Introducing the Mobile Command Center

Over the last 2 years, the Cycle OverRide crew has done several “test rides”; basically short, multi-day rides that helped us understand the ins and outs of what it will take to go cross country. We learned things like “get up early to finish early” and “have all your shit together the night before” and “New Jersey is flat.”  One of the big take-aways, however, was the toll these multi-day trips took on the support crew. As tough as it was to be in the saddle all day, it was actually quite difficult to be cooped up in a car in some random town with not much to do, no room to move, and generally feeling stuck. Keep in mind that what we ride in a day you can easily drive in just a few hours. So if there wasn’t much “supporting” to be done, the chase team was pretty bored. And this was during week-long rides. Obviously, spending 2 months like this going across the country won’t do.

So, to fix this situation, we have acquired our own Cycle OverRide Mobile Command Center (CORMCC… which doesn’t really have a ring to it.. we’ll come up with a better acronym). The MCC is a 2013 Airstream Interstate Extended.

While it can sleep 4, we won’t actually be sleeping in it. The more important aspects are seating for 8, a full bathroom, a kitchen (with fridge, convection oven, sink, and stovetop), storage for lots of bags and bike parts, 2 TV’s, a huge AC, a solar panel, and an awning. Basically if things or people break, the MCC is our bike shop on wheels to help get the riders through the ride and the support team stay sane.

We’re going to be putting some custom vinyl on the MCC over the next few weeks include the COR logo and all our sponsors. When we’re done, it should look like a serious bike support vehicle from the outside.

The next step will be to transform it in to a serious geek machine inside. We’ve already acquired a router with a 4G/3G interface to have “always on” Internet. We also have 2 Raspberry Pi’s running RaspBMC for streaming video to the 2 TV’s and a Mac Mini for a file server. The install of all this will be completed over the next week or so. However, that seems like it’s just a starting point. If folks have any ideas on how to pimp out this ride, please leave suggestions in the comments. I’ll be honest, I’ve never dealt with a vehicle quite like this before so I’m still wrapping my head around the possibilities. So suggestions are welcome. 🙂

Sponsoring Cycle OverRide

As it turns out, planning and executing a cross-country bike ride takes a lot of time, effort, and money. Thankfully, we have a number of very generous corporate sponsors who are supporting us in this crazy endeavor including:

• Tenable Network Security
• Tenacity Solutions
• Ponte Technologies
• MAD Security
• ShmooCon

That said, we’re still looking for another sponsor or two to help us defray the costs of this event. This is a great opportunity to get exposure for your company and show your support for an event that will be seen by and participated in by a number of information security professionals. Not only are we riding across the country with various infosec pros, but for the third year we are organizing an early morning bike ride at DefCon. The past two years have seen a shockingly large number of riders waking up before 6am to ride off in to the desert and enjoy the sights of Nevada. Even more surprising… everyone lived to tell the tale. 😉

We’ve also purchased an RV… A converted Sprinter van from Airstream. We’ll be putting sponsor logos on the outside of it and using it as our mobile command center. We’ll be posting regularly from the road, doing podcasts leading up to DefCon, etc, and the command center will be prominent in all of it.

Take a look at the sponsorship levels below. If you or your organization is interested in sponsoring us or has any questions, please drop me a line at gdead at shmoo dot com and I’ll get right back to you.

Also, don’t forget you can support the EFF on our behalf. They’re always happy to take donations.

==== Sponsorship Levels =====
$5,000 Sponsorship
Large Logo on Official Cycle OverRide Van for the duration of the ride
Logo on Jersey worn by all riders
Logo on Website
4 Cycle OverRide T-shirts

$2,500 Sponsorship
Small Logo on Official Cycle OverRide Van for the duration of the ride
Logo on Jersey worn by all riders
Logo on Website
2 Cycle OverRide T-shirts

$1,000 Sponsorship
Logo on Jersey worn by all riders
Logo on Website

Jersey Time

We’re getting down to the wire on ordering shwag for the ride. Jersey orders need to go in early next week. While we finish nailing down sponsors and getting the art finalized, we need to also get an idea of who wants a jersey. Even if you’re not doing the ride (or you’re just joining us for the ride in Vegas), you’re welcome to buy a jersey. The details are roughly as follows:

The art for the jersey isn’t finished yet, but we’re using the same basic design as we did for the Vegas rides (below). On the back this time we’ll have some gears and a map of the US, and we’ll have a few more sponsor logos… but the overall look and feel will be the same.  Cost will be in the ballpark of $75 each, but we won’t know until we get final numbers in.

If you’re interested or have questions, please send an email to gdead at shmoo dot com and let me know. I’ll post the final art once its ready.

UPDATE: Sizing info is here.

Donate to the EFF

One of the reasons we’re doing this ride is to raise awareness of issues facing the Information Security community. JP and I both feel very passionately about information security, the importance of education and research in this field, and the need for researchers to have the latitude necessary to perform their work.

Over the years, security researchers have often found themselves in difficult situations due to the nature of their research. From cracking weak encryption algorithms to disclosing vulnerabilities in important infrastructure, performing security research often means putting yourself in harms way. Thankfully, through it all, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has been there to provide guidance, advice, and (when necessary) legal defense for those who need it. The staff at the EFF have been great supporters of the information security/hacker community, and for that we owe them our great thanks.

We also owe them some money 😉 The EFF is a non-profit and relies on folks like you for all the funds that keep the lights on and the legal briefs flying. So, we humbly ask that if you’re interested in supporting us on our ride across the country, please do so by donating to the EFF. If you’re so inclined, we’d love to hear in the comments below that you donated on our behalf. Every donation helps motivate us… which is particularly important as we we climb hills in Kentucky and (more importantly) ride through Kansas, the land of straight lines and wind.