The pavement radiated heat, even after 8 p.m., when Lyle Udell and the eight or nine others who materialized out of nowhere Wednesday, put on bike helmets, tightened trailer hitches and called out encouragement for what has come to be the most meaningful hour of their weeks.

They peeled off in several directions, pedaling secondhand bicycles down paths so worn in their minds, they barely had to watch the road.

Except they did, looking right and left in the deepening twilight for clusters of people waiting, some since they woke up, for the bikers and their treasure.

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At the first stop, just south of Poplar on Main Street, a tall, slender man named Charles, waiting for his dinner, called out when he saw the brigade coming, setting the evening in play.

“Hi, how is everyone tonight,” Allison Udell calls out as she jumps off her bike to set up the small semblance of a feeding station that for the next hour will be the makings for impromptu street gatherings up and down Main Street Mall, and in some cases, one-on-ones with people with large worries.

Michael missed a liver biopsy because he didn’t have a ride. He walked off into the night in stocking feet. Herman ran six blocks in the heat to catch the group, said nothing while he frantically gulped a bottle of cold water, and then hugged every biker, apologizing ahead of time for the sweat, visibly dripping off his face and arms.

Every single Wednesday evening for 10 years — and in every conceivable weather — the almost exact scene has played out as riders in the Urban Bicycle Food Ministry take to their three Downtown routes with hundreds of fresh burritos tucked in saddlebags and 250 pounds of drinks trundling behind in trailers.

In all that time, they have never missed a Wednesday night or a Saturday breakfast burrito ride.

“I started coming in February 2014, and I absolutely fell in love with it,” said Lyle Udell.

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During the day, he is the buttoned-down risk-control officer for Evolve Bank & Trust. Since 2016, he’s been in charge of the burrito-bike ministry, including the cooking volunteers who make enough burritos in the kitchen at First United Methodist Church to feed 200-300 at a time.

One of Udell’s favorite parts of the work (he calls it service) is going out to find people — in any weather — who need a meal.

“It speaks volumes to our friends on the streets,” Udell said. “It tells them, you can count on us; we’ll be here. One guy told me one night, ‘Man, I woke up today and realized it was Wednesday, so I would eat.’

“The other element of it is just the action of going out, seeking out,” said Udell, who describes himself as a person of faith, though he is not a church member. “That’s why I love this model. It demonstrates to people that they’re worth it. They’re worth something.”

The Urban Bike Food Ministry, which started in Memphis and has spread to at least four other cities, including Chicago, appeals to a wide swath of people.

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Dr. Chip Linebarier is a dentist in Germantown. He and his wife, Denise, rarely miss a ride. John Morrisson is manager of operations at Shelby Farms Park. He’s a regular. Jason Morgan, another regular, owns Jason Door LLC and laughs that his muscular build has earned him the title of route security guard.

Newlyweds Scott and Rachel Cardin joined the cook crew a few weeks ago. Gary Gardo, who owns Gardo Design Group in Cordova, is a nine-year veteran. He and his wife, Boo, regularly work the kitchen detail, manning an assembly line that turns out 200 burritos per hour. So do retirees Tom and Ellen Mulligan.

“As long as we’ve been out here — seven or eight years — I’ve made it a goal to know their names,” said Denise Linebarier. “For the first six months, I wrote them on my hand because it made me feel horrible if I couldn’t remember a name. Everyone I met called me by my name.”

When the Gardos moved Downtown 19 years ago, they were struck by the number of needy people they saw on the streets.

“It broke our heart,” Gary Gardo said.

They got connected after they saw a news story on the ministry.

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“It makes you not complain about things like traffic,” he said. “If you do this one time, it will change your life.”

Gardo shakes his head at the revelations, including that the burritos are really an exchange medium for people on the streets to have normal, human conversation with people they have often known for years.

“If you think about it, all day long they are shunned, told to go away,” Gardo said. “It’s very eye-opening. You can offer two burritos, and the person will say, ‘Just give me one. Other people are hungry too.’ I wish there was more that could be done to help.”

Wednesday, the group pushed off in the midst of what felt like a spontaneous block party. People who would be served on one route came to the church parking lot to greet bikers riding another.

Denise Linebarier hugged them, one-by-one, in full, sometimes long embraces, looking each fully in the face and calling them by name.

“I’m grateful my heart found these people,” she said.

They help keep the memory of her son, Ches, alive. He died in a one-car accident in 2018 in Nashville.

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Ira Sherrod is sitting by himself, away from the merriment. The burritos, and these volunteers, are lifesavers, he quietly said.

“I haven’t eaten much today because I didn’t have money to get food,” Sherrod said.

He is a day laborer. Companies needing construction workers send trucks out to pick up homeless men, he said.

“But being homeless, they won’t pay you what you’re worth,” he said. “They get good labor for cheap.”

Lyle Udell calls a quick group meeting before the riders depart. The announcements include news that the latest video for Christian rock group Casting Crowns will feature Urban Bike Food Ministry in Nashville.

“They’re dropping it Aug. 26 on YouTube,” Udell said. “The last video this group made had 42 million views. Think what that could mean with our PayPal link.”

