It has been promised for a while and now here it is, the Sophie’s Motorcycle Works Light Bar Review! I wasn’t able to get this review posted before I went on vacation and I had to finish it off a couple of weeks late. This great product has been reviewed by Shawn Oxley and Randy Crisp who have done an outstanding job and were very impressed with the light bar.
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Review remains posted for historical content
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Product Information
- Ease of Installation: 8/10
- Installation Time: 30 to 60 minutes
- Mechanical Aptitude Required: Beginner
- Tools Required: 5mm Allen Wrench, Phillips Screw Driver & Small Adjustable Wrench
- Quality of Instructions: Good
- Quality of Product: High
- Review Product Supplied by: sophiesmotorcycleworks
- Website: sophiesmotorcycleworks
- Review Sponsored by: A1 Sportcenter
- Reviewed by: Shawn Oxley & Randy Crisp, Dallas TX (DFW Roadies Captain & First Officer) (this review is subject to the following disclaimer)
Product Overview
For many Roadie owners, one of the first accessories purchased is a front light bar to add more light, along with giving a bigger and more noticeable appearance to the front end. There has been much discussion on the Road Star Riders forum about the quality of light bar offered from Yamaha and the problems associated with it, such as the light mounts breaking while touring down the road. Well along to the rescue is Sophie’s Motorcycle Works out of Port Hueneme, CA who specialize in, “accessories for the discriminating men and women riders of large displacement metric motorcycles”. The Cruising Spot Kit for the Yamaha Road Star from Sophie’s Motorcycle Works is a new idea and new design that will eliminate all of the problems most others have seen with the Yamaha light bar.
Product Quality
The light bar comes complete with bracket and mounting hardware as well as a pair of 30-watt sealed beam spotlights and visors. The bracket and lights have exceptionally good chrome and even the spacers used in the mounting look too good to hide. The beauty of the light bar is its simplicity. Other light bars have several components that are welded together, thus giving you the point of failure for most, but Sophies light bar is a single piece of metal, giving you the strongest and most durable product available.
Appearance
Once the light bar was installed we had to adjust to the new look. Older style light bars typically place the spotlights along the same centerline with the headlamp and then the turn signals are turned down and mounted below the spotlights, like the Yamaha bar. On the Sophie’ Motorcycle Works light bar, the stock turn signal mounts are still used and the spotlights mount in between the turn signals and headlamp, giving you a triangle look to the setup. At first it wasn’t a look we were agreeing with, but this was most probably due to being used to Yamaha’s setup, because once we had a chance to sit back and take a good look and get used to the Sophie light bar, we both agreed that this new design was very appealing.
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Functionality
The obvious function of the light bar is to simply hold your additional spotlights in place without breaking. The Sophie light bar not only does this well, but it does this in a non-obtrusive way. Due to the unique design of the light bar compared with the older traditional light bars, it is very difficult to notice the light bar itself, instead you pay more attention to the lights and how the whole setup looks, which as you can tell is great.
Installation Process
Our installation was a little different because we were replacing the current Yamaha light bar on Randy’s 02 Silverado that was installed by the dealer.
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Review remains posted for historical content
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Concluding Opinion
We will both be the first to admit to our initial disliking of the set up in the very beginning. It was simply a different look with the new position of the spotlights and the old Yamaha spotlights and the amber signal lenses. But in the end, with the new A-1 spotlights in place and the installation completed, we had the chance to step back and take a good look. Being a Roadie owner you quickly learn that being different is good, but being different and looking good is even better and that is exactly what we ended up with! The product does exactly what it needs to do and it has the quality you expect and that your Roadie deserves. We are both in agreement in that this set up is great looking and you will never have to replace the light bar because of breakage.
The light bar complete with Drag Specialty 30 Watt sealed beams will set you back $225US, or, you can get the light bar on its own for $135US if you wish to incorporate your own lights. You can contact James Harmon at Sophie’s Motorcycle Works via this email for more information.
RoadStarMagazine.com
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Review remains posted for historical content
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