Maybe Memorial Day and biking don't mix ? at least for me

Most people spend their Memorial Day Mondays basking in the sun, smelling delicious grilled foods and consuming said food items among other activities, generally with friends and or family.

This Memorial Day I too took part in the standard activities but with a twist ? I learned two very important items which will surely help me in the future.

One, a small, seemingly standard and harmless piece of dried mulch, with no truly recognizable sharp edges, lying on a paved bike path, can basically destroy a nice road tire.

And two, which is more important in the grand scheme of things ? perhaps I should give up this whole biking thing before I seriously maim myself.

Rather than have another mundane Memorial Day by myself, I headed northeast to the Quad Cities for some quality time with my bike and an aunt and uncle who live on the Illinois side. The original plan was bike a little Sunday, go to a cookout, bike a little Monday and then head home. To me, the plan was fairly sound.

Just not waterproof.

Sunday's biking was literally washed out, as was my aunt's neatly arranged garden once the creek behind their house was done flash flooding. It seems as if any time the three of us try to make legitimate biking plans, Mother Nature choses to douse the area in torrential downpours.

Monday morning rolled around with bright, blue skies and lots of sun ? and stiff 20+ mph headwinds from the south. The easy ride from Moline to Rock Island now appeared to be a true test of what little endurance I may have on a bike.

However, as it turned out, the headwinds were the least of the issues which arose. Instead, the three of us learned how blatantly evil a small piece of mulch can be, less than halfway into the ride.

4.83 miles to be exact (according to a new app on my smartphone that I was testing out).

But for me personally, evil mulch became the least of my worries as I may have to rethink my newfound love of biking. Anywhere, on any surface.

I don't remember being overly uncoordinated as a child but I may have forgotten. Instead, maybe it's not so much the lack of coordination as it is my lack of depth perception and momentary lapses in paying attention. Case in point: As a kindergartener, I slammed full speed into a brick wall during PE, not realizing running as fast as I could for whatever reason that the brick wall wasn't going to be overly forgiving.

I probably should have told that to the few teeth I knocked loose that day...

The lack of depth perception and short attention span caught up with me Monday. In reality, I caught up with the back tire on my aunt's bike in a few seconds and ended up on the freshly asphalted parking lot we were cutting through on the trail. My aunt was fine ? for a few moments I thought she would get the pleasure of calling her sister to notify her of what Quad Cities area hospital I and my busted elbow would be visiting on Memorial Day.

Once the throbbing pain subsided and I bent my arm a few times, I got up and back on my bike. We rode for maybe less than a mile more before the mulch attacked my uncle's tire. At that point, he stayed with his bike while my aunt and I rode back to the vehicles to return on a rescue mission. So much for a nice day of riding along the Mississippi.

I didn't hit my head at all in my latest trip to the pavement while biking. Maybe if I would have, I'd be seriously reconsidering the crazy idea I developed while driving home Monday night ? spending more quality time with my bike, this time on the trails around southeast Iowa.

Even if I would have hit my head, I know I wouldn't reconsider biking at all. I'm way too stubborn to know better.