Annual Bike Blessing Revs Motorcyclists’ Engines

As the weather warms up, be prepared to see more motorcyclists on the road.

Local bikers took this weekend’s sunny Sunday as the chance to host the 8th Annual Bless the Bikes event.

“I ask you Lord God to keep them safe, to keep them alert, to keep them aware of everything that is around them,” Rev. Jim Jones said during the blessing.

He might be leather-clad, but Jones could be giving this sermon to any crowd of parishioners, but it might not rev their engines as much as it did the crowd of more than 100 bikers.

Jones has been blessing bikes at the Calvary Alliance Church for eight years.

“The beginning of the ride season, it’s just an important thing for the people who are bikers, they just have this need to have their bike and themselves blessed, so they just have that comfort and that peace that the season is going to go all right,” Jones said.

Jones knows how important that feeling is first hand.

“I shouldn’t be here. You know? I’m a dead man,” he said.

Last October, a truck pulled out in front of his bike. Jones crashed and broke both of wrists. He said he thanks God for saving him.

“What got me through it was the knowledge that I knew that he was either going to let me go home, or if he was going to keep me here, he was going to make sure I made it,” Jones said.

Melanie Wright was there blessing bikes as a member of Jericho Riders, a motorcycle ministry.

She doesn’t handle her own hog, but the self-proclaimed “ride beggar” said she needs to help her other riders on the road.

“I just, by the grace of God, jump on the back of other motorcycles and let them do all the work and I just enjoy the ride. Period,” Wright said.

For Wright and Jones and everyone else at the event, the day is as much about salvation as it is about safety.

“It heals me. It heals my heart,” Wright said.

Jericho Riders meets on the third Thursday of every month at 6:30 p.m. at Dixie’s Diner in Idaho Falls. Bikers, Christians and everyone else is welcome.