“For over half a century the automobile has brought death, injury and the most inestimable sorrow and deprivation to millions of people.” — Ralph Nader,  Unsafe at Any Speed Here I'm welding a mast onto the Sun Pony solar tandem tricycle. This is Part Five of a five-part series about the Ithaca Generator to accompany the Generating Joy show at the Cherry Gallery from 1/23/26 to 3/8/26. I began my professional career as a mild-mannered web designer way back in 1996 when creat

Sparky at Burning Man in 2019. This is part four of a five-part series about the Ithaca Generator to accompany the Generating Joy  show at the Cherry Gallery from 1/23/26 to 3/8/26. After the success of bringing our Man Alive 30-foot tall bamboo puppet mounted on a 12’ x 12’ quadracycle electric fat bike to Burning Man in 2018, Karl, Doug and I needed to come up with something even more spectacular for 2019. Karl and Doug came up with the idea of building a giant rideable uni

by Laurence Clarkberg The Solar Hopper, an island-hopping day cruiser. I’m on a train with my wife Judy heading north from Miami to New York after having visited family in Puerto Rico. People always ask us why we choose to take the train instead of fly. Over and over again we have to explain that even though it adds a day to our travel each way we do it because trains emit less pollution than planes. We avoid flying because we value this planet we live on, and we don’t want t

We sleep in a 4-year old, 3-pound, 2-person MSR Hubba Hubba tent. The photo above is from when the tent was new, at the festival where we were married. At RAGBRAI 2025, there are at least four other Hubba Hubbas in the Out of State camp, so one of the last things we do as we set up is place our bins strategically — as much to keep people  from tripping on the guy lines as to help us find the right tent again after a midnight trip to the portos. No one else has a slow moving

Ironically, going to Iowa to ride in a big mobile bike party takes a truck, a trailer, and eight tanks of gas. Before leaving home, you acknowledge your anxiety and ambition and you cram all the portables you think you’ll need — mostly food, housing and bedding — into a bike panier and a bin. You truck your gear and your big solar electric recumbent tandem bike to the starting line. Before you abandon the truck, you bequeath it the big sleeve of sardine tins, the extra batter

In the flow. Again: wake up early. Strike the tent. Breakfast is two hard boiled eggs and coffee. Saddle up and ride ride ride. We are 20,000 bicyclists riding together. All along the highway we converse with our neighbors—something you can’t do as you travel the highway by car. As people pass us we are treated to a steady stream of compliments: “Cool bike!” “Nice ride!” “Are those solar panels?” The Honey Cycle is a recumbent tandem trike with a solar array on top. Typically

Speaks for itself, no caption needed. Our bible. Judy and I are reading “Living the Good Life: How to Live Sanely and Simply in a Troubled World” written in 1953 by Helen and Scott Nearing. Judy describes this book, with some reverence, as the original manifesto of the back-to-the-land hippie movement. Chapter 5 opens by posing the question “What is health?” The authors then launch into an excoriating diatribe blasting the food industry for basically poisoning people. And I a

Welcome home! I wake to a flash of lightning followed by a thunderclap. “We need to pack up the tent before it starts really raining!” Judy  springs into action and I groggily follow. As we put the tent away into our big plastic bins the rain starts in earnest and so we don our rain gear and go to find some coffee. We are at the 52nd RAGBRAI, which is an acronym for the “Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa.” (Register is the name of a newspaper here.) It’s the large

Images from the Wayne County Historical Museum in Richmond Indiana.

Here's a quick view of the Honeycycle at our campsite in Taughannock Falls State Park.

Dear Family, Friends, Campmates, and Free Spirits, It is with sorrow and finality that Radar and I have decided we cannot go to Burning...

Hey Makers! Let's Lower Carbon Emissions by Riding Our Solar-Powered Cross-Country Bicycles to Burning Man This Year. by Laurence...

by Laurence Clarkberg As if in a dream I am lying on a bed in a dimly lit hallway. Several of my various body parts are in agony. My eyes...

When people ask, How was Burning Man? I usually just say Hot and dusty, unless I think they want more. On the way in, people who wanted...

RhythmWave is a dance camp and we danced everyday. We danced the nap dance of the bowls and gongs, the yoga dance of the bodhisattvas and...

by Laurence Clarkberg I am sitting on a narrow hard bench facing the rear of a small plane. The drone of the twin engines bleeds into my...

I promised Park Police Officer Terry Fee that I would write a letter to both New York State Governor, Kathy Hochul,  and the Commissioner...

What makes Burning Man events the transformative experiences that they are? When default world people talk about Burning Man events, they...

We release these our wobbly words into the elusive electronic ether. Is anyone listening? We are two playful ebike experimenters living a...