Hey, it's one of those sets I picked up just for spare parts to build Bionicle MOCs! That is, I scrapped the few Throwbots I'd already obtained, and managed to acquire every character I'd skipped, then did the same with the entire run of Roboriders (having skipped that theme outright). I can't remember exactly how I got my hands on so many Throwbot torsos, though, as at least five of my dragons use them extensively.

I've been after one of these for ages. Love these guys.

Not as cool as 8520 's bike-rider build but still eyecatching in Pre-Bionicle constraction [though when you think about it, calling RoboRiders "constraction" seems a bit odd when going by workable definitions due to the lack of biped "action figures," but it was the stopgap in themed cheap Technic between Slizer/ThrowBots and Bionicle with a direct affect in the lineage (introducing more parts and the canister format) so it counts in my book].

I need to get more Roboriders. In terms of scratching that Bionicle itch, they're way less price-inflated on the secondhand market due to being unremarkable to general Lego fans and just distant enough from Bionicle's appeal that most Bionicle fans to ignore them. (I guess the theme has parallels to Ben 10 in that regard; the forgotten single-assortment holdover theme between major constraction series...)

Lego made Metal Gear Solid 3 sets?

@Alia_of_AGL said:
"Not as cool as 8520 's bike-rider build but still eyecatching in Pre-Bionicle constraction [though when you think about it, calling RoboRiders "constraction" seems a bit odd when going by workable definitions due to the lack of biped "action figures," but it was the stopgap in themed cheap Technic between Slizer/ThrowBots and Bionicle with a direct affect in the lineage (introducing more parts and the canister format) so it counts in my book].

I need to get more Roboriders. In terms of scratching that Bionicle itch, they're way less price-inflated on the secondhand market due to being unremarkable to general Lego fans and just distant enough from Bionicle's appeal that most Bionicle fans to ignore them. (I guess the theme has parallels to Ben 10 in that regard; the forgotten single-assortment holdover theme between major constraction series...)"

True about how AFOL view the theme. I would argue though, that RoboRiders was somewhat more sophisticated than Ben10, as it had rather different builds, sets at 3 different sizes, a bunch of collectibles (wheels) and a surprisingly complex combiner system.

Whereas Ben10 seemingly was just 6 clone sets as far as I could tell from the instructions (mimicking some years of Bionicle in that regard).

Interesting side note: Internally, RoboRiders was known as "Craze" judging by the official names for many of it's new parts. This is a bit weird, given how some Bionicle designers (I think Christian Faber was among them) referred to TLG's product strategy of the late 90s as "crazes" which would quickly replace eachother (kind of a good description of how Slizer and RoboRiders worked anyways...).

Did some of the other roboriders like 8514 have a wheel which shot out as implied from the paper catalogue page? No help on the web page https://www.lego.com/en-gb/roboriders as now returns 'Oh Bricks we cannot find this page!'

@kdu2814 said:"This is an example of the prehistoric life from Cybertron, as evolution continued its slow march from naturally occurring gears and levers to fully sentient transforming robots."

I'm wondering if the other people who upvoted that actually got the reference, or thought you were making a joke. Yes, folks, in the early day of the first Transformers comics, that actually was stated as the origin of the Transformer race.

@Binnekamp said:"For a set called The Boss this feels like it lives up to its name, even though its role in the 'story' of Roboriders is an enigma. Is it the leader? The bad guy? "

Possibly a leader of bad guys?

I still believe its a reused Slizer

@ambr said:
"Did some of the other roboriders like 8514 have a wheel which shot out as implied from the paper catalogue page? No help on the web page https://www.lego.com/en-gb/roboriders as now returns 'Oh Bricks we cannot find this page!'"

All regular sized roboriders and The Boss did. It's the front wheel, which sits on a folding tray that can slide out, unfold and bend to shoot the wheel.
How do they continue without the wheel? idunno
Like I said above, the triple-bike build of this set uses it too in a way where it actually can continue on without that wheel in combined form at least.

Gotta shout out the Lego Rewind episode that covered these, can't think of the Robo Riders without picturing the voice that Nick does for them - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUw7HZUn_NE

@Ridgeheart said:
"This set is exceptional at talking to corporate, leading workshops, remembering birthdays, directing workflows, micromanaging, promoting synergy, and hitting on Debra. And it has its own bathroom where it can weep openly after being rejected (by Debra)."

It's tough to crash into the sun and die every day, but somebody's gotta do it.

@Binnekamp said:
" @ambr said:
"Did some of the other roboriders like 8514 have a wheel which shot out as implied from the paper catalogue page? No help on the web page https://www.lego.com/en-gb/roboriders as now returns 'Oh Bricks we cannot find this page!'"

