Hey, I see new members signing up for the board all the time but its seems like the same guys are doing a majority of the posting.  New members can introduce yourself in this thread if they want.  Maybe it'll get stickied.  

Here I'll give you an example in case your not sure what to write.

Hi, my name is Matt and I ride my mountain bike in the Shawnee.  I live over in Harrisburg and me and a couple guys ride most every sunday morning, except when its too wet which seems like always.  Besides biking I enjoy arts and craft and helping old ladies cross the street.  

See its real easy.  

Hi, my name is Matt and I ride my mountain bike in the Shawnee.  I live over in Harrisburg and me and a couple guys ride most every sunday morning, except when its too wet which seems like always.  Besides biking I enjoy arts and craft and helping old ladies cross the street.  

That really was easy!

And hilarity insues

By the way is LBL really wet?

Consider it sticky.

Mark, your name is not Matt.

Hi,

My name is Sean, as in the Seanneee mountain bike association.  I like to ride bikes and do trail work.  I couldn't decide which one I liked better, so I combined them.  Meaning, I ride bikes while doing trailwork.

Anywho, I'm a gear head who likes Jeeps, working on automobiles, fabricating crap for my rides (motorized or pedal), building things, and, of course, woman.  Unfortunately for you ladies out there, I'm married, so it's your loss!

I work for SIUC as a professor, but don't be fooled.  I'm no brain;  I only know how to rebuild transmissions and diagnose vehicles.  For the most part, I'm an idiot, just ask anyone who knows me!

I don't get out to ride much anymore, but hopefully I'll get to squeeze in a ride here and there when the weather turns warm.  Years ago I got rid of my worthless FS rigs and now have a singlespeed Kona (which I really like), and a disco gold Klein Attitude (which I dearly love).  These will be rides you'll more than likely see me on for the next decade or so.  If you see some moron in the woods with a chainsaw hanging off the back of an ugly disco gold bike, that'd be me.

I love Sean's bike. LOL
I am Albert. I know only occasionally ride Shawnee. Just recently moved to the Chicago area. This does not stop me from riding Shawnee when ever I can I make it down to God's country to do some riding.
I still come around the forum's enough to say hello to my friends with whom I have gotten to know during my time in Southern Illinois. Also to give a few of them a little hell on the forums.
Any time anyone heads up to this end of the tate make sure to look me up and drop me a line. I am always willing to get out and do some riding.
I am a west sider at heart. Nothing beats the fast single track of Cedar Lake. The occasional ride at Kinky is great as long as I have time to drop off a rim or two to get straightened after my rides there. Just something about big rocks and drops around Kinkade that get me excited.

I'll chime in, as a lot of west siders don't know me.  I'm Billy, as in Billy.  I live up here in Mahomet, bedroom community of Champaign/Urbana.  I used to be fanatical about going down every weekend I could squeeze to the Shawnee to bike and climb, but the past years - kids and shoulder surgeries have turned me into a ghost these days.  Used to do a lot of riding with Jeff, and still come down to ride with him et al., when I can.

Love riding both sides, but I'm an east-sider at heart.  Just so many trails and so many places to go to.  The one lucky thing for me is that Kickapoo, Peoria, and Comlara (Bloomington area) have made huge leaps in the quality of trail in the last 4 years, but they still don't have that lovin' feeling, er, sandstone.  But I digress.  Favorite trails for me are One Horse Gap and the Jackson Falls area, although every area in the East Side has its own unique character.

Yeah Sean your right but copy and paste is so easy.  I'll always thank Bill Gates for that!  

My name is Mark.  I'm from Harrisburg but now live in Paducah, KY -- 2.5 years now.  The Shawnee was at my back door all my life and now it is at the front door and the LBL is at the back door.  I've been doing something in the Shawnee since I was 14 years old and that was 42 years ago.  I was a dirt biker and when the tree huggers ruined riding for us I turned to mountain biking. That was about 20 years ago.  I ride a Santa Cruz Superlight and a Bullit.  The Bullit is my Shawnee bike mostly.  My first really good mountain bike was a Klien Rascal.  Also ride the road on a Trek 100 and a Santana tandem.

