Beggars Would Ride
The Tortilla Paradox
“We use an organic, non-GMO blue corn masa in our tortillas. It provides a texture and flavor like no other, and is gluten free, trans fat free, and completely vegan.”
I’m a sucker for artisanal tacos, but I wasn’t buying into the spiel being laid down as I ordered. These were gonna be juicy, and I had a bad feeling about those blue corn tortillas and their ability to maintain any degree of structural integrity during the brief window of time that would elapse between the plate and my mouth. So I voiced an obvious heresy.
“Any chance I could get those with flour tortillas?”
The beautiful young hippie in the taco truck looked at me like I had kicked her puppy. “Why would you do that? Flour tortillas are horrible. They use lard!”
Flour tortillas are not a fashionable option with regard to tacos. Everyone wants corn. When it comes to Mexican food, in this case, artisanal tacos made by white people in a brightly painted taco truck somewhere in Colorado, corn is more authentic. Which, to be fair, from a cultural perspective, is true. Corn was one of the great gifts to the world (along with potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, beans, squash, cacao, vanilla and bird guano) that resulted from Whitey stumbling pestilence-ridden onto this continent; corn masa being smashed into a flatbread and used to wrap around food has something like 10,000 years of precedent. They weren’t called tortillas prior to Spaniards arriving, though; the Nahuatl speaking locs called them tlaxcalli.
The flour tortilla, by comparison, can only boast about 1300 years of backstory, and it came from Spain. Muslims and wheat and Andalusia got together and developed one of the most versatile flatbreads the world has ever known. Centuries later, when the Spaniards were busy conquistadoring their way knee deep in gore through the new world, they left behind the flour tortilla in trade for all the other stuff they pillaged back to Europe. The exchange rate on that deal was not favorable, but here we are. Now we can have either flour or corn tortillas for our tacos.
It is entirely possible that the beautiful hippie’s mortification was tied to a profound historical understanding of the different origin stories of corn and flour tortillas, but really I think it had more to do with the lard, or the glutens, or both. Since I had already ruined the mood, and since it did not seem like there was any alternative, I stuck with the gluten free, vegan friendly, non-GMO blue corn tortillas.
They tasted fantastic. And they also totally disintegrated right there on the plate in a matter of seconds. It was impossible to pick up a taco and get it from plate to mouth without the entire thing falling to pieces in my hands. Which, in a significant way, negates the point of using a tortilla to wrap food in order to eat it with one’s hands. Might as well just dump the meat and filling onto a plate, pick up a fork, and have at it. Mix in the crumbled remains of the blue corn tortillas as filler. And don’t bother calling it a taco.
You've got 5 seconds, tops, before that handful of goodness lets go completely. Hold loosely, and hope for the best...
See, the thing is, flour tortillas are in many ways the ideal base material for making a taco. Or a burrito. Historical accuracy be damned. The glutens involved mean that there is an inherent bonding agent that lends greater structural integrity to the tortilla as a whole. You can load a flour tortilla far more than you can a corn tortilla, and it will also handle a greater variety of fillings all the way up to its far superior tensile and elastic limit. Corn tortillas are hydrophilic, whereas flour tortillas are borderline hydrophobic. Slap something juicy onto a corn tortilla and the time you have before it falls completely to pieces can be measured in seconds.
Then there’s the whole shelf life to consider. The already very limited structural integrity of corn tortillas decreases exponentially with time. They must be consumed almost immediately, because they get more brittle and crumbly in a matter of hours. Give them a few days and they’ll be sprouting mold. Flour tortillas, by comparison, might as well be time travelers. The lard (if used, or whatever other fat gets mixed into these pliable food sleeves) acts as a preservative, and they remain shelf stable for several days.