All regular sized roboriders and The Boss did. It's the front wheel, which sits on a folding tray that can slide out, unfold and bend to shoot the wheel.
How do they continue without the wheel? idunno
Like I said above, the triple-bike build of this set uses it too in a way where it actually can continue on without that wheel in combined form at least."

What's even weirder is that the US ( or was it the UK one?) storyline says that the ACTUAL character is the wheel, not the bike...

@Atuin said:
" @Binnekamp said:
" @ambr said:
"Did some of the other roboriders like 8514 have a wheel which shot out as implied from the paper catalogue page? No help on the web page https://www.lego.com/en-gb/roboriders as now returns 'Oh Bricks we cannot find this page!'"

All regular sized roboriders and The Boss did. It's the front wheel, which sits on a folding tray that can slide out, unfold and bend to shoot the wheel.
How do they continue without the wheel? idunno
Like I said above, the triple-bike build of this set uses it too in a way where it actually can continue on without that wheel in combined form at least."

What's even weirder is that the US ( or was it the UK one?) storyline says that the ACTUAL character is the wheel, not the bike..."

I've yet to see this supposed "the wheels are the drivers" storyline verified in any official LEGO media in either US or UK, even though it's been repeated on various fan forums and wikis without any cited sources. LEGO catalogs, magazines, and Christian Faber's preliminary storyline all consistently refer to the RoboRiders as human brains in motorbike bodies. LEGO.com did provide names and artwork for each Talisman Wheel, but never stated that these were the RoboRiders' real drivers; for all we know, the Talisman Wheels are just the equivalent of Pokemon and RoboRiders are their trainers.

As for The Boss, its only lore (stemming from the US Shop At Home catalog) describes it as the next generation of bigger, better RoboRider and continues the trend of being a human brain in a bike body. As Binnekamp mentioned, its lack of characterization leaves much to the imagination. Is it "The Boss" because it's the heroic leader, or is it "The Boss" because it's the villainous final boss? Is it even male or female (note that all the other defined RoboRiders have masculine pronouns)? Who knows? As LEGO used to say, "Just imagine..."

@SJPlego said:
" @Atuin said:
" @Binnekamp said:
" @ambr said:
"Did some of the other roboriders like 8514 have a wheel which shot out as implied from the paper catalogue page? No help on the web page https://www.lego.com/en-gb/roboriders as now returns 'Oh Bricks we cannot find this page!'"

All regular sized roboriders and The Boss did. It's the front wheel, which sits on a folding tray that can slide out, unfold and bend to shoot the wheel.
How do they continue without the wheel? idunno
Like I said above, the triple-bike build of this set uses it too in a way where it actually can continue on without that wheel in combined form at least."

What's even weirder is that the US ( or was it the UK one?) storyline says that the ACTUAL character is the wheel, not the bike..."

I've yet to see this supposed "the wheels are the drivers" storyline verified in any official LEGO media in either US or UK, even though it's been repeated on various fan forums and wikis without any cited sources. LEGO catalogs, magazines, and Christian Faber's preliminary storyline all consistently refer to the RoboRiders as human brains in motorbike bodies. LEGO.com did provide names and artwork for each Talisman Wheel, but never stated that these were the RoboRiders' real drivers; for all we know, the Talisman Wheels are just the equivalent of Pokemon and RoboRiders are their trainers.

As for The Boss, its only lore (stemming from the US Shop At Home catalog) describes it as the next generation of bigger, better RoboRider and continues the trend of being a human brain in a bike body. As Binnekamp mentioned, its lack of characterization leaves much to the imagination. Is it "The Boss" because it's the heroic leader, or is it "The Boss" because it's the villainous final boss? Is it even male or female (note that all the other defined RoboRiders have masculine pronouns)? Who knows? As LEGO used to say, "Just imagine...""

Interesting... While I am not entirely sure if this is truely just an internet myth, I was sure this would be more easy to find info about, but no...

The US Mania Magazine mentions RoboRiders exactly twice and both articles are identical for whatever reason. The UK catalogue basically just tells something about an internet virus the RoboRiders have to fight (typical late 90s nonsense :P) and mentions the canister codes I completely forgot... Lego.com had the names for all the wheels listed.
The whole human brains inside robot bikes thing is from Lego World Club (and also kind of confirmed by Faber).

If you hadn't mentioned hearing about this before, I might have even considered it to be faulty memory on my behalf, but now I'm curious where I found this weird alternate version first...

