"Do you know how dangerous this is?"

The above question was asked of me Thursday evening, as Jenn and I rode the tandem out to Mom's for a visit. As we were climbing out of the valley at Floyd's Fork on Aiken Road (always a butt-kicking hill, despite its short duration), a motorist passed us, but as he pulled alongside, he ran his passenger window down and (I think) asked the title question. I think he meant that what I was doing was dangerous, and I really don't think he had any idea of the level of irony in his asking while he occupied the wrong side of the road in an area with a double-yellow center line (and on a blind hill, at that). I, on the other hand, knew quite well what I was doing, and that where I was riding was the best place on the roadway for the situation. I've read the manual, you see, and I probably have a better grasp of the rules of the road than that driver, based on that short display of his sense of danger. I also would be willing to bet a fair bit of money that I have more bicycle miles this month than he does.

In other riding updates, I've really been enjoying the Ergon grips on the Vienna. I noted a while back--here or on facebook--that they feel better without gloves than with any of the gloves I now own, so unless it's cool enough that gloves make sense, I ride bare-handed. I haven't heard a timeline on getting my Ergon gloves to try them with the grips--they are claimed to be designed to complement the grips--but I'm looking forward to seeing how they do. I have been told to expect my pedals late in May. No word on the backpack, yet, sad to say.

I can't fuss. I don't have to pay money for this stuff. I would like to be able to write about it, though, since that is my part of the Ergon Commuter Team deal.

I haven't crowed about numbers in a few days, so here goes: Total bike miles, YTD: 2376. Total CO2 miles, YTD (as in, instead of driving a car), 2007. Yes, that's two thousand seven miles instead of driving a car so far this year. That's a bit more than nineteen percent of the Louisville Bicycle Club's 10311 logged CO2 miles YTD. With only 590 miles for April so far, I probably won't break last month's 806 miles, but that's okay. There were four months in 2010 that saw me go more than six hundred miles, and I'll best two of those months (April and September of last year) by the end of this month.