I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my carbon footprint.

But first a disclaimer.

I’m not a big fan of the term “carbon footprint.” I guess my dislike for the term stems from the fact it has become a trendy saying rather than what I feel should be a person’s or organization’s attempt simply to burn less dino juice. I figure the world would be a better place if everyone spent less time calculating their carbon footprint and more time, well, burning less.

Reminds me of a study I read about that said new solar converts actually used more electricity than before installing their solar panels because they were creating more clean energy and felt they had earned the right to use more.

Also, I think carbon footprint sounds hoity-toity.

But … whatever.

I thought a lot about my youknowwhat last weekend, when I traveled to Durango, Colo., for the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic, a recreational road-bike ride in the San Juan Mountains.

To get there, I drove to Kansas City International Airport (about 50 miles), flew to Albuquerque (about 800 miles), drove from there to Durango (just over 200 miles), then drove to Pagosa Springs, Colo., (about 60 miles) where I spent the night.

Saturday morning, I drove from Pagosa to Durango, rode 50 miles on my bike from Durango to Silverton, then bused back to Durango (50 miles) before driving back to Albuquerque.

In other words, I flew/drove/rode more than 2,220 miles in or on fossil-fuel-powered vehicles to spend a couple of hours on a bike.

If that doesn’t give Mother Nature hot flashes, I don’t know what will.

(Don’t bother trying to convince me that humans don’t contribute to global warming. For the sake of this blog, let’s all try to suspend our own personal disbelief enough to admit that burning less fossil fuel — by definition a finite resource — is better for everyone).

So, yeah, I feel pretty selfish about that.

If there were a mountain outside my back door, I’d ride it, but you kinda have to go to where the mountains are if you want to ride in them, and I did, so I did.

But I’ll throw out another number that helps assuage my guilt a bit.

On the way back from the airport, the odometer on my car clicked over 3,000 miles for the year. That’s not 3,000 miles in the year 2009. That’s 3,000 miles over the past 12 months.

The national average, I believe, is more like 12,000 miles a year.

Even if you throw in the drives I made in my wife’s car, I’m well below that figure.

So when it comes to figuring my carbon footprint — at least when it comes to travel — I figure I’m ahead of the game, despite my gluttonous ways the past weekend.

It reminds me, too, that when I first started riding semi-seriously, I’d put my bike on the rack on the back of my SUV and drive to the multi-use trail — a four-mile trip each way. I’d ride my bike for 10 or so miles on the trail, then drive back.

At the time, I thought it made perfect sense to drive eight miles to ride 10.

Of course, I wouldn’t have driven on the multi-use trail, so I wasn’t riding in place of driving.

But I finally came to realize just how stupid it was to drive to ride and started riding to the trail instead.

Now if only I could find a way to ride to and from Colorado in a reasonable time, I could put a serious dent in that footprint.