EDIT:
The only mention that I could find is the Danish Bionicle Wiki - which of cause doesn't give a source.

@Atuin said:
"Interesting... While I am not entirely sure if this is truely just an internet myth, I was sure this would be more easy to find info about, but no...

The US Mania Magazine mentions RoboRiders exactly twice and both articles are identical for whatever reason. The UK catalogue basically just tells something about an internet virus the RoboRiders have to fight (typical late 90s nonsense :P) and mentions the canister codes I completely forgot... Lego.com had the names for all the wheels listed.
The whole human brains inside robot bikes thing is from Lego World Club (and also kind of confirmed by Faber).

If you hadn't mentioned hearing about this before, I might have even considered it to be faulty memory on my behalf, but now I'm curious where I found this weird alternate version first...

EDIT:
The only mention that I could find is the Danish Bionicle Wiki - which of cause doesn't give a source."

The earliest "source" I can find is an old BZPower topic from 2005. One user, Etcetere, recites the story from memory and describes the "wheels are the real characters driving the RoboRiders" premise. However, they do not cite a source, making this entirely hearsay based on memory of a then-five-year-old theme. I'm inclined to believe that this is where this supposed storyline (or at least, its first mention on LEGO fansites) all originates from: http://web.archive.org/web/20121004142758/http://www.bzpower.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=170732

In addition to World Club Magazine and Faber, there's actually one specific mention of RoboRiders in LEGO Mania Magazine that corroborates the "human brain in bike body" storyline: the advert for the Super ComboRider in the March/April 2001 issue (incidentally, my very first issue!). As I mentioned before, it's also in the product description for The Boss.

The only reason I happen to know all this was because I was correcting the BIONICLEsector01, Brickipedia, and TV Tropes wiki articles on RoboRiders a few years ago. Believe me, I was searching high and low for whatever scant RoboRiders story I could find! I'm sure there must be something I was missing, so maybe Etcetere's story exists somewhere out there... but until then, it's a big old "[citation needed]" in my book.

The Roborider that I never knew existed for most of my child/teenage-hood! I think I heard or read online about a passing mention of it, but it had never been featured in any of the Lego catalogues or magazines that I had, and I'd never seen it in shops, so I kind of dismissed it as a false rumour or a hoax. It was wild to stumble across it on Brickset a while ago and learn it had actually existed.

(Although to be fair, I was never super into RoboRiders either, so that may be why I missed it. I got Dust from a friend for my birthday that year, and I was passingly interested in them because of their similarity to Slizers, but their lack of the (even mostly-implied and heavily inconsistent) lore of Silzers didn't make it easy to get invested in them. I did get most of the others over the years, by picking them up from second-hand sales and charity shops - Frost was the only one I never found this way - but they were still more of a curiosity due to their Bionicle-adjacence than anything else.)

I'd find it kind of interesting to acquire it someday just because of that, because it's curious to me, but it would be nowhere near high priority for me even if I was buying Lego more often at present. And I had no idea it had a second (far superior-looking) model, so many thanks to @Binnekamp for sharing that link!

I also never remember hearing that RoboRiders were human brains in bike bodies; I assumed as a kid that, like Slizers and Bionicle, they were from a universe without human presence. That's... an unexpected story direction, for sure.

@Ridgeheart said:
"This set is exceptional at talking to corporate, leading workshops, remembering birthdays, directing workflows, micromanaging, promoting synergy, and hitting on Debra. And it has its own bathroom where it can weep openly after being rejected (by Debra)."

@fakespacesquid said:
"It's tough to crash into the sun and die every day, but somebody's gotta do it. "

Did Debra at least provide him with a nice photostat of her backside as a parting gift, or is that forbidden by HR regs?

So... I went on a bit of a Robo Riders rabbit hole today. Apparently the four mini sets that would nowadays be polybags actually have 6 different combiner models somehow.

And then there's this bit of marketing I found. This glorious marketing. This is... something else. It could only be cooked up in the late 90s and/or 2000, but even so, it's kind of shocking for a lego mania magazine bit:

https://brickshelf.com/gallery/Phyoohrii/stuff/blogstuff/clubmagazines/december2000/december_2000_06.jpg

https://brickshelf.com/gallery/Phyoohrii/stuff/blogstuff/clubmagazines/december2000/december_2000_07.jpg

@StyleCounselor said:
"Sets like this feel like a Rorschach test to me.

BTW, I see a clown holding balloons. "

https://brickshelf.com/gallery/PurpleDave/Humor/poohneywise.jpg

There you go. One clown. Holding balloon. Bear costume is a bonus.