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Month: July 2009

Bike Nashbar Was Hacked, Vulnerable for 2-3 Months

Published July 7, 2009

While at lunch a few minutes ago I received a call from bike nashbar informing me that they had a data breech and that they wanted to inform me of it. They answered my questions and indicated that it was a credit card processing breech, and that it happened at the end of December, 2008 and the hole was closed in early March, 2009. This means that any credit card transactions made during this 2-3 month period were potentially subject to interception.

The calling then confirmed the last four digits of the card I had used there, which also just happens to be the credit card of mine which was compromised in February of this year. I can’t help but feel that the two are closely related.

Poking around a bit online showed a few other sites (1 · 2 · 3) confirming this.

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Hiking the Potawatomi Trail

Published July 5, 2009

This weekend Danielle and I rented some backpacks, sleeping bags, pads, and a tent from REI and headed out to the Pinckney Recreation Area to hike The Potawatomi Trail. After riding it on Memorial Day we figured that it would be a good location for a first overnight backpacking trip, and it was.

For food we brought along MREs in both surplus and civilian versions. They are decent meals, and at just over 1 pound each aren’t bad for an overnight trip. The food is general TV dinner quality, and about 1200 calories per meal. Eating one yesterday afternoon after setting up camp and another this morning before leaving, we were quite satisfied. I was also able to use the flameless heater in them to make this video of an MRE heater being burned in a campfire. In short, it burns hot and bright enough to overwhelm the CCD.

The second day of hiking was quite a bit easier than the first, which may be attributed to our leaving camp before the hottest part of the day. Another upside to finishing the hiking early is that we were able to return the rental stuff to REI a day early and be refunded an extra day of rental costs.

If you’d like to see more photos from this trip, click here: Potawatomi Trail (July 2009)

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Recumbent Weirdness

Published July 1, 2009

My coworker Brian is looking to sell his recumbent bicycle, a Sun EZ-Sport CX. I offered to check it over for him and take some photos of it, so now it’s here at my house. As part of this I decided to take it for a ride, as seen above. I’ve only gone a couple miles on it, but I’m really not sure what to think of it.

For one, the really long wheelbase makes it very slow to turn, and the small front wheel makes it feel not as stable as I’d like. While it is very easy to get going and stays upright well, but with any lean outside of a turn it feels a bit twitchy, and as if it would prefer to turn or fall over.

I’ll probably get some more riding in with it while checking it over, but I’m not sure where I’ll do this at. Sitting lower to the ground, rim brakes for slower stopping, and overall less control makes me hesitant to take this on public roads, even residential ones.

Here is a picture of the bike itself, if you’re interested.

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