The Indian Scout is a Sportster killer

When I first saw the Indian Scout on paper, I expected it would be a Sportster killer.

The Indian Scout brings some modern performance to the classic looks of an American-made cruiser.

After riding it for an afternoon in a variety of conditions, I still believe it will be a Sportster killer. I also found out that it has the potential to kill my lower back and butt, if I were to ride it the way I ride, which includes long days on the road. There’s a lot to like about the Scout, and a few things not to like. I almost feel like the weak points aren’t really the bike’s fault, but rather compromises the engineers had to make to fit the conformist and rigid styling demands of the cruiser world. So let’s take a look at this important new model for Indian, which is now under Polaris ownership, and sort out the good and bad.

The Indian Scout is a compact cruiser. You don’t realize how small it looks until you see it in person and realize the seat is just 25.3 inches off the pavement.

The Indian Scout: the facts

When the Scout was announced, I wrote an opinion piece over at RevZilla saying that it was the most important new model for the Indian brand since the company went out of business in the 1950s. The Indian name was resurrected a few times since, and I sometimes felt it would have been better to leave the corpse in the grave, its reputation unsullied by half-baked revivals. Now that Polaris owns it, the Indian brand has the know-how and resources behind it to build something worthy of the name of the company that was once the world’s largest motorcycle manufacturer.

The reason I thought the Scout was so significant (and I still think so) is because it is the first Indian that a consumer can buy on merit alone. Even if you’re a 20-something new rider who knows or cares nothing about motorcycle history, this bike is appealing. Unlike previous Indians, you don’t have to overlook shortcomings to buy it just because of the name on the tank or the Indian head on the fender. You need not feel the slightest pang of nostalgia to buy a Scout.

The Scout was always the brand’s lightweight, sportier bike, and this new version carries on that role. It departs at least slightly from the engineering straitjacket Harley-Davidson must wear by using a liquid-cooled, fuel-injected, 60-degree, 69 ci (1,131 cc) V-twin, and it also departs the scene more quickly than its Harley-Davidson competition, thanks to the 100 horsepower that engine produces. Indian claims peak torque of 72.2 foot-pounds at 5,900 rpm, which reaffirms that this is not your typical cruiser engine. The Scout likes to rev.

The Scout rolls on 130/90-16 front and 150/80-16 rear tires for the traditional, fat-tire look, not the fat rear/skinny front chopper style. A single disc handles braking at both ends. The 61.5-inch wheelbase and 558-pound wet weight make the Scout fairly light, by cruiser standards, but the dimension that makes the biggest visual impression is the seat height. It places your butt just 25.3 inches off the asphalt. The Scout’s wheelbase is slightly longer than that of its direct competition, the Harley-Davidson Sportster Forty-Eight, but the Scout looks smaller.

Some traditionalists will turn away because of the radiator, but the liquid-cooled engine not only works great, it also has some neat styling touches. Note the script “I.” Looks are subjective, but I like the Scout.

Its compact shape and that low seat make the Scout look small, almost toy-like. I’m going to be very curious about how that plays out. On one hand, shorter riders or women who are buying a cruiser to get both feet on the ground are going to have an option that doesn’t force them to accept anemic performance. On the other hand, a big segment of cruiser riders demands a big, he-man look. Will some buyers opt for a slower, 800-pound cruiser that looks burly over a smaller but more powerful Scout? It will be interesting to see. For now, it seems Scouts aren’t spending a lot of time lounging around dealerships before they are sent home with buyers.

The Scout starts at $10,999 in basic black. It’s also available in the red version I rode, plus matte gray and matte black for an extra $300.

The Indian Scout: the ride

Although I only had the Scout for part of a day, I rode it in a variety of conditions: urban Philadelphia traffic, a blast down I-95 and some narrow, two-lane roads. I rode in the rain, in dry conditions and on tricky damp and drying pavement.

Walking up to the bike, it’s the small size that makes the first impression, as noted above, but once I rode it, that V-twin engine took over and started defining this motorcycle in my mind. The Scout pulls smoothly at low rpm but it really wants to rev. Some cruiser riders love the feeling of just lugging along, upshifting at 2,000 rpm. The Scout rewards you for holding on to that gear. At 5,000 rpm, most air-cooled Harleys are signing off. The Scout is just hitting the best notes of its happy song. It puts out a pleasant rumble that will push the right buttons for most V-twin lovers, I think, but it also provides a much sportier feel than most cruisers loafing down the road.

The rest of the Scout’s running gear is better described as not letting down that fun engine, rather than enhancing it. The single disc brakes are fairly basic, but work well by cruiser standards. Unfortunately, ABS is not available in the United States on the 2015 models, but will be available as an option for 2016.

No fair-weather-only testing for the Scout. I rode it in the rain and in the dry, getting the chrome exhaust good and scuzzy in the name of research.

One complaint is the Scout’s unhelpful tachometer. It is a digital display, one of several choices you can toggle through on the LCD panel inside the traditional speedometer. This is the opposite of many modern bikes, which have a numerical speed display and a dial tachometer. The problem with the numerical tach display is it’s hard to read at a glance and the rider has to stop and think about how the current engine speed relates to redline. An old-style needle on a dial is much more useful. Even the newer bar-style LED tachometers are better. On some cruisers, the tachometer wouldn’t matter. The Scout’s engine is rev-happy enough that its speed is useful information to have.

