The axes are required for manoeuvrability.

@Brickalili said:
"The Roboriders did look kinda cool but gods only know what their story is supposed to be. The Slizers may have got a hodgepodge of story fragments that often contradicted each other but at least that’s something compared to the dearth of lore from poor Roboriders "

Slizers diappeared but now we used their part to make Roboriders;)

Bionicle lore: This guy does not exist

@Binnekamp said:
" Bionicle was also the same core concept of six heroes fighting a virus coming from pill-shaped canisters. In bionicle the 'virus' was Makuta, and the toa were a metaphore for medicine."

And the Morbuzakh was brain cancer (Mask of Life as a defibrilator? 11-2008-3/2010 as a brain transplant?)

@Zordboy said:
"I know people didn't much care for the Robo Riders, but I thought they were great. And I really liked this guy, particularly with the big chomping axes. They were cool. "

I like them too. I have 8514 and I always liked how he looked with the two blasters folded back--almost like a normal motorcycle in disguise.

@Binnekamp said:
"Because nobody did so far; I'm going to try to note what the story was with RoboRiders. This is off the top of my head:

A virus has been unleashed that threatens all of cyberspace! To combat this threat, a set of six vehicles were created; the RoboRiders. Piloted by their 'talisman wheels', which have powers and which are actually the drivers, these vehicles are each specialized to conquer one of six digital realms; a rock realm, desert realm, ice realm, swamp realm, volcano realm and some sort of abandoned highway realm full of wrecking balls and broken roads."

The Talisman Wheels are *not* the actual drivers, that’s a bizarre piece of misinformation that’s floated around for decades, seemingly originating from someone recapping the story from memory in around 2005. There is no evidence whatsoever of such a thing in any official material to my knowledge, which consistently describes the RoboRiders as “human brains in motorcycle bodies”.

Interestingly, his color scheme was the most straight forward transition from Slizer to Bionicle - Already the Red/Orange of Tahu but still a lot of Black, like Fire Slizer.

He also was part of 2 combiner models - the so called "Mega Roborider" made out of all 6 and a 2 set version combined with Swamp. Those combiners made use of the cap of the can that was used as package for these.

Lava and Onyx were my first two Roboriders! The particularly realistic eyes on Lava used to creep me out.

@Binnekamp said:"bear in mind the wheel pack had to specify 'internet' before the web address because this was 2000, "

Yeah, I still remember seeing packages (I think of Kellogg's products)that had a small thing on the top of the package that said, "Look! We're on the Web." and then showed the URL for the company's website. This would have been around 1996 or so.

Rad-ical!

So if these have human brains, shouldn't they qualify for random figure of the day too?

Well, this is (was?) certainly a thing.

@TotalMaddness said:
" @Binnekamp said:
"Because nobody did so far; I'm going to try to note what the story was with RoboRiders. This is off the top of my head:

A virus has been unleashed that threatens all of cyberspace! To combat this threat, a set of six vehicles were created; the RoboRiders. Piloted by their 'talisman wheels', which have powers and which are actually the drivers, these vehicles are each specialized to conquer one of six digital realms; a rock realm, desert realm, ice realm, swamp realm, volcano realm and some sort of abandoned highway realm full of wrecking balls and broken roads."

The Talisman Wheels are *not* the actual drivers, that’s a bizarre piece of misinformation that’s floated around for decades, seemingly originating from someone recapping the story from memory in around 2005. There is no evidence whatsoever of such a thing in any official material to my knowledge, which consistently describes the RoboRiders as “human brains in motorcycle bodies”.

"

Oh, I can explain this one! It's most likely someone vaguely remembering this and mistakenly thinking it was official:

https://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Lego/fanfic.html

At the time it wasn't sectioned off into its own subpage, so I can see how someone who wasn't reading very carefully might mistake it for a summary of the official backstory. It wouldn't be the only time Dave's headcanons about stuff from that era have been mistaken for canon.

