So, you’ve found the site, you’ve read some of the blog, and now you’re wondering what we are all about and why you should look at us a little closer. Let me try to help you there and explain a little of our history and our future.
First, Our Purpose….
“To bring like-minded motorcycle sport touring enthusiasts together as friends, and to promote our great sport through safe, responsible, and challenging ride experiences.”
This was how long-term member, Bob Maddocks, answered the question when it was put to him, and I don’t think that I can do any better. It really sums up why we exist and what we stive to do with everything we do. First and foremost, we want to bring riders together and create life-long friendships among them. Secondly, we try to get our members to put together riding experiences that can be shared with others. That can be in the form of day rides, ride-to-eat rides, track days, rallies, or just about anything else that brings riders together to ride, because riding is what it’s all about, right?
Second, Our History….
We started out in 1982 when the founder, Dana Sawyer, purchased a new Honda V45 Sabre and began to seek out others that had the same bike. He put a couple of small box ads in the back of a few motorcycle magazines that asked others with the same bike if they wanted to form an owner’s club. He got some responses and soon the Honda V45 Owners Association was born. As Honda started to use the V4 engine in other platforms they invited owners of bikes like the VFR and ST100 into the club and it began to grow and grow. Soon there were 2000+ members of the club, and people with other makes and models decided that they wanted to be a part of the club too. See, from the very beginning the emphasis was less on a particular bike as much as it was on a particular style of riding, otherwise known as Sport-Touring. About 12 years ago, when we noticed that Hondas no longer made up the brunt of the bikes showing up at our rides and rallies, the membership voted to change the name from Honda Sport-Touring Association to Motorcycle Sport-Touring Association, where we remain today.
What We Do….
We are structured in such a way that we have a central executive committee that is made up of 7 volunteer members. One thing about our club that you need to know is that every leader and organizer is a volunteer. We have no paid officers or officials, none. The EC is tasked with the administration of the club on a national level, but really is more of a support group for the members and local leaders, than anything else. The real backbone of the club are the state and area directors and the members themselves. Every director, event coordinator, and national officer is a member first and foremost. It is the individual members that plan and organize a local ride or RTE that really make the club go. It is the state/area directors that help to communicate information to people in their states/areas that facilitate the bringing of people together. It is the rally coordinators and their teams that provide riders with great opportunities to visit other areas of the country and find like-minded riders to ride with and develop friendships with.
How do we do all this? Well, you’re reading one of the tools we use, our website, but we have others.
We put out a bi-monthly club magazine called the STAReview. Our editor, Chris Parker and his team put out a quality publication that is 100% supported and written by our members. In it you will find articles on riding trips that members have taken, rallies that members have attended, and tips and informative articles written by the members that will help make your sport-touring more enjoyable. 
We also maintain a Facebook Group that has grown to well over 5,000 members and continues to grow weekly. You can use it to communicate with members all over the country and beyond, and to share in their adventures virtually. 
Many of our state and area groups also maintain their own email lists, websites, and FB Groups that concentrate more on what is happening local to themselves.
But we are far more than just a website, a magazine, and a Facebook Group. Those are just tools that we use to help us meet our purpose. Our real purpose, beyond creating friendships, is to bring people together to share those riding experiences that Bob was talking about.
As of this year, we now have Sixteen Regional or National Rallies that our volunteer member coordinators plan, organize and host. From April through November, you can find an MSTA rally happening just about every other weekend somewhere. And a lot of them are FREE to everyone. Best of all, none of them require participants to be full dues-paying members of the club. Everyone is invited. See, go back to the Purpose stated above. “like-minded sport-touring enthusiasts” is what it says. It doesn’t say MSTA members only, does it? So even if you’re not a member, we want you to come too! We think that we have a great sport/hobby/activity/passion, or whatever you want to call it, and we want to encourage others to share it with us. In addition to those rallies, our local members are always putting together rides and meetups in their area, and our state/local directors are always willing to help the membership to organize more of them. We are not a club that just wants to talk about bikes and riding, we are a club made up of people that want to RIDE our bikes with others that want to too!
If this sounds like something that YOU want to be a part of, I encourage you to seek out members in your area, or better yet, come to one of our Rallies! You will meet great people and have the time of your life, I guarantee it!