Rennie Scaysbrook | August 31, 2017
Indian’s given the Scout a short, stumpy little brother who paints his room black.
I like surprises. Not crap ones, like finding out what my two-month-old son leaves for me in his diaper, but surprises that make me realize why I like things, such as motorcycles.
The new Indian Scout Bobber is one such surprise. I’ll be honest and admit bobber-style bikes are not really my jam (it’s more a comfort thing than anything—especially on hard-tail bikes), but there’s just something about the Indian that’s done it for me ever since I saw the photos, and even more so when I had one in my garage for a couple of weeks.
Beach cruising suits the Bobber to a T. Longer hauls in the saddle will be a bit more painful.
Photography by Kit Palmer
Small details like the knobby front tire, the bar-mounted mirrors and the stitching on the single seat, make the Indian a real nice piece of eye candy (the gigantic twin cannon-style mufflers, a little less so). But I think I like this Bobber so because I like the bike it comes from in the standard Scout, a machine I tested back in 2015 and was genuinely surprised at how much I enjoyed it.
The Bobber takes things a touch lower—one inch lower at the rear, to be exact—and gets ’pegs mounted 1.5 inches closer to the rider on a machine weighing a claimed 554 pounds wet, four pounds heavier than the standard Scout. Which is strange, considering the Bobber has (much) smaller front and rear fenders, no passenger seat and a smaller/shorter handlebar.
That ’bar takes its hues from Indian’s 1950s dirt trackers ridden by legends like Bobby Hill and Bill Turman and combined with the revised ’peg position, gives the Bobber a more aggressive rider stance than the standard Scout.
A bobber rider rides alone and thus so will you on the Indian. With no provisions for a passenger, this gives the Bobber a certain coolness about it something like a Springfield certainly does not possess. As does the color black. And this bike has black. Deep breath in and… black wheels, black fork bottoms, black radiator cover, black chassis, black exhaust headers, black mufflers, black shocks, black springs, black engine covers, black cylinders (with chrome accents), black handlebar, black mirrors, black headlight surround, black dash, black grips, black tank (on the black model), black triple trees, black footpegs, black rear brake lever, black gearshift lever, black sprocket cover, black swingarm, black ignition cover, black, well, you get the idea. Jeez, Indian, can it get any blacker?
Cool, isn’t it? The bar-mounted mirrors and seat stitching are a nice touch.
But, the blackness really does ratchet the badass factor up substantially. Chrome simply wouldn’t cut it on a bike such as the Bobber, although the chrome tops of the cylinder heads do add a touch of class to the equation, as do the LED rear lights and turn signals that cancel themselves out for when you forget to do it. And you will—we all do.
It’s not that you feel classy riding the Bobber. If anything, the Bobber makes you feel a little bit like the rebel you always wanted to be when you first saw a motorcycle as a kid. For my money, the Bobber oozes more nasty charisma than something like the Chief Classic, because I always link Indian with its stellar race-style history.
Being the same motor as that of the regular Scout at 69 c.i (1133cc), the Bobber has the most get-up-and-go performance of any cruiser I’ve ridden in recent memory, but that’s more down to the fact you’re only pushing a claimed 554 pounds wet compared to most cruisers that struggle to get below 600 pounds dry, than outright power and torque figures.
Fueling can a little touchy at a constant throttle (again, like the Scout), but the motor is one of the Bobber’s shining points. There’s lots of bottom-end torque, enough to get you moving and not having to downshift to make freeway passes, but it is extremely quiet—too much in my opinion—for a bike that looks as cool as this (Indian has louder pipes available in their aftermarket catalog for the Bobber).
Long and low pipes detract from the looks and muffle the sound too well. Shorter, louder pipes are in order.
Those freeway rides are best left as a last resort, because the riding position gets pretty uncomfortable at a constant 65 mph with all the wind blast possible hitting you in the face and the lowered rear suspension doing its best to make you feel absolutely every minor bump in the road. The Bobber’s natural habitat is bar hopping or even mild speed twisties as the chassis is quite good fun to hustle when cranked over, but I couldn’t handle any more than 40 minutes at a time in the saddle because of the slouch bend the seat puts my lower back in, and the whacks up the butt I copped from the rear suspension at speed.
The overall ride comfort is not too bad, though, provided you’re on relatively smooth roads. Being that low to the ground necessitates feeling more of the road beneath you, but it’s not that bad, in all fairness.
The Bobber’s brakes come in just a single two-piston caliper up front and a single-piston caliper at the rear but braking performance is adequate, not extraordinary. The front has a decent amount of power considering its size and the weight it must haul up, but it’s nothing like the power you’ll get on any modern Japanese four-cylinder sport/naked bike. Reprogram your brain to take things a bit slower, and the Bobber’s brakes will be fine for the task (ABS is not standard on the Bobber, and comes with a $1000 premium on the Thunder Black Smoke color scheme).
The base model Bobber comes in four colors (Thunder Black, Star Silver Smoke, Bronze Smoke and Indian Motorcycle Red) for $11,499, which represents rather excellent value for money. It’s certainly my favorite Indian of the present day (until they bring out a production version of the FTR750 flat track racer, pretty please, Indian!), simply because it oozes the kind of charisma I think suits Indian right now.
The design of the Bobber harks back to the post-war customs of returning U.S. servicemen.
As a young 116-year-old company (it’s really only six years old as Polaris bought the defunct company in 2011, and launched it in 2013), Indian has the opportunity to bring out some really cool bikes that don’t need to conform to history’s idea of what an Indian Motorcycle should be. The Scout Bobber is one such bike, a machine that, like the regular Scout, I’m surprised how much I like.
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SPECIFICATIONS: 2017 Indian Scout Bobber
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MSRP:
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$11,499 ($12,499 for ABS)
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Engine:
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Liquid-cooled V-twin
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Power:
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100 hp @ 8100 rpm
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Torque:
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72 lb-ft @ 6000 rpm
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Displacement:
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1133cc (69 c.u.)
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Compression ratio:
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10.7:1
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Fuel system:
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EFI
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Exhaust:
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2-2-2
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Transmission:
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6-speed
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Front suspension:
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Telescopic Fork, 120mm travel
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Rear suspension:
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Dual Shock, 50mm travel
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Front brake:
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Single 2-piston caliper, 298mm disc (ABS optional)
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Rear brake:
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Single piston caliper, 298mm disc. (ABS optional)
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Front tire:
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130/90-16 73H
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Rear tire:
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150/80-16 71H
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Rake:
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29°
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Trail:
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4.7 in.
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Wheelbase:
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61.5 in.
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Seat height:
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25.6.
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Fuel capacity:
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3.3 gal.
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Weight:
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554 lbs. (wet, claimed)
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Color:
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Thunder Black, Star Silver Smoke, Bronze Smoke, Indian
Motorcycle Red, Thunder Black Smoke
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If It Were Mine…
…the first thing I’d do—and probably only thing I’d do if the 2017 Indian Scout Bobber were mine—is source some shorter, louder mufflers. Not only do the standard mufflers give the bike sound unbefitting to its badassness, they need to be shorter to work with the chopped look of the bike. I might even go with chrome, just to break up the black a touch.
Other than that, I wouldn’t touch a thing.