Probably my second-favourite of the RoboRiders, all things considered (with 8509 Swamp being my absolute favourite due to a combination of nostalgia, his build working well, and his colour scheme - teal and lime were both fairly new to me at the time!). I in general liked better the RoboRider designs that didn't use the big chunky 'torso' block piece https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=32305 (and that had cool weapon recolours; something that curiously tended to be found only on the Riders who didn't use said block), and Lava's colour scheme was very effective at evoking the environment he belonged to.

After I got my first RoboRider, Dust, as a birthday present from a schoolfriend, I kinda began to be low-key interested in them because of their aesthetic similarity to Slizers. I never went out of my way to get them, but one after another down through the years, they would turn up in charity shops or second-hand sales, and so I got most of the rest of them that way; Lava here was my third in total.

I didn't know the RoboRiders lore at the time... in hindsight human brains in motorbikes makes me think of the Star Wars EU's Ssi-Ruuk and their Entechment process, from the Truce at Bakura novel, which stole the consciousness and life energy from human captives and used it to power their starfighters and other machinery. Makes one wonder whether the humans controlling the RoboRiders had chosen to exchange their bodies for bikes, or if they were unwilling participants...

I never did understand why the wheels seemed to be individual characters as well... I honestly ignored that part entirely to just focus on the 'Slizer-like' bike characters!

As I said, though, I didn't know the lore at the time, so I assumed they were all-robot, like I also believed the Slizers to be. (In hindsight, I consider the Slizers to be more along the lines of 85% mechanical, 15% organic, the same as Bionicle characters, but that's neither here nor there...) Around 2006 I started trying to figure out how to fold Slizers and RoboRiders into Bionicle's lore, and while I decided that Slizer was a separate planet that some of the Bionicle characters wound up visiting, RoboRiders' lack of known context meant I felt like I was free to do whatever with them; ultimately I imagined that they could have been built in-universe by one of my original characters, who used technology that he had learned about during the visit to Planet Slizer to make them as a way of commemorating the Slizer friends he'd made on that trip.

I had kinda abandoned that overall story idea by 2007, so I never reached a point of figuring out what the RoboRiders would actually *do* upon existing in the Bionicle universe, but it was a thought at least...!

I had this one! Good fun, the axes were a nice addition. The way the front wheel was mounted always suggested to me you could fire it somehow, but I never could get that to work. I remember feeling disappointed about that

I also had his little brother 1291 Power Bike, which was really good bang for your buck.

I became curious about the human brains thing and searched around. From a US catalog I could only find the story stating they are fighting a virus on the internet that takes six forms. That catalog also states all 6 are needed to completely defeat the virus. Interestingly the catalog mentions that the codes on the canister unlock a 'track' each. That's the US 2000 full line catalog on Brickset.

I eventually found multiple sources of the 'human brain' thing:
https://f005.backblazeb2.com/file/Brickshelf/bs01/gallery/Phyoohrii/stuff/blogstuff/clubmagazines/june2000/june_2000_07.jpg

I'd recommend looking at the above page btw. It mentions a 'baptism' of all things! As someone said in a Throwbots/Slizer RSotD a while ago... 90s lego advertising was wild!

Edit: also here:
https://f005.backblazeb2.com/file/Brickshelf/bs01/gallery/Sparkytron/LEGO/Roboriders/lego_s_h_scan_-_roboriders.jpg

And here:
http://www.miniland.nl/LEGOclub/lego%20mania%20magazine%20mar%20apr%202001/17.jpg

Btw, Biosector has a page on the theme with citations. :D

Edit: it turns out the website itself was at least archived! It doesn't mention the human brain thing, and in fact most of the blurbs seem to be the same as on the catalog. However, it does mention the codes and the game again, stating 'each code unlocks a roboriders game' and that you also got a wallpaper. Elsewhere it mentions you could unlock 6 different environments. When you unlocked all 6 you could also gain access to a 7th game. As it stated you need 6 to defeat the virus, this was presumably where you defeat the virus for good.
It mentions that you can 'compete against the best roboriders in the world' and that highscores are posted on the website. Or well, were.