But, tradition and culturally appropriate decorum being what they are, the taco is most often served with a corn tortilla. Please, for the sake of this conversation, bear in mind that we are only talking about soft tacos here, and not that very late to the party abomination known as the hard shell taco, which is itself such a complete failure on so many levels that it does not deserve any further mention.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, not because of my most recent artisanal taco blowout, but because of some conversations that I’ve been caught up in regarding the right kind of bike to ride. There was the guy who told me last month that my bike didn’t have enough travel to be on the trail I was riding, not factoring in the several miles of meandering singletrack and fire road I had ridden to the trailhead where the broplows were being unloaded from the tailgates of lifted diesel 4x4s. Or the guy back in March who told me I’d be a lot faster if I was on a proper road bike on the climb up to San Javier, seemingly unaware that there was a decent stash of dicey singletrack paralleling the road for several kilometers.
For most of our bike riding use cases, those of us who have spent however many years rattling around in our own heads as we ‘ve ridden through our lives have developed some idea of what works for us, where we ride, how we ride. We hopefully have some understanding of what best serves our particular jam, and what doesn’t. We hopefully have also evolved our own riding needs as bikes and trails and our own riding skillsets have evolved, unless of course what we most love about riding is keeping it real 1985 style. In which case we hopefully have a solid stash of old Nike Lava Domes to go with our Vuarnet shades and Daisy Dukes.
But the rest of us, we generally have figured out some working frame of reference that fits our personal hierarchy of needs. For some of us, that involves steel hardtails and maybe plus tires. For others, it’s dual crown forks and trying to determine if the new Maven brakes are really all that. And within each of our evolved sets of needs, we have this experiential database of things we’ve tried that sucked, and things we’ve tried that really opened up our eyes. Then we inevitably try to express this Maslowian framework to other riders who are not privy to the workings of our own heads and are met with the blank stares of the presumably unenlightened. For their part, those who are staring blankly are probably wondering just how we managed to think ourselves into such a completely bolloxed bike/worldview.
Just yesterday I stated that I wouldn’t wish a hardtail on a beginner rider around here. "Here" being the chunky singletrack just across the bridge from downtown Buena Vista, Colorado, where I am relearning how to phase my pedal cadence and time my body weight shifts and lunges and my crankarms are getting aggressively aged by the terrain. A few hours later, I decided to turn down a test bike because it had too much travel, because I am not really an aggressive enough rider anymore to really know what to do with more than 150mm of squish at the back of a bike. The dawning realization in this was that I have effectively self-regulated my riding needs into a 40-50mm travel sweet spot. Less than 100mm of rear travel, and my spine begins to protest. More than 140 and I wonder what the hell I am doing and why is it taking me so long to go up hills.
What I realized, basically, was that I have reached the flour tortilla state of mountain biking. I am not hardcore keepin’ it real on my rigid steel singlespeed. I am not craving the big hit sophistication of idler wheels and Dh casing tires. 63 degree head angles confuse me. So do 78 degree seat angles. I am, as a riding partner recently opined, the ground zero demographic for “geezer bikes.” But I know what I need.
Down in Mexico, where I suspect they have a solid lock on what constitutes un taco verdad, there is room for variation. Carne asada, or most grilled meats, are almost always served with corn tortillas, but nobody bats an eye if those are requested a doble, doubled up. Fish, or just about anything else that might get a bit juicy, is often served on a flour tortilla. In most cases, you’ll get asked when you order if you want harina o maiz. Nobody looks at you funny if you choose one or the other.
I'm not trying to start some sort of taco war here, but this is how they serve up tacos dorado in Baja. Just sayin'. If this is the Trek Top Fuel of tacos, so be it. Sign me up.
I stand with the underrated and overlooked flour tortilla. It gets it done. I should probably be riding a Trek Top Fuel. I will never be upmarket enough in my tastes to fully appreciate the nuances of organic blue corn masa, but I know what works for me, and I know how to keep my taco from ending up on my shirt.
Comments
Carlos Matutes
2 weeks, 6 days ago
Growing up in South Texas, flour tortillas were the default, but there was always room for corn.
