Welcome to the EC Rider Website!

East Central Illinois Riders is a varied group of folks who enjoy riding, eating and socializing. Mostly we ride BMW motorcycles, but if your riding style and general demeanor fits in, we really don't care. We are a virtual group; members are notified about events through this web site and our list serve. Members are spread throughout east central Illinois and residency is mostly a state of mind anyway.

The East Central Illinois Riders began from a group of riders who while hanging out at Twin City BMW Motorcycles would decide to ride to breakfast or lunch or to a rally. This graduated to notes posted on the bulletin board and then to a list serve. As long as we were this organized, it just took $15 and a little discussion to become a BMWMOA chartered club. The personalities include technicians, small business owners, professionals of all types, academics, retirees and others who make up the spectrum of those sharing the two wheel affliction.

While there are a wide variety of usually strongly held opinions, the one thing we agree on is our relatively informal organization. If you would like some company, send a message and some one will probably join you. If you have a great idea for an event- organize it and twist some arms, people will come out of the woodwork to help. As our motto indicates, we are mostly BMW, but we include Moto Guzzis, Cagivas, Suzukis and whatever else shows up for a ride. Conversation is well...always interesting and definitely a break from the daily routine.

We hope that you will find this site useful and interesting. We especially hope that you will contribute to this site by sending information about yourself for the Member Profiles page, your favorite motorcycle for the Bike Reviews page, or will write about or submit photos of your riding experiences for the Ride Reports or Member Photos pages. Our objective for this site is to make information available to you so you'll ride more and enjoy your rides as much as possible. See below for brief explainations on each page.

Event Calendar
This page is mainly dedicated to local rides and gatherings, but we can put other regional and national events here as well. If it's bike related, send it in.

Ride Reports
One of the benefits of riding a BMW is that our parent organization and other chartered clubs organize and host a large number of rides and rallies. These events provide a destination, a reason to get on your bike, and some interesting, no make that downright weird, people you can meet! The idea for this section is to provide a little more information about these events than what can be found on the MOA website. We feel that knowing more about these events might encourage people to attend. You don't have to be a professional writer!

Regional Eateries
Some of the places we visit on our local rides. We try to include a comment or two about the place, a map link, and even a picture of the front; all to help folks find the places. We hope that some of you all will be able to meet us occasionally, even if you're unable to ride with us.

Member Photos
A place for you to show off your skills with a camera. One photo or several, feel free to share. Show us that gorgeous scenery you saw on that ride last weekend or those photos of people you met at that event last month.

Member Profiles
These are pages devoted to the membership. We're interested in how long you've been riding, what bikes you've owned, what you are currently riding, what your favorite ride is, and any rides you are planning. Anything else you'd like to add would also be welcome, such as info about your family, job, career, other hobbies. It's up to you and you can write as much or as little as you like. A picture of you, a close-up on your bike would be best. If you're interested in having your profile on the pages let us know.

Bike Reviews
We hope that each of you will contribute something about the motorcycle that you know best. Your write up doesn’t have to be lengthy or ‘magazine’ quality. In fact, we don't think it should duplicate what you can read in the magazines. The most valuable information about a machine is what a thoughtful, real world owner can tell someone else about it after spending some serious time in the saddle. Just tell us what you like best about your bike and what you don’t like. Tell us what your bike can do and what you personally have done with it. Finally, if you had David Robb’s ear, what would you change about your bike? Again, it's up to you concerning what to include. Even if you don't currently own the bike but you feel knowledgeable about it, go ahead and write it up! Hopefully, we will generate new bike reviews on a regular basis and keep an archive of past reviews.

Technical Tips
This area of the website is devoted to tips on maintaining your machine or installing the latest doodad. All levels of expertise are welcome, from those with machine shops in their garages to those who while not necessarily handy with tools are willing to comment how that new gizmo or toy works in the real world.