Bonus:
More insane marketing:
- 'nobody else has a chance of going through this terrain without being skewered to death'
- 'a fire fighter that guzzled the flames like a dragon - and spews chunks of rock from the corners of its mouth as if they were cherry stones'.
Man, they had a field day with these!
https://f005.backblazeb2.com/file/Brickshelf/bs01/gallery/Phyoohrii/stuff/blogstuff/clubmagazines/june2000/june_2000_09.jpg

Or the classic: 'are you prepared for dooms day in hell!?' written in wordart-like font
https://f005.backblazeb2.com/file/Brickshelf/bs01/gallery/Phyoohrii/stuff/blogstuff/clubmagazines/december2000/december_2000_06.jpg

- "Don t give me your nonsense! You will all die a hideous death! Say your last prayers!" -Lava RoboRider... apparently...?

https://f005.backblazeb2.com/file/Brickshelf/bs01/gallery/Phyoohrii/stuff/blogstuff/clubmagazines/december2000/december_2000_07.jpg

The first RoboRider I bought. Neat in retrospect, though the fact that the gimmick revolves around piece of plastic you crease and fold repeatedly is a durability reed flag.

Got one of these in a charity shop a few years back; it didn't look that exciting but I was convinced when I realised how ridiculously rare those black halberds must be. Getting a pair of them for castle gate guards is ideal!

@Binnekamp said:
"Or the classic: 'are you prepared for dooms day in hell!?' written in wordart-like font
https://f005.backblazeb2.com/file/Brickshelf/bs01/gallery/Phyoohrii/stuff/blogstuff/clubmagazines/december2000/december_2000_06.jpg

- "Don t give me your nonsense! You will all die a hideous death! Say your last prayers!" -Lava RoboRider... apparently...?

https://f005.backblazeb2.com/file/Brickshelf/bs01/gallery/Phyoohrii/stuff/blogstuff/clubmagazines/december2000/december_2000_07.jpg "

These ones are even more bizarre because of how they don't even remotely agree with the lore of any of the other pages linked? Everything else, while definitely trying too hard to be edgy, still maintains a tone of "these are the good guys and only they can protect you in these insanely hazardous environments", and who may be all on the same side.

Then these pages? They outright go "HAHA NOPE THEY'RE HERE TO KILL YOU AND EACH OTHER, HAVE FUN!"

Not to even mention. The tonal dissonance between them spewing excessively violent threats at each other, only for last paragraph on the page to end with "YIPPEEEEE!!! WE ALL WON" when they reach a stalemate? I just can't get my head around it.

I feel like if I'd seen *that* marketing when I was a kid, it would have absolutely put me off these things. Honestly, it surpasses Bionicle's 2006 marketing in extreme edgyness, and that's saying something...!

@Brickalili said:
"The Roboriders did look kinda cool but gods only know what their story is supposed to be. The Slizers may have got a hodgepodge of story fragments that often contradicted each other but at least that’s something compared to the dearth of lore from poor Roboriders "

A sign of the times. Back in the 2000s kids used their imaginations and made up their own playtime/stories and didn't need lore around 'characters' :)

Don't sweat the technic.

Nope...doesn't look a thing like the pumice soap...:)

@Binnekamp:
They absolutely did not need to preface web addresses with “internet”, but they absolutely believed they needed to. This was in the days when AOL made their entire user base enter “keywords” instead of being able to just type the stupid URL, which I believe cut AOL users off from much of the internet (anything that wasn’t a one-word URL probably didn’t work, and for every keyword there might be half a dozen websites that could have had a valid claim on it).

@Koentinius:
You definitely could make the wheel shoot out of the little trough, but I never cared enough to learn how to do it.

@brick_r said:
"Nope...doesn't look a thing like the pumice soap...:)"

Or any kind of chocolate cake.