I was definitely a purist when it came to bikes for a very long time- rigid singlespeeds (and fixed gear off road for about 5 years), CX bikes on singletrack, slowly easing into front suspension and gears.
Then something happened to me as I approached my 49th birthday- I realized that there was no bike analog of the Indulgence. No matter how much I sacrificed my body, I wasn't closer to entry into those two-wheeled Pearly Gates.
I now have two full suspension bikes, but considering a rigid one speed again. Just because every now and then a good corn tortilla with simple ingredients is what you want.
Anyway, here's a recipe for great homemade flour tortillas if you don't live someplace without good tortillerias:
3 c flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp sea salt
1 c warm water
⅓ c avocado oil
Mix dry ingredients, then add oil and water. Stip together until fully combined. Cover with a damp towel and allow the dough to rest for 20 minutes.
Divide into 16 balls, rest again for 10 minutes while you preheat your comal. Roll out to about ⅛”, cook on comal and enjoy!
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DanL
2 weeks, 6 days ago
thank you!
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GB
2 weeks, 6 days ago
I'm growing my own Cilantro and making my hot sauce from my home grown Habanero s.
Its about time I make my own tortillas.
I'm finding it difficult to move after inhaling three fat burrito s. Mexican food warms my soul,the way I make it, also lights my ass on fire.
Thanks for recipe. No lard in the recipe ! And I'm going to use use Canadian organic Durum Semolina wheat.
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fartymarty
2 weeks, 6 days ago
63 is so yesterday, 62 is where it's at...
Stupidly slack, stupidly heavy 160/140mm trail bike. At least I can still feel young and stupid on the trails rather than "old" as my 10 year old daughter called me the other day.
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Mike Ferrentino
2 weeks, 6 days ago
"... and are met with the blank stares of the unenlightened."
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DanL
2 weeks, 6 days ago
"Stupidly slack, stupidly heavy" ? hold my flour tortilla....
For something that is apparently derided for weight, or geo or something else, it's flickable and responsive and makes me feel like I'm a better rider than I am
Great writing as always. There's not many good Mexican places to eat up here, one of the things I really do miss from moving up from SoCal.
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taprider
2 weeks, 6 days ago
WOW you nailed it again Mike.
It is not surprising anymore, how much we get comments from those who have been riding decades less than we have, about our choices in equipment being wrong
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Andy Eunson
2 weeks, 6 days ago
True that. Sometimes I think I use the "I don’t need a super enduro" as a bit of an excuse. It is true that the faster and bigger one goes, the bigger the inevitable crash and our advanced state of decomposition that’s not a good thing. But at the same time I like to think I’m that frog in boiling water that has felt the heat and got out of the pot. The marketers are telling us what we need. You need more travel, more complex suspension, more inserts, more carbon, more stiffness, more compliance, more runs with a motor assist. Only then do you have more fun.
Soft flour tortillas are my favourite too. Crunchy corn shells are the opposite of what they are supposed to be, a replacement for utensils and a bib.
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taprider
2 weeks, 6 days ago
I like the frog analogy.
The water got too hot for me to stay in the downhill racing pot a long time ago
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Lacy Kemp
2 weeks, 6 days ago
There's a reason burritos don't come in corn tortillas.
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Maximum Radness
2 weeks, 6 days ago
Hardcore mt bikers telling older wizer my bikers they doing it wrong- tonight in the Denver news at 11. Every damned day around here it seems…..
I bet they asked if you were on Strava too. I like to shake my rump at them. I also let them pass me- like A LOT.
Its always better ride after their voices trail off in the distance, and I can listen to the river ramble, the magpies pie, and the grass in the high country gusty way that it lures me to keep. going. uphill….
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jddallager
2 weeks, 6 days ago
Mike: Great article on both tacos and MTBs! Thanks! Re the MTB, at age 77 I ride a 130/120 trail bike on mostly blue trails. I used to go fast ..... now I just try to go! :-)
Re the tacos and Buena Vista, CO. Where do you recommend I go for tacos there please? I live in the C-Springs area, but get over that way frequently and would appreciate your advice.
