Alors , b'jour mes amis!
Been living here for over 6 years now, but only had my 650 twin for a year, and already it's done 14K Kms!. It's all these long and twisty empty roads!
I think it might be good perhaps to see the overseas section (France) being a bit more active, and I think your suggestion is great to get people motivated, but would hesitate to start a new forum,- speaking from experience. Forum's need consistantly active posters to keep thing's moving, and also quite a number of members to keep a variety of topics in the mix. It's surprising how a lot of people join up ( just to say they belong) and then don't join in, which defeats the whole purpose- and then only a hard core remain and it turns into a sort of private members club where infrequent posters either don't want or find it hard to join in. I belong to France's biggest expat biker forum 'Bike Club France' which has over 1000 members all over Europe inc the U.K., but only a hard core seem to be posting, and we all seem to live in the same area in the Mid to South West and more recently in the North West (Brittany/Normandy). It's difficult sometimes to get new members involved, and as a moderator I always encourage them to join in, however diverse the subject matter may be.
Administering a forum also keeps you attached to the computer when you really ought to be out on yer bike!!
C'est tout! à la prochaine!
