Ex-flight leader now dedicated cyclist

Bogart resident Richard McSpadden’s bicycle story is a familiar one: He rode his bike extensively as a child, but when he became old enough to drive, the bike was left behind.

But about a decade later, while living in New Mexico, he purchased a road bike and developed an entirely new relationship with his two-wheeler.

“I found that I really enjoyed biking,” said McSpadden, who served as commander and flight leader of the Air Force Thunderbirds for two years before his retirement from the military in 2004. “And later, when I moved to Washington D.C., I cycled to and from work.”

Now McSpadden, who now works for Hewlett-Packard, is a committed rider.

“Now I have three bikes,” he quipped. “When my wife says, ‘Why do you have three bikes?’ I say, ‘Because you won’t let me have four.’ I have a road bike, a mountain bike and a cruiser bike.”

The Florida native has taken his passion for cycling to a higher level, getting together with fellow enthusiasts to establish the Oconee County Cycling Organization, a nonprofit association “dedicated to promoting bicycling growth and improving bicycling safety throughout Oconee County,” according to a release issued by the organization.

“A group of us, cyclists, were just thinking one day what great places Oconee County and Athens are to cycle,” McSpadden said. “But we needed an advocacy group to make it more so — to make this cycling-friendly and to educate cyclists and motorists about their rights and responsibilities. We decided to form an advocacy group to work with the community and promote the community as a cycle-friendly place.”

Members spent most of the fall developing an organizational structure (McSpadden serves as president, Steve Kogan is vice president and Jim Shani is treasurer) and contacting potential recruits.

“We sent out notes to neighbors and friends and got a strong response — more than 100 e-mails,” McSpadden said. “We knew then we were onto something. We put a board of directors in place and then buried ourselves in the legwork of putting together a proper organization to get a charter and the financial controls in place. When we did that, we opened for membership.”

The organization recently received approval from the Georgia secretary of state&r