Gotta agree with you on the hard tacos. I guess part of the mystique is getting to lick your hands and the table you're eating at after watching half the makings fall out with the first bite?
Re both: Rule #1 is FUN!!!
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Mike Ferrentino
2 weeks, 6 days ago
I'm still going through Baja withdrawal on the taco front. There are a couple okay Mexican restaurants out on the highway that do a decent job by mid-grade mountain town standards, but nothing that'll blow your socks off. There are some fancy tacos being served most afternoons and evenings in the side yard of The Slammer, the fillings are really nicely done, but watch out for that blue corn masa...
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Brad Nyenhuis
2 weeks, 6 days ago
Tacos El Tapatio on 2nd St. in downtown Salida.
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Hawkinsdad
2 weeks, 6 days ago
Mike, thanks again. The thought of tacos (and a requisite beer) made my egg salad sandwich look rather pedestrian. How about an article extolling the post ride virtues of quality craft beers versus mass marketed swill?
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Mammal
2 weeks, 6 days ago
On the tortilla front, corn tortillas that aren't freshly fried in oil are unfavorable for all the reasons you mention. When we make tacos at home, they're always corn and always lightly fried in veg oil, which toes the line between structural integrity and toughness (can't be fried too long/at the wrong temp, etc). Eating out, I'd take flour all day long. Oh, and actual "hard tacos" are an abomination.
On the bike front, the one that got you to the top and puts a smile on your face is always the right one. Honestly, trail randoms aren't allowed an opinion on that.
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Perry Schebel
2 weeks, 6 days ago
yer. light frying is essential to corn tortilla (again, not the yellow atrocities) integrity & achieving the soft, warm & cosy - yet durable - blanket that lovingly swaddles the savory goodness within. out of the bag, said tortillas have a very different texture, and are prone to breaking.
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cxfahrer
2 weeks, 6 days ago
63 is great, on my steel hardtail with plus tires and on my 170mm Capra, which I will try to haul up the coming days the Finale Ligure hills. I am still wondering whether 140mm rear would work better for that, but I don't have test bikes at hand and won't spend a fortune trying to buy one - last time I was in Finale with 140mm and a much steeper headangle was around 2004, and it did not work for me. I am 65 now and will not try experimenting.
Lahmacun and pita bread is what you get here. I know that soaking problem from Hamburger buns also.
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KavuRider
2 weeks, 6 days ago
Wait, people actually come up and tell you that you are on the wrong bike? I can't wrap my head around that.
Run what ya brung doesn't do it anymore? Weird.
I am partial to flour tortillas myself, but it is always challenging finding some that don't use lard. But they are out there!
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BarryW
2 weeks, 5 days ago
That one really got me as well, like who does that (except at your buddy and only in jest) to a stranger?
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PowellRiviera
2 weeks, 5 days ago
I had lots of concerned citizens telling me I was on the wrong bike in Moab. You aren’t riding there are you, on that? I was riding my Chromag Wideangle.
I’ve never had that happen before. I tried to explain that whilst being no expert I can get myself down black diamond trails in BC most of the time just fine I was still given no credence. Ah well, marketers are good at there job
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Offrhodes42
2 weeks, 6 days ago
I do not discriminate on my tacos or my bikes. I prefer corn, but eat flour more often. I was on hardtails exclusively for the past 8 years and then last fall I built up a Stumpjumper EVO alloy. I was coming off of a Honzo ESD. I still ride a 2011 Sir 9 singlespeed and did what I said I would never do back in my 20s...I purchased a DH bike. Now that I am over 50, I will ride all kinds of different bikes and eat all kinds of tacos. Maybe one day I will find the Goldilocks bike and taco, but for now it is fun to try them all.
