Thule Lightboard 976

Total junk if I could give negative stars I would – Cheap flimsy and overpriced, electrical connections are junk, connection pins broke on fist use. Response from Thule Australia contact email suggested taking it to an auto electrician to get fixed. Better quality at lower price available elsewhere. I used to associate the Thule name with quality, no longer.

Meets the requirements – The Thule 976 light bar has left/right indicators, brake lights, inward facing number plate lights and red reflectors. The electrics are hooked up with a round plug, but I received a round plug to 7pin flat plug adapter in my kit. The wire connectors to the lights are removable. This allows for ease of routing the wires through the bike frames when mounting. The wire connectors are coloured, but the left/right indicators are not so I had to figure out the correct orientation by trial and error.

The number plate area is large enough to hold a full size European plate. Unfortunately, that means the small NSW RMS auxiliary plate is not able to be secured with the provided lugs. I had to secure mine myself. There were no holes that lined up so I used wire that I had, or plastic ties could be used instead.

The light board comes with some straps to secure the board to the bikes. These seem a little flimsy for a long journey so I ended up adding an additional rope just in case.

The light board meets the requirements as set down in the standard. As such I have to recommend it.

Given the large surface area for the number plate and therefore reduced illumination, I would now look at the Rhino Rack equivalent instead. I did try to determine if the Buzz Rack equivalent had number plate illumination (which is necessary for driving at night) but received two conflicting answers.