The Ancient Riders began originally as a Yahoo Group founded in 2003 as the "pagan_biker" list. It existed for some time in this form, and had fairly low participation. The founder and then moderator of the old pagan_biker list
had little time to devote to it, and it began to slowly die out as activity waned.
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Then sometime around the fall of 2005, Johnny Bongo and Harper from Maine both joined the pagan_biker list. Both being of a fairly chatty sort, activity increased, and interest seemed to be on the rise. After several months, the then-owner of the pagan_biker list asked Johnny Bongo if he would like to take over as the moderator of the list. He accepted, and shortly after that the original owner of the pagan_biker list disappeared altogether.
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This left the members of the list to strive forward on their own, and JB did his best to help. After some time however, it became clear that all though Johnny Bongo was a "moderator", he was not the "list owner" and as such was prevented from fully managing the group. As a result the group decided to abandon the old pagan_biker list, and create a new home for themselves at Yahoo called "ancientriders". And Lo! In February of 2007, the Ancient Riders were born. There was much rejoicing!
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~2007~
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In August of that year Johnny Bongo and Harper set out from Maine on the Pagan Tour 2007 - riding west to meet up with Clem & Blu from Kansas, and RoZ from Illinois (Our brother JC from Wisconsin set out to be with us, but alas, Angst had other plans that day). They all met in Effingham, Illinois. Little did any of them know or realize at the time the significance of this event. They stayed in a campground there in Effingham, and for the first time ever members of the Ancient Riders gathered around a campfire and passed around a horn of mead. Forevermore in Ancient Rider lore those present at that first meeting have become known as The Effingham 5.
The next morning those five then all rode south to Memphis, TN and were joined by Jan from Memphis, and Balthor & FireAngel from Alabama. After some great ribs and great music in Memphis, everyone headed for home, with JB and Harper shooting the Dragon's Tail at Deal's Gap on the way back to Maine. The first ever Pagan Tour was a great success.
