WINDER - Less than two weeks before Bryan Joseph "B.J." Mough was gunned down while riding his motorcycle, the 21-year-old from Winder joined an active online community of local sport-bike enthusiasts.
On Saturday, more than 100 of those motorcyclists rumbled to a private memorial service here in honor of Mough, a fledgling rider they barely got a chance to know before a Bogart man fatally shot him in the back Feb. 25.
Saturday's ride was meant to support Mough's family and show a positive image of motorcyclists, said Chris Kaiser, who knew Mough only through messages they exchanged on the Internet forum Bloke's Sportbikes.
"We're here to support a fellow biker," Kaiser said. "We're a close-knit family. This isn't the first time we've done this."
The sisters told investigators they made obscene hand gestures to Mough after he cut them off and that he ran into their car with his motorcycle, the sheriff said.
But some Bloke's forum members are skeptical about that story, and discussions of the circumstances stretch for pages on the site.
"If you've ever ridden a motorcycle, if you hit a stationary object at 25 miles an hour, you're not going to win that battle," member Mike Field said in a phone interview last week. "This is not something someone would do, and (the motorcycle) was (Mough's) pride and joy. He'd just bought this two months ago. Why would he go to the point of wrecking his pride and joy?"
Mough apparently was very concerned about safety and physical fitness, judging from his messages at the forum, Field said. Mough bought safety equipment before he bought his motorcycle and said he never drank alcohol, Field said.
"Everything he wrote embodied responsibility," Field said. "This guy never struck me as an irresponsible kid."
"I can't reconcile what he wrote with what I'm being asked to swallow," he said.
On Bloke's Sportbikes, Mough was known by the screenname "FenixSolen" and posted messages frequently, saying he wanted to learn from the forum's veterans and seeking friends to ride with.
Mough bought his first motorcycle, a Kawasaki Ninja 250, a few weeks ago, friends said.
In his first post on the Bloke's site, on Feb. 15, Mough introduced himself to the forum and said he had started riding just three months earlier because he "had a desire to learn a skill."
"I hope to learn a hell of a lot more and meet some new friends along the way for the ride," he said in the message.
Mough described himself as a "computer guy," who built and repaired networks. He told forum members he was very interested in the cultures of Eastern countries, especially Japan.
At the time of his death, Mough was working at a Target store in Buford and at Turner Broadcasting in Atlanta, a former girlfriend said.
Friends who attended the memorial service Saturday in Bogart expressed anger about Mough's death, but didn't want to say more out of respect for Mough's family members, who have chosen not to make public statements.
They described Mough as someone who "never went down without a fight."
"He was a really good kid, an honest-to-God good person," said friend Brittany Williams, who dated Mough for two years. "And he definitely didn't deserve this
Members swiftly organized the ride online after news of Mough's murder spread last week, securing a Georgia State Patrol escort for part of the route and printing stickers to memorialize Mough, said another Bloke's member, Chris Prumer.
Many rendezvoused Saturday morning in Gwinnett County and rode together in a long chain to Winder. Some of the bikers attended the private ceremony inside Carter Funeral Home, but many waited outside because the building was packed with family members and friends.
The bikers then were escorted by Oconee County sheriff's deputies to the scene of the slaying, on Gear Road in Bogart. There, they held a short memorial ceremony of their own.
Like the Oconee authorities investigating the slaying, the motorcyclists still are trying to sort out what happened before Richard Harold Gear, 46, shot Mough after he followed Gear's teenage daughters home from an Athens discount store.
Gear claims he shot in self-defense, but evidence at the scene doesn't indicate Mough was the primary aggressor, according to Oconee County Sheriff Scott Berry. Gear was charged with murder the night of the killing and remains in the Oconee County Jail.
Gear's daughters, ages 17 and 19, told Oconee County investigators they called their father after a road-rage incident with Mough on the way home from the Athens Target store. Gear was waiting with a gun at the end of the driveway when they arrived, Berry said.
The sisters told investigators they made obscene hand gestures to Mough after he cut them off and that he ran into their car with his motorcycle, the sheriff said."
Published in the Athens Banner-Herald on 030208
