Hot dang, travelling really makes keeping up with the blog tough! I came back from Jamaica to find out I was headed to a conference in Cocoa Beach the following week, so I haven’t spent nearly as much time as I wanted to on here. I know, poor me. But! In between trips I managed to fit in two birthday celebrations, both of which involved biking for beer – priorities, eh!

First up was the Omaha Patio Ride (AKA the pedal tavern AKA a bar on wheels AKA 16 grown adults decked out in glow sticks, blasting 90’s music, enjoying some drinks, and making their way…slowly…around the Old Market).

The Omaha Patio Ride is such a gem and so much fun for group outings – in our case, we were celebrating a 30^th birthday. We reserved the ride for 9pm on a Saturday and were excited to start planning for our 2-hour adventure on wheels.

The ride is BYOB, so naturally the first thing was to figure out who was making the beer run – duh. Next, we decided that since it was a night ride, we should go with a glow stick theme – glow bracelets, glow glasses, glow balloons…basically, if it glowed, we had it. Obnoxious? Yes. Worth it? Also, yes. Finally, we put together a playlist that made other people wish they were hanging out with us 😉

We assembled at The Stadium Club to pass out the party hats, sign our waivers, and eventually made our way onto the ride. While the ride fits 16 people, not everyone has to pedal (thank g)– there is bench seating in the back, a few seats along the side, and space for 1 or 2 people to stand in the middle and bartend that all do not require pedaling. Obviously, given my lack of endurance, I volunteered to be the bartender (and DJ).

“Pump Up The Jam” was blasting and we were on our merry way! We made stops at Billy Frogs, T Henry’s, and The Tavern – and fun fact, because we were a part of the group, we got drink specials at each stop! Although, to be honest, we were having more fun pedaling around outside than we did at the bars. 

We were feeling the vibe of the night and asked the driver if we could make one more loop around the block before wrapping things up…and then immediately regretted it. Because it was uphill and pedaling was getting hard (or so I heard). No worries though, our dear friend Lambert hopped out and pushed us along from the back until we made it back to the end point. Thanks, Lambert, you da best!

Good times were had by all! Except maybe for the birthday boy who had a case of mono coming in hot and felt like borderline death most of the night. Woops…

Well, shoot. This was way more long winded than I anticipated and I need to get cracking on some laundry, so I’ll leave you all in suspense about what my other biking and beer birthday outing entailed!

https://www.omahapatioride.com/ 

-Leah