Two Athens students decided to bring their school together one wheel at a time. They did it through Cedar Shoals Bike Club, which has it’s first meeting of the year on Wednesday.

Co-founders Jade Malcolm and Nicole Hermitano came up with the idea last year while biking in their neighborhood. They realized that biking was a fun way to bring people together and started with 20 members. Club participants meet weekly and go on monthly bike rides. They hope to soon begin fundraising for local nonprofits.

“We saw this as an opportunity to get everyone more involved in school and get everyone to participate more, and to get to know each other more,” said Hermitano.

No Bike? No problem. Students who want to participate can build their own bikes thanks to Bike Athens.

“It was the perfect match to get kids active and get them involved with cycling,” says Executive Director Tyler Dewey,

If a student needs a bike they can go to the Bike Athens warehouse. From there, they can pick out a bike, fix any damage to it while learning about bike maintenance, and finally, use the bike for any bike club event.

Club member Brandon Elam has high hopes for the club.

“We want to participate in the Twilight Bike race eventually,” Elam says.

To date members of the bike club have fixed 20 bikes and they hope to fix 10 this year.