Walter Barke, 87, of Seattle, poses by his bicycle at Alice and Gene Coakley's house north of Centralia Saturday evening. Barke, a rider in the Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic, has stayed with the Coakelys for the past six years.
Gene and Alice Coakley have housed Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic riders at their home on Zenkner Valley Road, north of Centralia, for nearly two decades.
During the past six years, the same group of riders have stayed with the Coakleys, including Walter Barke, an 87-year-old from Seattle who rides with his neighbors and grandson.
“Out of all the people we got, we got Walter,” Alice said. “He has stayed and returned every year.”
The Coakleys are one of many families around Lewis County that signed up through the Centralia-Chehalis Chamber of Commerce to host riders.
Of the 10,000 riders in the 34th annual Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic this weekend, nearly 2,500 make the entire 202-mile trip on Saturday in one push, arriving in Portland on Saturday evening, according to the Cascade Bicycle Club. a non-profit organization based in Seattle that organizes the event.
Many of the the remaining participants spend the night near the Twin Cities.
“As a host house, you pick up the riders and offer sleeping arrangements,” Gene said. “This is happening all over the community.”
The riders that made it to Portland in one day left Seattle at about 5 a.m. on Saturday and traveled through city streets and country roads in Centralia, Winlock and Vader.
Barke and the other riders who stayed with the Coakleys on Saturday night left from the starting line at the University of Washington in Seattle at about 7 a.m. on Saturday and made it to Centralia by 3:30 p.m.
The Coakleys offered the riders a bathroom to shower in, a large shed filled with mattresses to sleep in and homemade salmon and beef brisket.
“We get spoiled,” Nina Buckley, an STP rider from Hood River, Ore., said.
Brook Swanson, Barke’s grandson who lives in Spokane, said he started riding with Barke three years ago and enjoys the time with his grandfather, even if it is on a road bike for two full days.
“I come over from Spokane because Walter does it. I don’t train for this,” Swanson said. “It’s just the fact that my 87-year-old grandfather is doing the STP. I can’t miss it.”
Barke, a retired bridge engineer in Williston, N.D. who now performs with the Ballard Sedentary Sousa Band, started doing riding the STP in his 70s. After taking 10 years off, he suggested to his neighbors and grandson that they should all do it together.
“I only ride casually,” Barke said. “This is the only ride I do of any consequence.”
At the Coakleys’ house on Saturday night, the group of about 10 riders shared stories about raising kids, opening their own businesses and other future plans. The last time many of them saw each other was at the Coakleys’ house for the STP last year.
Over the homemade dinner and microbrews, the group reunited like old friends.
“We all kind of fell into each other,” Barke said.
