Indian Sport Chief RT will make a man of you – Jalopnik

There is an image of the Cruiser Guy in popular culture. He sits atop his big air-cooled V-twin, whose engine capacity in cubic centimeters is printed somewhere on the side to advertise his freedom, as he slowly makes his way through the streets of the suburbs. Whether he’s a big boy or not, he looks huge on the bike: shoulders up and arms outstretched, with his legs man-spread around the bike to reach the front controls. You’re just as likely to hear “Free Bird” blaring from his Bluetooth speaker as you are to see a bird embroidered on the back of his leather vest.

The Cruiser Guy is tough, masculine and – perhaps above all – ambitious. Most people won’t swing a leg over a bike and immediately undergo some sort of magical girl transformation into Jax Teller, but they will try so hard to be effortlessly cool that the act becomes instantly transparent to any onlooker. With the Sport Chief RT, Indian asks an interesting question: what if a motorcycle could help? What if when you brought in that starter, it really transformed you into the man you wanted to be?

Full disclosure: Indian loaned me a Sport Chief RT for a few months, from early October to mid-December. I returned it in the same condition it was given to me, minus the extra miles and more than a little road grime. I think it looks dirtier.

The Sport Chief RT is exactly what the name says: an Indian Chief, made sportier, with the lockable hard bags that indicate the RT trim on both this bike and the Scout. It starts with the Chief’s frame, but swaps the 111-cubic-inch engine for the sportier 116 ci mill, bumping torque from the base engine’s 108 pound-feet to a claimed 120, more than enough to get the bike off the line. The suspension is also different from the base Chief, raising the motorcycle’s ride height just enough to get a 32-degree lean angle from the chassis.

But as stiff as the Indian makes the shock and fork (and, to the company’s credit, the bike feels lighter than it should when dodging potholes), there’s no denying that this is a long, low, 714-pound bike. The brand may say Sport, but the bike itself doesn’t: the gearing is high, the redline is low and the gearbox doesn’t like to be rushed or shifted without the clutch. It’s really more muscle than sportand the bags at the back are testament to that. This isn’t an uncompromising sports bike, but you can throw your girlfriend’s bag in the back and surprise her with the acceleration on the way to work.

The Sport Chief RT is big in every way. Not only is it bigger than the Honda Gold Wing and weighs more than two Honda CB300Rs, but it’s also big in ways you wouldn’t expect. The reach to the handlebars is certainly long, but so are the grips that sit at the end of that reach – thicker than any other bike grips I’ve held, yet surprisingly unheated. Even the period between shifts feels long, and the engine becomes very unhappy if you try to bypass the clutch.

This commitment to size makes the few little things about the Sport Chief RT feel all the stranger. The four-inch round screen that serves as the dashboard barely seems to have enough room for its own functionality once you leave the standard two meter screens. Try entering a navigation address while waiting to turn at a traffic light, and you’ll find letters on the keyboard covered by the turn signals. The storage space is also nothing to write home about; extremely convenient due to the hard mounting and locks that match the bike, but even my modest bag of climbing gear required some careful compression to fit.

But no matter how much physical space the Indian occupies, his presence is even greater. The Brooklyn-based Harley guys, people who never return waves from my fully faired Suzuki, luckily recognized me as one of them on the road. People in cars rolled down their windows to compliment the bike, drivers made comments in gas station parking lots. Despite the Cruiser Guy stereotypes, people love to see a big air-cooled V-twin drive by.

Some of the credit for that presence goes to the Sport Chief’s exhaust, which doesn’t do all that much get it or snarl as it does bellows And roar – it’s all bass. The driving position also positions you as the kind of relaxed cruiser enthusiast who enjoys a friendly motorcycle conversation. Just don’t try it during a rain shower, otherwise you will find that the seat fills with water alarmingly quickly. The saddlebags may keep the rain out, but my riding jeans certainly won’t.

On the Sport Chief RT it is even mandatory to be the Cruiser Guy. The loud engine and high gearing will have you wringing out first gear at low speeds, treating everyone to the bass note of that V-twin – for quite a while too, as you carefully navigate the suspension over cracked pavement and around potholes. The V-twin is hot, so you keep your knees as far away from it as possible, keeping your lower body in a sort of manspread position.

Then, with your legs spread, the bars pull your shoulders up and forward – the same position you should take when threatening a black bear away from your campsite. The Cruiser Guy takes up space, it’s loud and big and maybe even threatening, and the Sport Chief RT can take any ‘Sons of Anarchy’ viewer and make them feeling as if they belong in a leather pussy. On this bike, being Jax Teller is no longer an ambition. It is enforced.

As someone who loudly, emphatically and medically rejects masculinity, riding the Sport Chief RT is of course a downright dysphoric experience for me. It’s so effective at transforming its rider into the big scary, tough, loud Cruiser Guy of pop culture, that this is actually the first press motorcycle I’ve ever brought up in therapy. Thanks to the Indian designers, because that’s a powerful feeling that a lot of metal and plastic can evoke. Maybe I’m just not the target group for it.