Please folks,stop the jingoistic generalizations and comparisons to cuisine.Bikes are built to meet the needs of people.Some choose plain,some fancy lugs in every country! If the CR Main archives had better representation of German,Dutch,Belgian,Australian bikes you might see something for every taste and purpose.There are just so many ways to weld up the plumbing to get the job done. "National character" as a valid concept has been debunked long ago. You should rise above this twaddle. Art Link, in Hispanic-Germanic-Southwest ,San Antonio ,Tx