Looking Forward to STP
Well, fellow PBCers, the warm months are finally here and with that, some great riding weather! Along with the riding, June and July are busy months for the club. The ’24 Pioneer is in the books and next on the calendar is the 2024 STP. The club has handled the STP finish line activities at Holladay Park for the ride organizer, Cascade Bicycle Club of Seattle, for many years. Only Bud Rice knows how many years, but he keeps that a closely guarded secret!
A committed group of PBC volunteers has been working steadily on the preparation for the 2024 STP since last winter. Lynn Blanchard generously offered to be the all-important PBC STP volunteer coordinator for this year’s event. That is a very big and busy job that she’s done fabulously at thus far…although I wonder if she’s starting to see her ever present volunteer sign up poster in her sleep about now!
Denise Hare and Dave McQuery have again repeated their roles as the persons in charge of obtaining the all-important Parks and Bureau of Transportation permits for the use of Holladay Park and the closure of the streets around the park. Without their work, the ride wouldn’t have a place to finish! Both Dave and Denise have done their work well in advance and the permits are in hand once again. They are pros at navigating the city bureaucracy! ✎
Corey Eng once again (for the 30th year maybe?) raised his hand to take the job as the Friday Bus coordinator. Not surprisingly to any of us who know him, he’s done that job seamlessly. There should be about three busloads of riders and a couple of trucks full of bikes headed to Seattle on the Friday morning before the ride.
About 5000 riders are expected to participate in this year’s ride, about the same number as last year. Those riders have truckloads of baggage that arrive at the DoubleTree during the weekend. The trucks must be unloaded and that takes strong backs, lots of them! There isn’t enough Ibuprofen in the world for me to do that work! To avoid the pain, we’ve relied on two dozen or so student athletes from Skyview High School in Vancouver to do the job. They’ve signed again for this year. In addition to unloading bags, they’ll work under the keen eye of Dave McQuery to load hundreds of bikes and e-bikes onto trucks for the return trip to Seattle.
As you might expect, there are other personnel changes this year. Sarah Mantey from Cascade Bicycle Club has taken over the STP event coordinator job from David Douglas. There is also a new convention services manager at the DoubleTree Hotel. Both have assumed their new roles in an energetic and professional manner.
One final word…I know there are a few volunteer slots open for the event. If you have a few free hours to burn, give Lynn Blanchard a call or email. We’d all appreciate it!
Looking forward to a great event and to seeing all of you on July 13 and 14.
Eric Hendricks, STP Finish Line Coordinator