Indian Sport Chief RT Will Make A Man Out Of You

There is, in popular culture, an image of the Cruiser Guy. He sits atop his big air-cooled V-twin, its displacement in cubic inches printed somewhere on the side to advertise his freedom, as he slowly rev-bombs his way through suburban streets. Whether he’s a big guy or not, he looks huge on the bike — shoulders up and arms outstretched, with his legs manspread around the engine to reach the forward controls. You’re as likely to hear “Free Bird” blared 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 most of all — aspirational. Most folks don’t swing a leg over a bike and immediately have some sort of magical girl transformation into Jax Teller, but they’ll try so hard to be effortlessly cool that the act becomes immediately transparent to any onlooker. So, with the Sport Chief RT, Indian poses an interesting question: What if a motorcycle could help? What if, when you thumbed that starter, you really did metamorphose into the man you wish you could be?

Full Disclosure: Indian lent me a Sport Chief RT for a couple months, from early October through the middle of December. I returned it in the same condition as it was given to me, save for the added mileage and more than a bit of road grime. I think it looks better dirty.

The Sport Chief RT is just what the name says: An Indian Chief, made Sport-ier, with the locking hard bags that the RT trim denotes on both this bike and the Scout. It begins with the Chief’s frame, but swaps the 111-cubic-inch engine for the sportier 116 ci mill, bringing torque up from the base bike’s 108 pound-feet to a claimed 120, more than enough to get the bike off the line. The suspension is different from the base Chief too, raising the bike’s ride height just enough to eke 32 degrees of lean angle out of the chassis.

Yet, no matter how stiff Indian makes the shock and fork (and, to the company’s credit, the bike does feel lighter than it ought to while dodging potholes), there’s no getting around that this is a long, low, 714-pound bike. The branding may say Sport, but the bike itself doesn’t — its gearing is tall, its redline is low, and its gearbox doesn’t like to be rushed or shifted without the clutch. It’s really more muscle than sport, and the bags on the rear attest to that. This isn’t a no-compromises sportbike, 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, in all ways imaginable, big. Not only does it out-displace the Honda Gold Wing and weigh more than two Honda CB300Rs, but it’s big in ways you wouldn’t expect. The reach to the bars is long, sure, but so are the grips that sit at the end of that reach — fatter than any other bike grips I’ve held, yet surprisingly unheated. Even the throw between shifts feels long, and the bike gets very unhappy if you try to bypass the clutch.

This commitment to size makes the few small things on the Sport Chief RT feel all the stranger. The four-inch round screen that serves as the dash seems to have barely enough room for its own functionality once you leave the standard two gauge screens. Try to input a navigation address while waiting to turn at a light, and you’ll find letters on the keyboard covered by the turn signal indicators. The storage, too, is nothing to write home about — extremely convenient in its hard mounting and locks matched to the bike, but even my humble bag of rock climbing gear required some careful compression to make fit.

Yet, no matter how much physical space the Indian takes up, its presence is even greater. Brooklyn’s resident Harley guys, folks who never return waves from my fully-faired Suzuki, happily recognized me as one of their own out on the roads. People in cars rolled down their windows to compliment the bike, drivers made comments in gas station parking lots. Despite the stereotypes of the Cruiser Guy, folks love to see a big air-cooled V-twin trundling along.

Part of the credit for that presence goes to the exhaust on the Sport Chief, which doesn’t so much snap or snarl as it does bellow and roar — it’s all bass. The riding position, too, positions you as the sort of laid-back cruiser enthusiast happy to engage in some friendly motorcycle conversation. Just don’t try it during a downpour, or you’ll find that the seat fills with water shockingly quickly. The saddlebags may keep rain out, but my riding jeans sure didn’t.

In fact, on the Sport Chief RT, being the Cruiser Guy is mandatory. The loud engine and tall gearing mean you’re going to wring first gear out 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’ll keep your knees as far from it as you can, leaving 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’re told to make when threatening a black bear away from your campsite. The Cruiser Guy takes up space, he’s loud and big and perhaps even threatening, and the Sport Chief RT can take any “Sons of Anarchy” viewer and make them feel like they belong in a leather kutte. On this bike, being Jax Teller is no longer an aspiration. It’s enforced.

Of course, as someone who’s loudly, emphatically, and medically rejected manhood, riding the Sport Chief RT is a downright dysphoric experience for me. It’s so effective at making its rider into the big scary tough loud Cruiser Guy of pop culture fame, in fact, that this is the first press motorcycle I’ve brought up in therapy. Credit to Indian’s designers, because that’s a powerful feeling for a bunch of metal and plastic to evoke. I may just not be the target market for it.