If you’ve ever crashed your bicycle and bent your front wheel so badly that it can’t be ridden, you know about the bicycle “taco”. This is such a frustrating experience, and clearly a negative thing, so why is it named after such a positive food item? Yes, the shape of the wheel is bent in such a way that it resembles a folded tortilla or crunchy corn shell. But it seems like a shame to use such a beautiful word for such a sad sight.

But maybe referring to the wheel as “Tacoed” isn’t a negative thing at all…

According to Bike Boo Boos, “A wheel in this condition will never be the same again. Even when it’s fixed, the wheel may prefer this new shape and “pop” back into the tacoed condition at any time.”

It appears that after trying a taco for the first time, even a bicycle wheel will prefer to be tacoed for the rest of it’s life. That’s news to us Taco Scientists. We previously believed that only humans and some non-human animals preferred tacos. There will need to be new scientific studies on the taco preferences of two-wheeled vehicles before we can make recommendations on whether or not one should taco a wheel on purpose. So for the mean time, do not try this at home.