A pair of memorial bike rides is planned for Karen Tinsley this Sunday. The UGA professor was killed this past Tuesday while she was riding her bicycle on Astondale Road in Bishop. Ken Sherman is a member of the Nitty Gritty Bike Band in Athens and the event organizer.
“The first ride starts at 10:30 in the morning, it leaves from the Oconee County Courthouse in downtown Watkinsville and it will ride four miles out to Astondale Road where a memorial ghost bike is being placed by another organization,” according to Sherman. “They paint a white bike and do a ceremony to dedicate that in memory of Karen.”
Cyclists can then continue on a 27-mile ride.
“It’s a route that we do all the time, and one Karen among many others has ridden.”
Sherman says Tinsley was one of the original members of the group.
“She’s one of those people about whom you’ve never heard a bad word, a harsh word,” Sherman said. “People just really appreciated her kindness, her niceness, and of course that people knew about her, the work that she was involved in, they only appreciated her all the more.”
A second similar ride is scheduled for 2 pm. Georgia law requires drivers give cyclists a three-foot space to pass.