I am a motorhead who likes working on cars.  I like watching racing but not a NASCAR fan or anything like that.  Off road racing is my fav -- Rally, Baja.  Also motocross and hare scrambles.  Anything that involves dirt.  The exception is drag racing.

My wife and I own a court reporting business.  I am the office manager and videographer.  Also have some rent property and buy houses, remodel them and sell them.

I don't go to the woods as often as I used to, mostly because of the little guy to the left.  His name is Samuel, he will be 4 next month (has been home a year and a half) and a day with him is better than the best trail in the world.  Some day I hope to introduce him to cycling if I can still push the pedals.

Matt.  Don't know about conditions at LBL but I often talk to Steve at WoodnWave to get the lowdown.  I'll call Monday and find out.

Hello I'm Cay.  I'm the female mountain biker that tends to post on here.  I work with Sean in Carterville for SIU's Automotive Technology Program.  I'm the Autoparts Manager for our campus.  Basically I get the Auto Instructors stuff and write W/O for the live work here.  I'm the triathlete of the SMBA group.  I started with doing a couple of tris in 1986, gave them up for awhile for life and starting a family, and then went back to them in 1997.  In '02 Sean was looking for a female to be on a 4 person 24 Hour Mtn bike race in Winter Park, CO.  That was my intro into mtn biking.  I road a mtn bike 4 times prior to that race... ouch.  Anyhow, by '03 I had discovered Xterra "Off-road" triathlons where I actually got to race in the woods while doing tris.  That's what I've pretty much been doing since then.

There have been some wonderful women mtn bikers that have come and gone from this area and SMBA.  Two that I've really enjoyed and am very proud of are Mary Collier (Out in Arizona kicking butt for Siren Bicycles as a pro solo 24 hour mtn biker) and Stephanie Grant (Over in North Carolina kicking butt racing mtn bike races and Xterra triathlons with me sometimes).  I have two other woman in this area that ride with me occasionally but live and breath running; their names are Allison and Sarah.  I would love to have women to mtn bike with again this year in the Shawnee(in addition to the hairy legged men I ride with).  I've met Brant's lovely wife Ashli and hope to bike with her some this spring.  If you know of any woman cyclist that mtn bike or might want to learn, I plan to ride starting this spring on most Wednesday nights and weekends when I'm not racing.

The reason I reference mtn biking this spring is that I tore my ACL and meniscus in my left knee this past August in an Xterra tri in Jonesboro, AR and had surgery in October.  I've been doing Rehab and should be released to play in the woods at the end of March or sometime in April.  I ride mostly in the West Shawnee but also like to catch up with the guys in the East Shawnee occasionally.  I will be riding a brand spanking new Mango colored '07 Epic that currently lives in my basement.  My son will be riding the silver '05 Epic "Magic Bike" that I've ridden in the past.  Also, I'm married with a son that is a Freshman at John A Logan and a son that is almost 14, a swimmer, and a triathlete too.

Welcome any new people to SMBA.  Hello to my old friends!

Hey Cay, Becky Byers has something that resmbles a mountain bike and has acted really interested when I asked her if she wanted to go to the woods, (FOR A BIKE RIDE) but I've never gotten the chance to take her,  you might see if she wantes to mtn bike sometime.

Howdy!  My name is Doug Morgan.  I live in the Peoria area and I work for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at Starved Rock Lock and Dam on the Illinois River.  I have held various positions within the corps from laboror to crane operator to diver to structures repair supervisor to my current position of Assistant Lockmaster.

I love to ride mtb and even on the road as well.  I am married with four kids and they are all ages 10 down to 3.  My kids share my love for riding trails and I hope that will transition into their adult lives someday.

The only person I am familiar with on these boards is Billy.  He comes up to ride our area frequently and I occasionally get to ride along with him.

I like to race our local race series, and I have been on a four person team up at the 24 hours of 9 mile two times, and I have a team again for this year.  I race for fun and I am not really all that serious about it, so I am definately no hammer head.

I travel to NC two to three times a year to ride Pisgah, Dupont, Bent Creek, and Tsali because that is my favoritist place in the whole wide world!!!

And I like chocolate milk.