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Grinder
2 weeks, 6 days ago
The Mexicans have it right (why wouldn’t they?), room for variation. I’m down for the two tortilla solution, got a small bike and a big bike. Does that make the all mountain bike one of those weird hybrid corn/flour tortillas?
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slyfink
2 weeks, 6 days ago
Apparently, the secret to having them not fall apart is hand grinding the corn on a metate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Inj-vaDCffE. Grinding the corn in a blender leads to crumbly masa. Maybe you should ask the food truck folks if they grind the corn in a traditionally authentic manner next time....
As for me, I simply prefer the taste of corn tortillas, my solution is to make them one at a time so they don't have time to fall apart. Not something you can do when someone else makes them. It's the same way I prefer my trails old-school: not machine made bermy tabley blandness that can be replicated anywhere in the world and have the same feel everywhere. What that means for bikes? I don't know.
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Mike Ferrentino
2 weeks, 6 days ago
Handbuilt bikes only?
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Perry Schebel
2 weeks, 6 days ago
i don't know the material differences between the grainy yellow abominations we sometimes see north of the mexican border, but a proper (white) corn tortilla - properly heated - is a thing of beauty. performs like flour - only tastier (imo), and better texture (imo; less gummy). always have a stack in the fridge. my god, i love tacos.
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Allen Lloyd
2 weeks, 6 days ago
2 things
1. Yesterday I was going to read this right before lunch then saw tortilla and decided to just go grab a burrito and forgot to circle back.
2. I expected your narrow operating range to put you in the corn tortilla category of only useful for a very limited range.
Great words as always. I am off to ride my 170/165 bike on jumps designed for a bike with no travel now :)
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Lynx .
2 weeks, 6 days ago
Mike, glad that you're so open to things and don't have any concrete opinions on stuff like hard tacos :-p LMAO
I dunno Mike, I know you've got a few years on me in age and definitely a lot more riding MTBs, but for me, I honestly can't say my spine feels it when I ride the rigid, it's more my entire body feels like it's had a very good workout, depending on how aggro/rough the trails I was riding were. Actually I'd say overall my body feels better after a hard ride, although more tired than when on the FS, but maybe that's a fit thing, because honestly, of all my bike the rigid Unit feels the most dialed geo and cockpit etc setup wise.
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Mike Ferrentino
2 weeks, 6 days ago
To each their own. Which was kinda what I was getting at there. Do what works for you, I'll do what works for me.
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Morgan Heater
2 weeks, 6 days ago
Straight to jail if you don't like the exact thing I like. STRAIGHT TO JAIL!!!
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Lynx .
2 weeks, 6 days ago
Hey, I wasn't saying that at all Morgan, just I find it interesting to say the least that my body doesn't seem to get that absolutely beat to shit, my spine's about to fall out that a lot of people complain about if they ride rigids, might be because once I'm riding rigid, I'm nearly always standing or hovering just off the saddle and my body is doing the suspension work and not my spine, taking hammer like blows from being seated over even the slightest of roughness.
I put it down to starting MTBing on a crap FS, then getting a good one and then riding FS for about 5 years before I tried a HT and then when I did, it was a really fun one, butt also really stiff, so I quickly learned not to stay seated and that transferred over to my every day riding. Also the fit of the Unit and the fact that it's steel with PLUS tyres, or at the very least 2.6".
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Andreas Macke
2 weeks, 5 days ago
Yes, because life becomes a hell of a lot better the more you stop caring what other people think.* Bikes are rad, tacos are rad, self-appointed gate-keepers (hipsters, traditionalists, or any other flavor) are tedious.
* Within certain limits of socially, ethically, and legally appropriate bounds of behavior, of course - there's a big difference between reasonable confidence and assholery.
