2022 Cycleoverride Defcon 30 Edition

UPDATE 2 (Aug 11, 2022): The ride is tomorrow. As of 1:25 pm Pacific Time the bike shop has some mountain bikes left, but are no longer accepting reservations online for tomorrow. However, they will accept phone reservations before 5pm PT today: +1-702-596-2953 option 1. After 5pm, if you don’t have a bike, we apologize. We will do our best to get you the info on ride share also, which went out a few moments ago via email.

UPDATE (July 5, 2022): We have secured a new rental shop just up the road from McGhies called Las Vegas Cyclery. They will support our ride in a similar fashion as in the past.

TLDR: Ride a bicycle with us at Defcon – event signup here!!! Email info at cycleoverride dot org or DM us on Twitter @cycle_override if you have questions. This lets us know you intend to ride with use. Keep reading to rent a bike. Reserve bike here. You must register in the google form with the same email as you reserve your bike so we can match reservations with the shop.

TLDR2:  Bike shop will meet us at 6:30am to hand out rentals. You do not need to go there ahead of time.

It’s time for the Defcon 30 version of the Cycle Override Defcon bike ride!!!

The date of this years bike ride is Friday, AUGUST 12th, 2022 at 6am. This is Friday of Defcon. We will meet outside [Find a group to Uber/Taxi with] at 6:00am.

Registration is here. This is just so we can get a count and arrange comms leading up to the event. It will also give us your email so we can blast out any details needed pre ride, or at 5:25am on August 9th.

Here’s the deal – we have partnered with Las Vegas Cyclery in Las Vegas for our ride. Yes – they will throw your clipless pedals and seat posts on if you insist. They have an assortment of bikes.

Bike rental is first come first serve. You can always ship out your bike for about $100 each way on most airlines. We’ve had 50+ people before and they can usually get you what you want.

Here’s what YOU have to do:

You need to go here and reserve your ride. We recommend you pay the $10 extra for insurance. You will need to pay with a credit card. Then submit the Google Form here if you haven’t already. FYI: the bike shop will put a hold on your credit card for the value of the bike and release it when you return the bike. This could be a lot for some of the road bikes (up to $4500). Get the insurance.

When you reserve your bike (after payment) – put in your name followed by (Defcon). You will be asked to sign a waiver via an email that comes at the same time as your confirmation.

Use this chart based on your height and inseam to figure out your size and fill the comment box out accordingly:

From mcghies.com

You alone are solely responsible for your bike reservation. Las Vegas Cyclery is aware that we are running this event and will support us, but it’s on you to make sure you are all set with a bike.

THE ROUTE

NOTE: This ride may be at a higher altitude than you are used to. (2600-3800 ft)

OK — last piece the route – you can see the route here. This is the same route as last year (and the year before, and the year before that). Basically the route is slightly uphill out – and mostly downhill back. It’s looking like we’ll have a car heading up the back. There may be a bigger loop for those interested – we’ll let you know soon (basically taking the scenic loop around and catching up w/the group on your way back) – but it will likely be unofficial.

We are looking for sponsors so let us know if you are aware of anyone interested in throwing in some schwag or some cash to help support this ride. It will be used for hydration.

What do I do next?

Once you reserve your bike — all you have to do is wait for Defcon 30! Oh and keep riding!

Cheers!

The Cycle Override Team

PS if you have any questions — leave a comment so everyone can see the answer!

2021 Defcon Bike Ride Vaxxed Edition

TLDR: Ride a bicycle with us at Defcon – signup here!!! Email info at cycleoverride dot org if you have questions. 

TLDR2:  Bike shop will meet us at 6:30am to hand out rentals. You do not need to go there ahead of time.

It’s time for the Defcon 29 version of the Cycle Override Defcon bike ride!!!

The date of this years bike ride is Friday, AUGUST 6th, 2021 at 6am. This is Friday of Defcon. We will meet outside [Find a group to Uber/Taxi with] at 6:00am.

Registration is here. This is just so we can get a count and arrange comms leading up to the event. It will also give us your email so we can blast out any details needed pre ride, or at 5:25am on August 9th.

Here’s the deal – we have partnered again with McGhies Bike Shop in Las Vegas for our ride. Yes – they will throw your clipless pedals and seat posts on if you insist. They have 3 levels of road bikes:  a ~$40 Cannondale Synapse,  and a ~$100 Lance Armstrong starter kit road bike (think Madone.)  There’s also a $125 level also.