Hey Doug, I know you were planning a mt. bike ride in the Shawnee this weekend and you've seen that we have had some pretty substantial precipitation over the last couple of weeks.

I don't know if you are familiar with the area but if you enjoy road riding then there is literally hundreds of miles of great road riding down here. The ride can be as tough or easy as you want to make it. There are beautiful views, challenging climbs, quiet country roads and if you're brave (crazy) enough, a winery or 2 that you could throw into the mix.

Just make sure you throw some tuffy liners in those road tires. There are cinders all over the roads and they will tear up the toughest of skinny rubbers.

I'll introduce myself soon.

Hello, my name is Don.  I'm 41 and have a wife and 13 year old black lab.  I live in Edwardsville which is a suburb of St Louis.  My parents live on 100 acres in Southern Illinois over by Harrisburg....so I am lucky enough to live close enough to make it to the Shawnee more weekends than not.

I am a laser technician and work for a small company in St Charles that manufactures high power laser diode arrays and is owned by Northrop Grumman.  The group I work in specializes in building one off ND:YAG laser systems primarily for military applications.

I gave up golf for mountain biking in 2003.  Biking has slowly become my #1 hobby...but fishing and bowhunting rank close seconds and it is a struggle to find time to do all 3.   I also dabble in nature photograpy (mostly while hunting) and enjoy doing trailwork mostly in the heat of summer or dead of winter when fishing and hunting seasons are at a lull.  I also snow ski but haven't been in about 5 years.

My first real mountain bike was a Specialized Epic.  But after discovering the Chubb trail in St Louis I soon wanted more suspension travel so I switched to a S-works Enduro (Hence my logon name).   But after hooking up with the East side guys in 2005 and riding logs all day I quickly learned that light weight frames do not go well in the Shawnee for a 200 lb guy...after breaking welds on two different frames I made the switch to a Santa Cruz Bullit....which like it's name implys is truely bullitproof.   I also have a cross bike that I use for road riding when the trails are too muddy...which seems to be alot.

I ride primarily on the East Side with Eli, Mark(Bullit), Drew (Hecklerdood), and the legendary Joe Ellis.  I am the youngest guy in the group and just when I start getting close to keeping up with their pace they turn it up another notch.  The group of us went to Colorado in 2006 and rode out of Salida and Crested Butte...hope to do more road trips in the near future.  My favorite trail in the Shawnee is High Knob.

Oh man, Golf, that is funny, GOLF<EVERYTHING

I went golfing one time and the entire time was actually thinking up fun things to do with the clubs and balls, like attempt to hit other golfers and parked cars.  The only really fun thing was burnouts and power slides with the golf cart, apparently that is frowned upon.  

By the way Don, I've allready been telling my roadie buddies that Saturdays this summer I'll be in the woods.  That is if my X-Tream training regiment gets me into what I have taken to calling the East side A-Team. I think I'm currently on the E-Team.

Yeah I am embarrassed to say that I was pretty big into golf for about 5 years.  My inlaws are all golfers so that gave me something to do when going home with the wife plus we had a league at work.  I got down to about a 10 handicap but got to where I wasn't improving anymore...then the league dissolved and I didn't get to play much.   Once I started biking there wasn't enough time and money to do both so I haven't touched the clubs in 3 years.

It is a very expensive sport to do enough to get good at...imagine having to pay $20 to $50 bucks everytime you went to ride your bike.  So everytime I buy something new for my bike I just equate it to how many rounds of golf that would be and it doesn't seem like too much then.

Fishing season is upon us so I won't be riding much on saturdays until probably June..but I do still plan to ride on Sunday afternoons some...so by then you should be fully up to speed.  You should try to ride with Greg some during the week as well...they usually ride dirt one day and road another.

I got into golfing a few years ago too during a time that I wasn't riding very much.  Actually I really liked it and it is a challenging game.  It seems like you also have to drink to play golf and then after you have finished playing you have to go to the clubhouse and drink some more.  I never got very good at the golf but I did become an accomplished drinker.  Needless to say I finally came to my senses and started riding again.  I never have tried riding combined with drinking and since I only have a drink occasionally now, I probably never will.  I don't think it would mix well anyway!