The Only Thing More American Than Apple Pie Is The Taco Ride
The Taco Ride is essential Americana. It is the type of Americana that you can only access by drilling through non essential Americana’s crust, penetrating its upper and lower mantle, and outer core before finally reaching the inner core and sacred chambers of essential Americana.
I was on the Taco Ride a few weeks back and I casually made the comment that the Taco Ride is more American than apple pie. Seemed like an innocent, totally obvious and non-controversial statement to me. But no, my friends disagreed with me and challenged the American-ness of the Taco Ride. They didn’t waiver despite being hit with sound arguments such as:
taco riding is more American than ordering the Working Man’s Special at Lisa’s Radial Cafe before heading off to your job on the production line at American Steel Or it’s more American than Bruce Springsteen riding on a Harley with Meg Ryan holding on tight behind while Born To Run blares Or the Taco Ride is more American than George Washington gliding over the Potomac riding on the back of a giant bald eagle with an RPG launcher mounted on his shoulder.
My friends still failed to see the light and acknowledge the unrivaled American-ness of the experience before them.
After listening to their blasphemous opinions and ruminating on them for some time I decided it was time to #clapback with a response to set the record straight and prove for once and all that the Taco Ride is indeed the most American experience of all time. On the way to definitively proving my point we’ll take a look at what the Taco Ride is, why I love it so much and grapple with what it means for an experience to be distinctively American or more American than another.
What Is The Taco Ride?
The Taco Ride is a weekly bike ride that happens along the Wabash Trace Nature Trail which is a 63 mile converted railroad track in Southwest Iowa. The trail was completed in 1997.
The ride takes place every Thursday when it’s nice out. Between 500–1000 people show up every Thursday and ride the ~19 mile roundtrip. Most people who come from Omaha start in Council Bluffs and ride to Mineola, ~9.5 miles away, and arrive at Toby Jack’s Steakhouse for the live music, taco, beer, and margarita specials. Some ambitious riders will ride the extra 4 miles to Silver City — the city which initially began the tradition of the taco ride when their restaurant, The Silver City Saloon, began offering taco specials on Thursdays for the cyclist crowd.
Begin
It all starts with the timeless American tradition of shotgunning beers in a high school parking lot in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Next, you pay your $1 trail fee and you’re all set to start riding your bicycle on a converted train track through lightly forested farm country, Loess Hills in the distance, with hundreds of other people drinking luke warm Keystone Light and eating gummy bears that were left to soak overnight in a vodka marinade. Then you’re biking next to people on horseback, passing landmarks like Cowboy’s Pass and stopping for some bbq’d food at Taco Ride Mike’s house and petting his goats. You reach Margaritaville where you’re sending Snapchats and hanging out with a bunch of people who you only know because you needed to borrow an Allen wrench, while watching the Iowa sun get ready to set.
All of this happens before you’re even halfway done with the ride.
Once you make it to Mineola you find a table out on their patio. The patio is usually so packed that you have to sit with people you don’t know but that’s OK because everybody on the Taco Ride ends up as friends. A dj is inside and karoake is happening. Meanwhile, outside there’s live music sometimes being played on a platform within the patio area and sometimes being played on the street using the bed of a tractor trailer as a stage. People take shots and spontaneously ballroom dance.
You eat and drink. You sing, you laugh and you make new friends. You ride back to your vehicle with your friends in the dark.
The whole affair takes about 5 hours, every Thursday when it’s nice out.
Why I Love It So Much
The Taco Ride is my favorite thing to do in the Omaha area. It makes me feel lucky to live here. I don’t know anyone who rides the Taco Ride and still thinks that Omaha is boring — this person doesn’t exist.
My love affair with the Taco Ride might best be explained by SOMO (sadness of missing out). The first time I rode it back in Summer 2016 I was overcome with a great sense of loss. I was sad because I had lived in Omaha as an adult since 2007 and missed out on something that could have been bringing me joy for the prior 9 years.
I think that explains why I feel so dedicated to it and determined to share it with others.
During the summer there’s nothing better than getting a big crew together to ride the trail. The exercise that you’re getting is flooding your brain with feel good chemicals. The company is good and everyone seems to be living their best life.
Exercise + Nightlife
The experience feels like it simultaneously belongs in the domain of nightlife and in the domain of exercise. The nightlife and exercise elements combine so seamlessly in the Taco Ride. I’d argue that the nightlife vibe rivals that of Blackstone on a Thursday. The exercise is easy enough that beginners can complete the trail without too much strain but because you’re riding 19 miles you definitely get a good workout. A male of 190 pounds will burn about 53 calories per mile on the trail riding at a moderate ride. 53 x 19 is a lot…almost enough to make you not feel bad about eating a 6 pack of tacos by yourself.
The Feeling
Taco riding is one of those experiences that leaves me feeling incredibly connected to other people — a temporary departure from my typical rugged individualism.
You feel connected to others like the way 90s Huskers football made you feel connected or singing “Don’t Stop Believing” at Howl at the Moon in Chicago, connected.
The feeling in the air is difficult to describe if you haven’t been. The term that always pops in my head to describe the feeling that I get from taco riding is “good clean fun.” Granted you’ve got a pitcher of beer in one hand and a pitcher of margaritas in the other hand but there is something about the taco ride that is just so wholesome. Sure, people are drinking and occasionally fall off their bikes while riding at night…so what? Totally worth the risk.
Why Is It So American And What Does That Mean?
So, I hope you‘re convinced by now that it’s great. That point is generally accepted by anyone who has been on the Taco Ride or heard about it. But it’s also the most distinctively American experience too.
What makes one experience more American than another?
I think that something is more distinctively American based on the frequency/likelihood of it happening in a different country. For instance, Times Square in Manhattan is very American in the sense that when you think of America you think of it. But, really how distinct is that from the experience of being in Tokyo? I’m not trying to put any city down
Reasons the Taco Ride is distinctively American:
- Where else but America can dying agriculture towns find new life from bike tourism? You won’t find it anywhere else to this degree because no country did ag subsidies like the US, nobody has mechanized like us and no other country has seen the rural exodus like us that would usher in a bike tourism industry to this extent.
- Where else but in the US of A would they convert trains track to a bike trail? Trains are the iconic symbol of westward expansion and they’ve got a different meaning for us here.
- Where else but America would a Steakhouse make most of its revenue from taco sales? It doesn’t exist in any other country, state or city.
- Where else but America could a tasty Mexican staple food (tacos) be culuturally appropriated and claimed as a symbol of patriotism?
- Where else but America can you go to a bar called the Silver City Saloon and sit next to the mayor of the town who is nursing a Budlight while the city councilman is bartending?
- Where else but America is a 6 pack of tacos considered an individual portion?
It’s A Place Where
Strangers swing dance to a Mumford and Sons cover band and people who don’t know each other share tables because being able to sit is more important than personal space. It’s a place where you buy tacos by the 6 pack and margaritas by the pitcher. It’s a place where the fireflies light your way on the ride back when you don’t have light on your bike. It’s a place where an army of volunteers maintain the trail because cyclists need a clean trail and someone’s gotta do it. It’s a place where at the end of my life I’ll look back and judge the quality of my life on the quantity of Taco Rides I rode (and Nebraska football games).
