EDITORIAL: Bringing back the bike rally

Published 2:00 pm Friday, June 24, 2022

During a summer that ought to be basically normal in Baker County — at least compared with 2021 and, especially, 2020 — the absence of burbling motorcycle engines would have been conspicuous.

So too would the hordes of people who have in past years congregated in Baker City for one of our bigger annual events (and almost certainly the biggest over the past 15 years or so, in terms of the number of participants).

That’s the Hells Canyon Motorcycle Rally.

Like most gatherings, it was canceled in 2020, the first year of the pandemic.

But the rally didn’t happen in 2021, either, even as other signature summer events, including Miners Jubilee and the bull and bronc riding competitions, returned from their one-year hiatus.

It was quite disappointing, then, to hear in February from Mark Dukes, a partner in High Desert Harley-Davidson of Meridian, Idaho, the rally’s organizer, that it would miss a third straight summer.

But the owners of Shameless Tees in Baker City weren’t satisfied with lamenting the loss of an event that’s both popular among residents and profitable for many businesses.

So they revived the rally.

And in an official way, with a website, registration package options, T-shirts and the like.

That’s an important distinction. The pandemic couldn’t of course prevent motorcycle riders from plying the highways and byways of Baker County and Northeastern Oregon that initially lured brothers Eric and Steve Folkestad and some of their buddies to the area in the early 2000s. Those visits led to the creation of the Hells Canyon Motorcycle Rally.

And even though there was no official rally in 2021 or 2020, riders did show up in respectable numbers.

But having an official event should boost visitor numbers, bringing a welcome influx of dollars during the crucial summer season, and another reassuring example that society is recovering from the great upheaval we’ve endured.

— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald editor