Bike rental is first come first serve — there are about 18 $40  male road bikes and 10 female — after that it’s a hybrid or a $100 bike.  You can always ship out your bike for about $100 each way on most airlines. We’ve had 50+ people before and they can usually get you what you want.

Here’s what YOU have to do:

You need to go here and reserve your ride. Rent your bike for the Las Vegas location. You will need to pay with a credit card. You should note anything special here and you should indicate you are reserving for the Defcon Bike Ride.

Here is what you should put in the comment box: (your own specs of course)

“Defcon Bike Ride

Size: 54 cm – will bring my own pedals

Need bike at 6am”

And for pick up:

Please select pickup at store – Las Vegas

Use this chart based on your height and inseam to figure out your size and fill the comment box out accordingly:

From mcghies.com

You alone are solely responsible for your bike reservation. McGhies is aware that we are running this event and will support us, but it’s on you to make sure you are all set with a bike.

THE ROUTE

NOTE: This ride may be at a higher altitude than you are used to. (2600-3800 ft)

OK — last piece the route – you can see the route here. This is the same route as last year (and the year before, and the year before that). Basically the route is slightly uphill out – and mostly downhill back. It’s looking like we’ll have a car heading up the back. There may be a bigger loop for those interested – we’ll let you know soon (basically taking the scenic loop around and catching up w/the group on your way back) – but it will likely be unofficial.

We are looking for sponsors so let us know if you are aware of anyone interested in throwing in some schwag or some cash to help support this ride. It will be used for hydration.

What do I do next?

Once you reserve your bike — all you have to do is wait for Defcon 29! Oh and keep riding!

Cheers!

The Cycle Override Team

PS if you have any questions — leave a comment so everyone can see the answer!

Cycleoverride 2020 – 10th Defcon Bike Ride & #Badgelife (help wanted)

So – Bruce and I were speaking over the weekend and started talking about the fact that it’s the 10 year anniversary of Cycle Override. It all started with some poor communication skills and here we are!

As I’ve been reflecting on this – Bruce and I (and countless others) have done over 20 rides and close to 8000 miles each of riding, but what’s more impressive is the number of hackers/info sec people we have brought together in the name of cycling.

The Defcon Bike Ride in 2019 (the 9th version) had 50 people on the ride. My guess is that almost 300 different people have ridden with us at some point over the past 10 years. To me – if I think of what I would have wished we accomplished with our rides (from every Derbycon except this year, to unplanned winter bike rides at Shmoocon) – is the community the we have enabled. It’s frankly amazing to me how many people have gotten engaged over 6 or 7am bike ride at conferences which go well into the evening.

All the above being said, it’s my desire to make the 10th annual Defcon Bike Ride something special. That means jerseys, tshirts, stickers, of course. But I want to do something a bit more special.

Badgelife

At Defcon 27 – it became clear to me that the Defcon community has embraced the #badgelife scene. I informally counted at least 15 different badges, and I left Saturday, and pretty much camped out at the OpenSoc CTF event at the Blue Team Village.

This tells me there is an interest in badges. Combine that with my ability to sign up with more than I can handle – and Bruce and I have agreed that we’d like to design a badge that has the following themes:

• cycling (duh)
• some sort of challenge system that unlocks more content ( e.g. you need to checkin at the mid point of the bike ride to get the 10th anniversary badge and it’s challenges)
• probably crypto since we both have a <3 for privacy
• Some Blue Team type theme, since we both do blue team work at Syncurity and Expel.io
• NFC
• Anything else that comes to mind
• Have an official 10th anniversary party at Defcon

How will this go down?

So – I need help. What I plan on doing is building out a set of requirements for a board (think of something like your front crank on your bike. Figure out what lights/comms/display/and challenges we want to embed, and outsource the hardware.

How I need help?

I will need help coding the functionality into the badge. I will need a few QA testers. I will need people to help me get the word out so I don’t have to shoulder the entire cost myself. ( We will likely be doing pre-orders with and have a small amount for sale in Vegas. ).

I’m looking for people that want to learn about writing (probably Python) for badges. Doing some cross badge comms, programming some images and who knows what I don’t know about. If you are interested – tweet at us (@cycle_override), email us (info at cycleoverride dot org) or find us somehow.

Finally – thank

To ten years! — the Cycleoverride crew