Indian Scout Bobber review

Look at the Scout, and you immediately understand why subtlety never made it to the design briefing. The tank is sculpted like a piece of American muscle car sheet metal, the stance is low enough to shame most sports cars, and the chrome and paintwork look as if they were polished with sheer arrogance. Each variant has its own personality. The Classic drips with retro appeal, the Bobber stripped down to a bar-fight bruiser, the Sport with its raised stance daring you to throw it into corners, and the Super Scout that sneaks in saddlebags and a windshield so you can pretend it's practical. Then there's the Scout Bobber, which frankly feels like the sort of thing you'd ride into a saloon if Clint Eastwood directed Mad Max. The point is: wherever you park it, you don't just arrive. You make an entrance.

At the heart of the Scout is a brand-new 1250cc liquid-cooled V-Twin christened the SpeedPlus. On paper, it makes 105 horsepower and about 109Nm of torque. In practice, it feels like you've strapped yourself to a small earthquake. Twist the throttle and it doesn't climb through the revs politely, it surges forward with the kind of linear grunt that makes overtakes happen before you've even realised you attempted one.

But the gearing is tall. First gear feels like it was designed for drag strips rather than traffic signals, which means crawling in bumper-to-bumper Indian traffic becomes a clutch-slipping workout. Second doesn't help much either, because by the time you've stopped feathering the clutch, you're already going too fast for city chaos. Out on the highway though, the tall ratios come alive. The bike lopes along at triple-digit speeds barely breaking a sweat, like a heavyweight cruiser that could happily munch miles till the petrol runs out.

This is where the Scout is at its most convincing: on the open road, big chestfuls of torque rolling in smooth waves, each gear feeling long-legged and unhurried. Around town, however, it's about as convenient as wearing cowboy boots to a yoga class.

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Cruisers usually come with an asterisk attached: great on highways, dreadful everywhere else. The Scout, though, has manners… up to a point. The new chassis-steel tube frame with an aluminium core has been designed not just to look pretty, but to carry its bulk in a way that doesn't feel like you're steering a barge. The seat height is an approachable 680mm, which means even shorter riders can plant both feet and look like demigods at traffic lights.

But the turning radius is about as wide as a football pitch. Threading it through city traffic is a cumbersome, occasionally sweaty affair. U-turns feel like three-point manoeuvres in a cargo ship and if an auto-rickshaw darts into your path, your best strategy is prayer. This is a machine built to stretch its legs on open highways, not slalom through tuk-tuks and office commuters.

Brakes are decent on the standard models, with single discs up front, but the 101 Scout brings out the big Brembo twin-discs that will most likely feel like you’ve hit a tree when you depress that lever. Suspension across the range is comfortable enough for long stretches, you sit in a typical cruiser position, slightly engaged and leaned forward at the bars. However you're sitting mostly on your tail bone and that does most of the pot-hole soaking. Luckily the seat is comfortable enough but you’re going to feel it if you go into a big crater in the city.

You'd expect a heritage bike to sneer at technology. Not this one. The base Scouts keep it simple with LED lighting and an analog gauge and I like it that way. Step up to the Limited versions and you get cruise control, traction control, and selectable ride modes -Tour, Standard, Sport and Rain - so you can choose between lazy loafing and wide-eyed hooligan. The Tech-equipped models go full modern with a round 4-inch TFT screen powered by Indian's Ride Command system, complete with navigation, bike diagnostics, ride stats, and even a locator to find where you parked after one too many butter chickens at the roadside dhaba. It's all delivered without ruining the bike's vintage silhouette, which is quite an achievement.

Riding the Indian Scout in traffic is like trying to park an aircraft carrier in Chandni Chowk. The turning radius is vast, the gears are so tall you'll swear first is actually second, and every U-turn feels like an audition for Cirque du Soleil. But point it at an open highway and suddenly it all makes sense. The big V-Twin settles into a lazy, rumbling stride, the bike feels solid enough to tow buildings, and you find yourself grinning like a lunatic every time the road clears.

It's not built for convenience. It's built for theatre. You don't buy a Scout to commute - you buy it to announce your presence on the road, to make children point and uncles nod approvingly. Yes, it's cumbersome in the city. But on the right stretch of tarmac, it's less a motorcycle and more a rolling declaration that subtlety is dead.