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Adrian Bostock
2 weeks, 6 days ago
People ask me often when I am going to get a full suspension bike. My answer depends on the context, but it’s always basically the same, when I get old. The trails around here are fast and chunky and have a surprisingly amount of elevation, but they are not overly difficult. I never feel under biked on my hardtail. though I also seldom rip top to bottom with out stoping to let the bones realign them selves.
the real answer to the question is when I can financially justify the full suspension bike I want. yes it will have 63 degree head angle, will be made of steel (maybe aluminum) and will have no batteries.
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Brad Nyenhuis
2 weeks, 6 days ago
I would dare anyone to tell my Spanish-only-speaking mother in law that her homemade flour tortillas were improper.
Be prepared to duck when the chancla heads your way.
Lard? Damn right!
Corn tortillas are for frying into chips, chilaquiles, or flautas. Again, fried in lard.
Blue corn is for white hipsters.
And a 140mm Goldilocks 29er is the perfect bike for Broken Boyfriend, Unchained, Vitamin B, and anything else in BV/Salida.
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Mike Riemer
2 weeks, 6 days ago
4 miles into what was supposed to be a 100-mile gravel event, a slowly passing rider told me to shift up a gear because my cadence was too slow.
It was just what I wanted a complete stranger to tell me at that moment.
Not really.
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BarryW
2 weeks, 6 days ago
But...
Was your cadence too slow?
😜
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XXX_er
2 weeks, 6 days ago
that corn vs flour debate could go on forever not crazy about the hard corn shells but I will eat either especialy if someone else cooked them.
Along the same lines an always highly opinionated euro bud states to me the beer is no good even tho there are 9 taps and at least one of them would be good so i replied " if you don't like the beer you should go back to where you came from "
he had no comment
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BarryW
2 weeks, 6 days ago
I truly embrace the hard shell tex-mex taco and love it as another option.
Fight me!
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JT
2 weeks, 6 days ago
Happy to ride the wrong bike on the wrong terrain and eat flour tortilla tacos. Both are great examples of the wrongs being right.
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Distrakted
2 weeks, 5 days ago
I love NSMB for the fact that we all have this common love of bikes as part of our lives but there is space to discuss things other than head tube angles and chainstay lengths.
I have been chasing flour tortillas most of my life.
I was born in San Jose California and my family lived on a block which was mostly Sicilian families living on one side and Mexican families living on the other with our back yards butting up against one another. I used to love riding my scooter around the other side to look at the lowrider cars with chain steering wheels, and incredible jobs. In fact I still think they are cool.
My families back yard was backed up against an older Mexican woman named Lupe. Sometimes I would be in the backyard and hear a whistle over at the fence line. Lupe being short in stature would not be visible but a heavenly hand would appear reaching over the fence bearing fresh handmade flour tortillas slathered in butter. It sounds simple but they were pure perfection and I have yet to find anything comparable. If I ever find it, I am going to have a full on Ratatouille moment.
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Bogdan M
2 weeks, 6 days ago
I second the flour tortilla notion. It is far superior in all taco variants. Corn just has a texture that I find doesn't mesh well with my taste. There's been a few times I've had corn where it was made to not have that sand in your mouth texture, but if they let you choose flour at El Fogon then it's authentic enough.
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XXX_er
2 weeks, 6 days ago
I did a 3 week seakayak trip out on the north coast, my buddies leaf-liking girlfriend had already packed all the food including the special no-preservative corn tortilla's so I just hop on the trip with zero prep. Pretty easy except the fancy tortillas were going mouldy as the trip progressed to point we couldn't eat them but we had nothing else to eat.
Now i always check the best-before on the pack and try to buy the ones with lots of preservative, especially for camping
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roil
2 weeks, 6 days ago
Everyone knows what you need better than you do!
This is human nature at its finest: assume you have the correct perspective at all times.
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Allan Maxwell
2 weeks, 6 days ago
This declaration may further cement the hard taco shell to the footnotes of society, but they're damn good by my count.
