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Spent the week in Sturgis SD, and man are there bikes of every shape and size. The one that stood out was the all new Indian Motorcycle, manufactured by Polaris. A whole new bike from the ground up and they are amazing.
Indian chose Sturgis to announce the Scout, a great looking bike that IMO will give Harley Davidson a run for their money. My inseam is 28 inches and I can flat foot this bike, DH took one on a 14 mile test ride and came back with the biggest smile on his face. 60mph in 1st, hubby said he hardly broke 3rd gear, the acceleration and ride were great. The only criticism he could muster was that it possibly needs a windshield as at 80mph the buffeting wasn't good.
We also test rode the new Roadmaster, fab engine, great sound, so comfortable for both of us and all the new mod cons one would expect for a super tourer. The classic look of this bike is timeless and I think it will be very popular.
I can't get over radiators on cruisers, they just look off. That said, it's not too bad. Good amount of power and it is only about 100 pounds overweight, so not really too bad. Big issue is lean angle of about 30 degrees. I'd like to see more like 40-45 degrees. Maybe you're not going to use it that often, especially on the street, but if you go in hotter than you should it's nice to have some ground clearance. It's not Sportster bad (25 degrees)... just exiting a parking lot (at what I thought was slowly) I scraped the exhaust on a friends recently purchased Sportster. I came back apologizing and he just laughed and said he'd already done the same thing about 50 times. Very low limits on most cruisers.
I like them. I think they look pretty cool. I have not ridden one and don't know much about their performance or dependability, but they definitely have the cool factor.
I loved the Chief, not so crazy about the Scout. It reminds me of my old Honda VTX1300 (which was a great bike, but still...)
As far as giving a Harley run for their money - Victory (Polaris) has been doing that more and more every year. Times are different and people are starting to look for more than just "heritage, history, brotherhood" aka HD marketing materials.
I don't see the Sportster/Harley tribe buying the new Scout in serous numbers.
The Japanese/Euro/Italian brand riders aren't going to buy them...I can almost see Victory riders being the ones to buy the new Indian line, but that doesn't really help Polaris.
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