Topic: Where are the french?

[Raul CB750K1]

I was wondering the other day. A lot of Honda's were sold in France, but seems that there are not many around here. And so with germans.

It's true that english is not their mother tongue, but hey, there are a lot of literate owners out there. Why is they don't come to this place? Meeting Terry could be reason enough, but I guess there should be some other reasons.


Raul

[Glenn Stauffer]

I know there are very active SOHC4 groups in Germany - Axl could tell us more about that next time he visits.  Looking over the member registrations, this site has always been very English-language centric.  Here are registration numbers for some of the European countries:

Germany 39
France 8
Denmark 24
Finland 28
Italy 24
Netherlands 86
Belgium 13
* I know there are other forums for the Dutch/Flemish speakers which might explain why we see few of them here *
Spain 4
Portugal 3
Norway 12
Sweden 34
Switzerland 5

Compare that to the English language countries:

UK - over 300
Canada over 300
US over 2400
Australia 81
New Zealand 31

There are very few members from Africa, Asia, and South America.  Japan has the most of any one country in those places with 5 members.

[Raul CB750K1]

What? Are there another 3 spanish members? I know one of them -apart from me-, but what about the other two? They are not regular posters, are they? What about the french?

And regarding the Afrikan, could it be simply that somebody lied when registering?

Raul

[SteveD CB500F]

I've spent many holidays in France over the last 15 years or so and have always admired their roads - the fantastic surface, the glorious bends and the lack of traffic (just stay out of the big cities)

But I've never seen a SOHC over there!

I posted many months ago about the same thing - there were very few French replies.

[Raul CB750K1]

I know there are some, but I have the feeling that they prefer the Kawas. Or anything french for that matter.


Raul

[Glenn Stauffer]

What? Are there another 3 spanish members? I know one of them -apart from me-, but what about the other two? They are not regular posters, are they? What about the french?

Here's what I have:

#1987, registered 2000: David A. from Estepona (I think he's really a yank who was over there for a while)
#810, registered 1998: Jose Manuel G.C. from La Cala Del Moral
#2326, registered 2001: Jose Maria de D.  from Leganes (Madrid)

and you are member #2828, registered in 2003 from Tres Cantos, correct?

And the French members:

#318    Airy-Hugues M. from Olivet
#754   Randall K. from Saint Mur
#954   Pat L. from Greasque
#1350 Stephane T. from Houilles
#1409 Philippe C. from Rueil Malmaison
#1572 Gwyn K. from Quettreville -sur-Sienne
#1749 Jean Marc D. from Jaignes
#2194 Jean-Luc V. from Le Blanc-Mesnil

And regarding the Afrikan, could it be simply that somebody lied when registering?

No.  The African members are all from South Africa.  Actually more than I thought - 15.  Several were frequent visitors to the site and one member dates back to 1994 when we were just getting this started.  The latest members from South Africa registered in March of this year.

Here is a list of all the countries for all registered owners.  Sorry for the formatting - I don't have the time to make this pretty right now.

+-----------------------+----------+
| country               | count(*) |
+-----------------------+----------+
| USA                   |     2411 |
| CANADA                |      312 |
| UK - ENGLAND          |      248 |
| NETHERLANDS           |       86 |
| AUSTRALIA             |       81 |
| GERMANY               |       39 |
| SWEDEN                |       34 |
| NEW ZEALAND           |       31 |
| FINLAND               |       28 |
| ITALY                 |       24 |
| DENMARK               |       24 |
| UK - SCOTLAND         |       16 |
| IRELAND               |       15 |
| SOUTH AFRICA          |       15 |
| BELGIUM               |       13 |
| BRAZIL                |       13 |
| NORWAY                |       12 |
| FRANCE                |        8 |
| POLAND                |        6 |
| SWITZERLAND           |        5 |
| ARGENTINA             |        5 |
| JAPAN                 |        5 |
| UK - NORTHERN IRELAND |        4 |
| UK - WALES            |        4 |
| SPAIN                 |        4 |
| PORTUGAL              |        3 |
| PHILIPPINES           |        2 |
| GREECE                |        2 |
| SINGAPORE             |        2 |
| VENEZUELA             |        2 |
| MEXICO                |        2 |
| INDIA                 |        1 |
| AUSTRIA               |        1 |
| SLOVENIA              |        1 |
| LUXEMBOURG            |        1 |
| PAKISTAN              |        1 |
| CHILE                 |        1 |
| CYPRUS                |        1 |
| HUNGARY               |        1 |
| MALAYSIA              |        1 |
| INDONESIA             |        1 |
| ESTONIA               |        1 |
| IRAQ                  |        1 |
+-----------------------+----------+

(Note: IRAQ is a US soldier currently stationed there)

[Glenn Stauffer]

I've spent many holidays in France over the last 15 years or so and have always admired their roads - the fantastic surface, the glorious bends and the lack of traffic (just stay out of the big cities)

But I've never seen a SOHC over there!