He cautioned riders to give anyone having mental issues on the streets a wide berth, said a prayer, and they took off.

In the shadow of the newly renovated Renasant Convention Center, a peaceful line forms. People in shabby, sometimes off-season clothing, and whose stories one can only guess at, come forward, one at a time, for a homemade burrito, small bag of chips, water, a soft drink, maybe a pair of new socks.

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The humid night air smells like stale urine. There is a breeze, but it is fleeting. The exchanges down the mall take place against a backdrop of restaurant patios, full of diners, splashed with low-globe streetlights and nighttime neon. 

Some walk quickly away, but many, including Charles, stay to talk with route leader Allison Udell, her boyfriend, Dade Rohr, and the other riders who, based on the warmth of the hugs they give and receive, and the length of time they spend talking, are not mere acquaintances.

Allison Udell, Lyle’s daughter, calls each by name. The 3-mile loop down Main Street on Wednesday took 80 minutes because she lingered at each stop, talking and laughing at shared jokes with people who got her references to popular culture and other current events, and often added their own. 

The first stop on each route is the busiest because people have learned that the best way to get a burrito is to be at the first stop.

“We’ve had 90 people at the Renasant stop,” Allison Udell said.

That size crowd is rife for jostling — and fights — if there is not enough food.

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“We watch it and make sure we have enough,” Morgan said. “If we’re running low, we head back.”

Morgan comes after long days of running his garage door business, often in the heat.

“You can’t take me away from it,” he said. “I love riding bikes for one thing, but helping people really touches your heart.”

His route that night headed out from the church, at Second Street and Poplar, then east on Madison, past the always-busy overpass stop at Danny Thomas Boulevard. 

“We have encountered threats by people who are unstable or threatened themselves,” Udell said. “More often than not, it’s people on the street fighting amongst themselves. We try to put as much distance between us as possible.”

The ministry was started in 2012 by Tommy Clark, then a student at Memphis Theological Seminary.

“Although I was raised in the church, as a young boy growing up, I never really got a whole lot of it,” he said. “The things that really moved me were doing things based in Christian ethics, loving people, helping people, giving someone a meal or helping someone cut their grass.”

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One night, he made some burritos in his Midtown apartment and went on his bike to give them away.

It felt so good, he told friends. They joined him.

Udell tells a similar story.

“On my first ride, I had no idea what I was getting into,” he said. “We stopped at the overpass at Madison and Danny Thomas and, all of a sudden, people started crawling out of the darkness under that bridge.

“They began to surround us. I said, ‘Oh, my goodness. What is going on?’ And then they started talking. ‘It’s so good to see you. Is Frank here? Is so-and-so here?’

“Suddenly, these folks became human. I was convicted with the realization that, even though I consider myself Christian, I unconsciously had devalued a whole segment of the population based on how they looked,” he said.

The nucleus is First United Methodist, although few of the volunteers are members.

“The way it happened was the minister, Andy Rambo, saw the burrito people in the parking lot one night and thought it was drug dealers. He called the police,” said Gary Gardo. “When he found out what it was, he immediately offered up the church facilities.” 

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That was at least eight years ago. Another burrito ministry, Iona Memphis, uses the church on Tuesdays and feeds people in an enclosed courtyard. It served 75 on a recent Tuesday night.

Cooks for the bike ministry arrive at the church around 6 p.m. By 7 p.m., the burritos are made, rolled and ready to be loaded for the Downtown routes.

Early this year, it cost 33 cents to make a meat and bean burrito. With inflation, it now costs 82 cents.

Higher food costs mean it will take more than $13,000 to run the routes this year, more than double what is budgeted. The work is supported entirely by donations, individual checks and gifts through PayPal on the UBFM website. New Orleans-based Cajun Vending donates all the drinks and snacks.

In a brick out-building, stacks of soon-to-expire sodas, blankets and hygiene kits line one wall. There are several donated refrigerators, and the ministry, a 501(c)(3), also owns 40 donated bikes, maintained by volunteers.

A cinderblock wall is covered with the signatures of hundreds of people who have ridden a route, maybe only once, maybe every week.

“We have hosted groups over the years that want to ride with us, fraternities, sororities, church groups, corporate team-building groups,” Udell said. “It’s just always a thrill for me personally to see people experience something just way outside the norm.”

The work has spread from Memphis to Des Moines, St. Louis, Chicago and Nashville.

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“Somebody will volunteer or visit and say, ‘Hey, I can do this back home,’” said Clark, now senior pastor at West Nashville Church.

Through the years, he’s gotten calls from numerous people interested in the work, including Joe Laslo, who started the Des Moines group. At the time he was home recovering from a serious bicycle accident and felt he was called to help, Clark said.

“So, he Googled bicycles and ministry, and our website popped up in Memphis. He got my email through the website and sent me a message, asking if he could call me.”

The best advice Clark could give is what he says every time:

“Go make some food, get on your bike and deliver it, and don’t think about it. Don’t overthink this. Don’t worry about trying to organize everything. Just go and do it, and let me know how it makes you feel.”