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Mike Ferrentino
2 weeks, 6 days ago
I put that in there as a jab. Hard shell tacos made with greasy ground chuck and some sort of weird orange cheese and shredded lettuce and god forbid even some sour cream have a certain appeal that cannot be denied. It's not Mexican food, at all, more like something that sprung from the atomic age modern American TV dinner palate at the end of the Eisenhower era, but it checks off a lot of boxes. Otherwise Taco Bell would never have made it.
By that same token, whenever I drive south, my mom's best friend (who is an incredible cook, and can break down not just the differences in about 14 different types of molé but can also whip up a damn good cioppino from scratch, or just about anything else, from just about any culture) always requests a big block of Velveeta. As far as she is concerned, there is nothing else that works quite the same when it comes to melting onto certain things.
Something for everyone...
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Dave Smith
2 weeks, 6 days ago
Now smother a warm flour tortilla in a layer of refried beans and wrap it around that hardshell taco...d-fucking-licious
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[email protected]
2 weeks, 5 days ago
Ignore the out-of-town bro-hards and their sleds. The best ride I've had on that trail is a single speed steelie boy with big tires while I watched the brohards stumble and fall. Be sure to take your weekly ration of vitamins while you're here.
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heyride
2 weeks, 4 days ago
I dusted off the rigid singlespeed last year for as many as two rides...my wrists still hurt.
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Lynx .
2 weeks, 4 days ago
Curious Heyride, what type is that bike, carbon, aluminium, steel or Ti? Is it a modern bike, old school or somewhere in between, say early 2000s? What type of bar, material, width and clamp diameter is it and are they standard sweep or do they have more sweep? Also, what width rims & tyres are on it?
I'm curious because for sure I couldn't imagine riding my rigid Unit with a "regular" sweep bar, I use a 16* sweep SQlab bar or 35mm clap, just too stiff. Also I use XL grips like the Oury's which have a lot of dampening to them. Also, minimum I'll ride tyre width wise is 2.6" on i35 rims
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Cr4w
2 weeks, 6 days ago
> Then we inevitably try to express this Maslowian framework to other riders who are not privy to the workings of our own heads and are met with the blank stares of the presumably unenlightened. For their part, those who are staring blankly are probably wondering just how we managed to think ourselves into such a completely bolloxed bike/worldview.
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taprider
2 weeks, 6 days ago
What I don't understand about the Maslow's hierarchy of needs pyramid, is that the yogi sitting at the top of the mountain has skipped or forgone some layers, or many parts of some layers, to reach self-actualization and transcendence.
So what does the yogi at the top of the mountain ride? Definitely no batteries.
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Morgan Heater
2 weeks, 6 days ago
I think the trick for corn tortillas is that they are one or two bite affairs at max.
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BarryW
2 weeks, 6 days ago
Good stuff Mike.
Makes me want so many tacos. Flour AND corn for me please. Terrain dependant of course.
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ClydeRide
2 weeks, 6 days ago
Ride authentic, Mike. Always ride authentic.
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Shmarv
2 weeks ago
Please tell me there's a Mike vs. Uncle Dave column or podcast of some sort coming out. I can hardly fathom their discussions/debates over inconsequential topics in a highly entertaining format
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Mark
2 weeks ago
All I can add is that I wouldn't spend the rest of my life only or almost only eating flour tacos. I'll eat corn, flour, hard shell, whatever. There are simply too many good options to limit myself to just a few. Same for bikes. There are too many good types of trails and bikes to swear off a certain type of bike/trail experience.
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Luix
1 week, 5 days ago
Hey, sorry to be the language Nazi (?). Native Spanish speaker here. It's "un taco de verdad". That's the translation of "a real taco" you're looking for.
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Kerry Williams
1 week, 4 days ago
Mike, I can't thank you enough for being a torchbearer (even if you didn't ask for the job) for all of us who love to ride, but don't want to be gatekeepers for those that focus on coolness, or the better, faster, lighter groups. At some point, a lot of arrive at the point where getting lighter, faster, and radder no longer matter. Or, at least that's what I tell my slow ass. Have a great week everyone.
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