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. 🙂