The Rookie Rides: Indian Scout

Laid back loping

Nothing like a pair of big jugs to get your heart racing

Polaris Indian’s Scout hasn’t had a redesign or significant updates since it was first sold in 2015. Eight years on and the styling still holds up and it is one of the few bikes of its type that I find handsome. The particular one I ride is a handsome burgundy red with good depth and minimal orange peel on the tank. The 100hp/72ft-lb motor is still competitive against the likes of Harley’s new water-cooled motors found in the Sportster and Nightster which are sorta-competitors in my mind (I’m sure cruiser aficionados will tell me how this isn’t true). At the time there was frothing about how untraditional the water-cooled motor was and how wonderful the water-cooled motor is and how well it motivated the near 600lb bike and now H-D itself is producing w/c V-twins.

I haven’t ridden a cruiser before in my life and when I saddle up I laugh inside my helmet. My knees are bent, not slightly bent, but significantly angled. This is a rarity with my short inseam of 30” (~31” with a boot on) and I can see why people don’t mind that cruisers are big heavy bikes. Almost anyone can reach the ground comfortably with both feet, and the cruiser waddle begins to make more sense to me. Reach to the handlebars is easy with the stock set up, the seat is cushy and I find myself relaxed. When the bike is rolling and I swing my feet out and up onto the pegs I feel like I am riding a reclining chair down the street. Cruisers as comfortmobiles clicks in my mind.

Shift when it feels right

There’s no tachometer to indicate where you are in the RPMs, but there is plenty of shake to let you know that the motor would rather be putting power out in a different gear. There is torque from the get-go and it is never met with a rush, you are simply speeding a couch down the road and it feels effortless to increase speeds. On the loop that I ran I left it in 3rd gear for just about everything except the starts and this felt appropriate. There is also a gear indicator, and an odometer and not much else. The gearbox on the Scout was smooth, though I have read about wide variation in transmission quality with Indian, and I found it perfectly pleasant for up and downshifting even with my foot sticking out in front in a new position. The sound of the motor and exhaust was the expected V-twin burble at idle and blatty roar on the gas. Everything here is what I imagine when I think about cruisers only with a motor that scoots.

Braking is another matter as the front brake feel itself is not particularly encouraging, nor is the performance. When the back brake is brought in, however, the bike can be hauled down quickly - it’s just a mindset change from riding bikes where the front is 80+% of the brake vs what feels like 60-40 here. I would still prefer something confidence inspiring in the front vs “This is a disc front, right?”

In the second 90* right hand turn, which I am late in realizing is the turn I should take, sees me shove the handlebar and promptly hear sccrrrttch from beneath me. I had known that a cruiser bike would be low, and wouldn’t have too much lean available, but I did not expect that I would find the peg feelers within the first few minutes of a demo ride. This was bizarre to me, and left me paranoid about lean angles for the rest of the ride. Admittedly, the pegs are wide and scrape well before any hard parts, but it is still jarring when you feel that you have hardly leaned the bike over at all.

All in all, this bike has me understanding the appeal of cruisers, and seriously considering a (used) one for my wife’s first bike. The 100hp feels in no way excessive when pushing that long low chassis around. The suspension is soft and as mentioned before leads to a feeling of riding on a piece of lounge furniture around and no feelings that you should push the bike hard. The only thing I would worry about is panic stops, and everyone should be practicing those anyway.

And on a serious note: