Steven K. Roberts | |
|---|---|
| Born | September 25, 1952 Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Occupation(s) | Journalist, writer, archivist, explorer |
Steven K. Roberts (born September 25, 1952) is an American journalist, writer, cyclist, archivist, and explorer. He first gained public attention as a pioneering digital nomad, before the term became widely used, when from 1983 to 1991, Roberts toured the United States on three different heavily modified, computerized, recumbent bicycles. It was inspired by an early model Avatar (serial #1) that he rode. This was the Winnebiko from 1983 to 1985, the Winnebiko II from 1986 to 1988, and then the BEHEMOTH. He pulled a trailer equipped with solar panels and other electronic equipment. His journey is documented in his book, Computing Across America. [1] [2]
Contents
The first year and a half of his bike tour covered over 10,000 miles. [3] [4] He wrote articles in his tent and filed the pieces via pay phone submitting them to publications like Time and Newsweek . The bike, also known as the BEHEMOTH, [5] [6] had an estimated $300,000 of equipment on it, mostly donated, including satellite email retrieval, a mobile amateur radio station (callsign N4RVE), and a paging system that would page him if an urgent email arrived while he was away from the bike. [7] [8] [9] [10]
After he was featured on the front page of The Wall Street Journal , media coverage accelerated and included a full one-hour appearance on The Phil Donahue Show. [11]
As press attention mounted, he shifted his efforts and built a computerized trimaran. He worked on various iterations of the trimaran for years. [9]
As of 2017, he had turned his efforts into digitizing records, home movies, video tapes, audio recordings, slides, negatives, and various other media, and was living aboard a 50-foot power boat equipped with a 3-D printer, weather station, virtual reality system, electronic piano, 10 ham radios, and more, around 50,000 pounds worth, in Friday Harbor, WA. [9]
As of 2025, he has left the boat, and has his equipment in a 48-foot mobile lab.
