the other, starting from his hometown in Columbus, Ohio, and winding up — 19 states and 10,000 miles later…

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One of the most challenging parts of packing the Winnebiko II (and later BEHEMOTH) for open-ended travel was dealing with the need for tools… not just the usual little bag of bike tools like spoke wrench and crank-puller, but all the stuff needed to continue development of the electronic systems which, by definition, are never…

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by Steven K. Roberts Louisville, Las Vegas, Charlotte, Columbus, Dayton, Atlanta… May 19, 1988 An unreal sense of detachment strikes me now, after a half-decade of visceral struggle against wind, gravity, motivation, and (most recently) bus-mechanics. It’s confusing, oddly serene: the sweat on my forehead is an abstract brew of managerial stress and poor ventilation,…

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During the school-bus jaunt around the US after completing the East Coast aboard the Winnebiko II, I was on a quest for technological tools to begin what would become BEHEMOTH… and a major component was the Oki 491 cellular phone. This visit to Norcross accomplished that, as well as connections with a few other local…

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From my series in 73 Magazine, this details the power management system on the Winnebiko II. I’m so glad now that I wrote such things then, as it would be nigh-impossible to reconstruct from the sometimes sketchy documentation binders of the epoch! This one has the additional advantage of a second voice… my friend Glenn…

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