CORVALLIS  Mike Riley’s favorite piece of his hometown is a two-lane ribbon that curls through evergreens and mossy oaks, splitting creeks and rolling over speed bumps.

There’s a little bit of everything on Brooklane Drive: century-old farmhouses and brand-new acreages; a cemetery and an old turkey farm; a shop for eco-friendly cars and an organic apple orchard (winter hours Saturday and Sunday 10 to 3).

This was Riley’s mile-and-a-half road to work, from his two-story home on the town’s south edge to the double-deck stadium on campus.

It’s a road Riley preferred to navigate with his 13-year-old bicycle.

He bought it when he was a New Orleans Saints assistant coach. Sunday mornings, he rode from his apartment to the Superdome and parked the bike in the custodian’s room. After the game, he beat the traffic home.

A few months later, Riley moved to Corvallis for the third time. He vowed to make it his last job. He purchased a 3,800-square-foot house overlooking the wetlands. He cleaned up the bike.

“I like cruisers because they’re pretty low-maintenance, right? There’s no gears. I don’t have to do much except make sure there’s air in the tires.”

Corvallis is a bicycle town, he says. Just as it was in the ’60s. You can count the hills on one hand. And it’s just a few miles from one end of town to the other.

Riley could wake at dawn, eat his oatmeal and catch a peek of snow-capped Mount Jefferson. Tell his wife he loves her and roll his bike out of the breezeway.

During his 10-minute ride, he thought about his 8:50 a.m. team meeting. What he was gonna say to motivate one of college football’s biggest underdogs.

He crossed Highway 34 and pedaled into campus, where students turned their heads walking to class  Hey, there’s Coach. Those who love Oregon State University say it feels like one big family. And Riley was the patriarch. The unofficial mayor of this Pac-12 outpost.

Outsiders used to ask him, why stay? Don’t you know there are easier jobs? Don’t you know you could win championships somewhere else?

Riley thought about walking the same sideline as his dad did. He thought about surrounding himself with childhood friends. He came up with this motto: “If you’re happy, stay happy.”

By the time he left the football office after midnight, campus was quiet.

“There would be some funny rides because coaches work funny hours. You’re riding down Brooklane and you’ve got to have a light with you to make sure you don’t run into any deer or anything like that. At night when it’s cloudy and there’s no moon, it can get dark in there.

“My wife always worried about me, you know. It seemed like the question would come up every week: Did you wear your helmet? And I hated wearing a helmet.”

The last time Riley was in Corvallis, he drove down Brooklane and thought about those mornings and those nights and the bike.

“I liked that little drive down that little country road. ... It was comfortable.”