Sam Wakim is the proprietor of a company by the name of Ride Wright Wheels. We have featured numerous Harley baggers rolling on Ride Wrights since the magazine's inception due to the company's wild designs and need to push the envelope.
Just about every year Sam purchases a bike to R&D his wheels and in 2006 he decided to push the envelope further and get into the metric cruiser market. After some research into the metric scene, he bought a brand new Yamaha/Star Motorcycles Road Star and got busy making wheels to fit this particular brand of bike. What he didn't know at the time was that the single set of tricked-out prototype wheels he whipped up was only the beginning of a long journey into metric madness.
Once the Fat Daddy diamond-spoked wheels and Klassic rotors were on the bike the gears started turning in Sam's head. One night soon after the purchase he had an epiphany of just how a metric bagger should look. "I didn't want it to look like a Harley like so many others try to do, I wanted it to be a clean-looking bike that stood out in a crowd." Sam told us. With that said, Sam scoured the Internet seeing just what parts were available for the Road Star and came up with very minimal aftermarket success.
Sam has a close personal relationship with Dragonfly Cycle Concepts, and when the owner Kevin heard Sam had a metric bagger project brewing he offered up a modified fairing to fit on the Road Star. The fairing is filled with a Kenwood head unit, two Kenwood 6x9 speakers with matching tweeters, and a Pioneer amp to drive it all. When the fairing was installed there was an issue with the stock handlebars not looking the part as well as some clearance issues, so a set of Burly Brand pullback drag bars with Küryakyn Iso grips were bolted up to add some sleekness to the bike. The headlamp is a stock Star unit, but riding below it is a Küryakyn driving light bar with a set halogen silver bullet lights leading the way.
The engine and drivetrain are all stock Road Star gear with just a bit of sprucing-up done in the form of various covers and added chrome. The exhaust is another thing all together. The addition of the triple-stepped Rinehart Warrior Flush pipes make the Road Star sound much more meatier than the stock exhaust ever could.
Out back Ride Wright installed a set of Corbin Beetle Bags, which greatly improved the look of the bike as well as adding a bit more storage capacity. The rear turn signals, license plate holder and teardrop taillight were plucked out of the Küryakyn Metric accessory catalog. Sam also went with Corbin in the seating department with a red ostrich skin Hollywood solo and matching pillion.
The bike already had its good-looking Real Red paint job as standard from the factory, but Sam wanted to jazz it up a bit with the Ride Wright logo airbrushed onto the front of the fairing and each of the saddlebags by a local painter. To add even more to the "red-out" of the bike the handlebars, triple trees, fork lowers, and hand controls were powdercoated candy red in-house by Ride Wright.
Tip to tail the bike took a little over a year and a half to finish and when it is not doing time under the Ride Wright tent at the various events around the country, Sam can be seen riding it around schooling people on just how a custom metric bagger should be done.