I posted many months ago about the same thing - there were very few French replies.

I was there for the TDF a couple of years ago with Johnny V. from Belgium (SOHC4 #158).  Fantastic roads.  I'm looking forward to next year when Johnny has planned the 10th anniversary WER (West Europe Ride).  I believe he's looking at routes down through the Alps to Spain and then back up to Belgium along the Normandy coast.  Of course, I'll have to rent a bike since shipping the 750 over just for a few weeks isn't going to work for me.

[Raul CB750K1]

Hey wait, those are the members from the Greenspun times. I mean which ones from Spain had registered in the new forum.

Raul

[SteveD CB500F]

Glenn has merged the registration lists, so now there is "only one forum". I believe that those registering with the new site that were previously registered with Greenspun get to keep their old numbe. (Hence me=2393)

[Glenn Stauffer]

Actually, there is only one official registration list.  This list dates back to the pre-forum days.  There is a story about it somewhere in the club section of the website, or I might have posted it here before.  Back in 1994 when this was first getting off the ground, John Soliday, our fearless founder, started issuing SOHC/4 member numbers to anyone who claimed to own an SOHC/4 motorcycle and supplied information about where they lived and the bike they owned. 

The idea of member numbers came from the rec.motorcycles group where DOD (Dennizens of Doom) numbers were a popular sign of the in-crowd (I'm not 100% correct on that, so don't take offense if you are a DOD member and know more than I do).

When I joined up in 1994, I got member #3.  Sometime in late 1994, John turned over the membership stuff to me and I started collecting the information into a database.  The database used to be online, but I'm a bit concerned about privacy stuff these days so I took it down intending to re-work it so that privacy concerns were considered in any online membership list.  I haven't managed to complete the work, but I did revive the registration system this past January and have been collecting new registrations since then.  Those are the lists that get posted to the announcement's forums every month.

The forum member number confused things.  Since there is no real information availabile about many forum members, it could never fulfill the intention behind the original registration system which was to build an owners registry.

[Sam Green Racing]

Hey Raul, perhaps Terry has been in touch with all the froggies and told them to keep out

[Terry in Australia]

There are plenty of Frenchies with CB750's guys, for every 5 oil coolers I sell to the US, I sell 1 to someone in France. I haven't sold any to Spain yet, but I hear that Spaniards are very careful with their money, which I suppose is a good thing, in a developing country in the third world. Cheers, Terry.

[Raul CB750K1]

There are plenty of Frenchies with CB750's guys, for every 5 oil coolers I sell to the US, I sell 1 to someone in France. I haven't sold any to Spain yet, but I hear that Spaniards are very careful with their money, which I suppose is a good thing, in a developing country in the third world. Cheers, Terry.

As opposed to Australia, Spain enjoys a moderate climate all year long. You probably will have the same success trying to sell an oil cooler to an spaniard as trying to sell a fridge to an skimo.


Raul

[mcpuffett]

i know of 1 french cb750 owner guys lives near Le mans  , he bought the bike off me last year  , was the first thing i ever sold on ebay     mick.

[Terry in Australia]

There are plenty of Frenchies with CB750's guys, for every 5 oil coolers I sell to the US, I sell 1 to someone in France. I haven't sold any to Spain yet, but I hear that Spaniards are very careful with their money, which I suppose is a good thing, in a developing country in the third world. Cheers, Terry.

As opposed to Australia, Spain enjoys a moderate climate all year long. You probably will have the same success trying to sell an oil cooler to an spaniard as trying to sell a fridge to an skimo.
Raul

That must be why Raul, I have sold my coolers to guys in Britain, Holland, Germany, Finland and Norway too, (hey, I don't ask why, I just supply) so I thought they'd sell in sunny Spain, but I didn't realise how cold it must get there? Brrrr!

[SteveD CB500F]

i know of 1 french cb750 owner guys lives near Le mans  , he bought the bike off me last year  , was the first thing i ever sold on ebay     mick.

Wow Mick I'm impressed!

I assume he bought it unseen?  Did he collect it or did you ship it to him?

I bought my 550 on eBay unseen and was delighted with the deal. Sold it a year later, also on eBay and also unseen, in this case I delivered it as the guy only lived 50 miles round the M25.

I bought my VFR unseen as well.

[mcpuffett]

hello steve, it was a rough looking bike for spares that i sold , posted a picture and he bought , thought at first it was going to be a nightmare but it turned out he works for nissan as a wagon driver and comes over on the euro star twice a week to milton keynes, so he had a little detour to collect and even gave me the exchange rate money because he paid in euros, not bad for begginers look?,   mick.

[BobbyR]

The French will not mingle with Americans. They find us uncouth - which may in fact be true. But we do uncouth with a certain charm.