Because my ride ranged from rain to mainly dry conditions, but with a few damp patches, I didn’t thrash the Scout as hard as I would have, given more time to get used to its handling and some reliably grippy dry pavement. The softly sprung front fork, with 29 degrees of rake and 4.7 inches of travel, didn’t provide the level of feedback that makes me comfortable hopping on a borrowed bike and pushing it into corners that may be dry, or may have a little dampness left over from the earlier rain. Plus, my confidence wasn’t soaring after I briefly locked the front wheel in the rain when I got on the brakes quickly in city traffic. Others have complained about the Kenda tires in the wet. The rear also broke traction twice on wet spots when pulling away from a stop at what I thought were modest rates of acceleration. (For the record, my RevZilla colleague Lemmy, who reviewed the bike in much more depth, had no such complaints.)

The problem with the rear suspension is that there isn’t enough of it. The traditional twin rear shocks provide just 3.0 inches of travel, which is not surprising, given the low seat.

Combine the low seat, forward footpegs and controls, limited rear suspension travel and the stylishly dished leather seat and you guarantee the one feature that I liked least about the Scout. That seat looks great and is quite comfy, but it locks you into one riding position. The low seat and forward pegs mean all your weight is on your butt. Riding down I-95, feet and hands forward, body shaped into the least aerodynamic position possible, I would see an expansion joint coming and just grit my teeth. There was nothing I could do, nothing at all, except wait to feel the shock shoot up my spine. I couldn’t put any of my weight on the forward pegs. I couldn’t even move around. I sat there, locked into my Indian-approved riding position, taking the body blows.

It’s part of the package for buying a cruiser these days. You have to want to lead with your feet.

Indian offers an optional Reduced Reach Controls package for $149.99 that moves the footpegs two inches rearward. That would help short-legged riders who get tired of straining to reach the forward controls, but it would not be enough to address the inability to put weight on the pegs. Let’s face it: When your seat is just two feet off the ground, you’re not going to have a seating position with your feet under your butt unless you’re folded up like a Kentucky Derby jockey, and nobody, least of all a typical cruiser buyer, wants that.

And that brings me to an important point. The first thought that came to mind when I started riding the Scout was, “Hey, it’s been a long time since I’ve been on a cruiser like this.” And indeed, it has. Take that into account when considering my point of view.

Almost everything I didn’t like about the bike can be seen not as an engineering mistake or a even a shortcoming, but as a natural part of the orthodoxy that has been imposed in the U.S. cruiser market. I would absolutely hate doing an all-day ride on the Scout, but I realize that’s not what it’s built for. The Scout can be made more capable with an accessory windshield and saddlebags, but the riding position is one-size-jars-all-spines unchangeable. If you’re a die-hard cruiser rider who finds it perfectly normal for your feet to arrive first at every destination, the Scout will feel just right. On the other hand, if you happen to be a five-foot-tall rider who has long been looking for a bike that will let you get both feet flat on the ground and still give you 100-horsepower performance that you can take anywhere the road leads, the Scout may be a tantalizing step towards your ideal that stopped short of perfection because of ergonomics designed to feel good for five minutes in the showroom, not a long, hard day of riding.

The Scout can be outfitted with a passenger seat, windshield and saddlebags, but at heart, it’s a stripped-down cruiser just looking for a good time.

That “Sportster killer” thing

Let me explain what I meant when I said the Scout is a Sportster killer. I don’t mean anything ridiculous, like it will put Harley out of business, kill off the Sportster line or even outsell the Sportster. But for riders who are looking for a U.S.-made cruiser on the smaller, sportier end of the scale, I think the Scout wins or ties every category.

I am not old enough to remember when the Sportster was the hot bike to own, the fastest thing on the street, but I am old enough to remember when a Sportster still offered a hint of that performance legacy. I owned one back in the 1990s. It wasn’t fast or light by the standards of the day, but it handled decently and provided plenty of ground clearance and, if I wanted to ride it closer to its limits, I could shift my weight and move around on the bike because the footpegs were beneath me.

Now, Sportsters have nothing left of the performance legacy. Compared to the Sportster Forty-Eight, the Scout makes significantly more power and provides more lean angle. Weight, price and other specs, even down to tire size, are identical or nearly so.

If you have to have “Harley-Davidson” on your gas tank and no other name will do, buy the Sportster. If you’re a traditionalist who only buys air-cooled engines, buy the Sportster. I asked Lemmy why anyone would buy the Sportster instead of the Scout, and he offered that he preferred the Sportster’s lower torque peak.

Other than those three personal preferences, I can’t think why anyone would buy a Sportster Forty-Eight instead of a Scout. That’s what I mean by Sportster killer.

When the Scout was announced, I said it was the best thing to happen to Indian since the troops came home from World War II and started buying motorcycles. Because of the compromises that are inherent in its form-over-function design, it’s not a bike I’d personally consider owning, but riding it only solidified my opinion that it’s the most significant model yet in Indian’s revival. Finally, there’s an Indian you can buy on merit, with no nostalgia needed.