Who is the ISRA
by Sally 'Patch' Lawrence

In the August StarCruiser, we gave members some information about the history of ISRA. This month, settle back and enjoy some statistical analysis about who is ISRA.

Where We Live

International Distribution

ISRA is truly an international organization. Members span 39 different countries from Australia to Venezuela. It's not quite A ~ Z, but it's close. The world map above shows the distribution of members throughout the world. The greatest numbers are found in the UK (39), Canada (62) and the USA (812). Click here to see a list of all the countries and how many members are in each one. Some of the more unusual ones are India, Russia, Turkey, China and Malaysia.

Even though a Japanese company makes the Stars, we only have 2 Japanese members. ISRA boasts eleven members each in Australia, Denmark, Netherlands and Sweden. Germany has 21 ISRAlites.

United States

The United States, with 812 members in 48 states has the vast majority of the membership at this time. Have a look at the US map and be surprised that the two states missing ISRA members are Wyoming and Maine. Click here for all the states and the number of members in each.

Ever wonder why you may not see many Stars in your neighborhood? Rhode Island has one member. Alaska, Delaware, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota and Vermont each have 2. Not so difficult to understand considering that Delaware and Vermont are comparatively small in area. Alaska, Montana, Nevada, and North Dakota while comparatively large in area are fairly small in terms of population. This probably explains the dearth of members in Wyoming as well. According to the 1990 Census, Wyoming's population was 453,588. Many of us live in or near cities that have more people!

Contrast that to California with 93, Texas with 63 and Florida with 62. More interesting juxtapositions there in comparing area to population. Texas covers more ground than California but has about half the population. Florida is significantly smaller than either Texas or California yet has only a few million less people than Texas. Let's not forget that Florida is a popular place for retired people, too.

Canada (the frozen North)

The Canadian provinces cover a huge land mass area, yet have relatively sparse population centers. Even so, ISRA boasts 62 Canadian members, with the furthest north in Yellowknife.

All of the Canadian Provinces are represented. The greatest numbers of members live in Ontario (21) and Quebec (16). New Brunswick has 2 members and Newfoundland and Nova Scotia each have 1. Eight are in Alberta, 6 in British Columbia, 4 in the Northwest Territories and 3 in Saskatchewan.

The 62 Canadian members are located in a total of 40 different cities. Calgary boasts 6 members, Toronto has 5, and Yellowknife has 3. It may be time for these cities to think about forming Constellations! Some of the other cities have 2 members each and many have only 1.

Who We Are

The ISRA members are a pretty diverse group, not only geographically, but in terms of age, gender, and what we ride. Membership has been growing steadily since the inception of ISRA in April 1998. The bars in the chart show the growth month by month and the line shows the accumulated membership. Almost 150 members joined in July this year and total membership reached 1050 before the end of August.

Spring Chickens or Over the Hill?

Members pretty much run the gamut in age, we have some that are under 21 and some that are over 65.

The average age for women is 39. For men it's 40. Both the youngest man and youngest woman are 19. The oldest man is 70 and the oldest woman is 55. (You know who you are!)

Women represent 6.2% of ISRA's membership, or 65 out of 1050 members.

What We Ride

ISRA members ride 11 different models of Yamaha Star Motorcycles. These bikes have displacements ranging from 400 cc (Drag Star Custom) to 1602 cc (Road Star / Wild Star). The 650s overshadow (pardon the pun) the other models by far.

The oldest bikes are from 1996 (Drag Star 400 Custom) and the newest are the 2000 V-Star 650 Classics. The 650s remained the best sellers for 1999. Fewer V-Star 650 Customs were purchased in 1999, but slightly more of the Drag Star Custom were purchased in 1999 as compared to 1998.

Another interesting way to look at the motorcycle distribution among members is too look at the member growth in relation to the new model introductions. For this comparison, model families have been grouped by color. The dates along the bottom identify the first time someone joined ISRA with that particular model. The dates correspond pretty closely with the release of each new model. Check out the V-Star and Drag Star 1100s. Remember all the hub-bub back in April trying to locate any V-Star 1100s in the US? Notice that we already had a few members by that time with Drag Star 1100s.

On the other hand, we had our first Road Star in August 1998. Our first Wild Star didn't show up until January this year.

ISRA started off with Drag Star 400s in May 1998, but no new 400s have been seen since July last year.

Which bike is the most popular among ISRA members? Indisputably, it is the V-Star 650 Classic with 430 members owning one. The next closest are the Road Star with 140 riders and the Royal Star with 133. It will be interesting to see how these numbers change after the 1100 has been out for a full year.

What about the women?

Since I'm writing the article, you guys will just have to put up with some of this stuff. We've already established that only 6.2% of ISRA members are women. What about what the women ride? Does it correspond closely to what the men prefer?

All but 4 of the women are from the United States. It seems that motorcycle riding is not as popular for women in other countries as it is in the US.

As you might expect, most of the women ride the 650 Classic. The next most popular model is the 650 Custom. But some of the women like the big bore bikes, too. One has a Road Star, 6 have Royal Stars.

It's interesting to note that the closest correlations by percentage of population occur for the Royal Star and V-Star 1100. Men and women appear to like these models almost equally.

Bottom Line? No matter which one we have, we all love our Stars. Even though there are only 11 models in the Star line, our membership has proved that we have 1050 different motorcycles. We each make our bikes our own.