Heavenly Hogs

A biker sporting a black leather jacket and chaps revs up his Harley, wind blowing through his hair as he cruises down the street … and then turns into the church parking lot. That’s right, this is Lee Roth, and he’s part of the biker club at Preston Hollow Presbyterian Church. “My wife informed me that I was having a midlife crisis and needed to buy a motorcycle, so I did.” Five years later, that snowballed into the Preston Hollow Harley Owners Groups — or just Preston Hollow HOGs for short. The dozen or so members aren’t your typical biker crew. “We’re kind of the white collar of the biker world,” Roth says of his group, which consists of mostly professional men in their mid 40s to upper 60s. And their biker vests proclaim their Christian motto: Ride to Live, Live to Serve. “That’s always a real conversation-starter among other bikers when we go on rallies,” Roth says. Church pastor Blair Monie, who occasionally rides with the group, says as paradoxical as bikers and church might seem, they do go hand-in-hand in some ways. “The biking community is one of the most inclusive: it’s all sorts of people gathering around one common passion, and in some ways, that’s a parable for what a church should be.”