I gotta tell you I fell a bit in love with this Chief.
And there’s a war on – which is an excellent time for such passionate love-affairs.
In the middle of a love affair.The war I speak of is the current conflict raging between Indian and Harley-Davidson. And make no mistake. They are at war, guns blazing, no prisoners taken. This is great for lovers of big American twins. Just as it was the last time, all those years ago, these two went at it like honking bison in a too-small corral.
War is the health of the state, of course. And it is also the health of the bike industry. When brands go at it, riders win.
Which is pretty much why the Sport Chief made me more than a little giddy with desire. That big satin-black, Brembo-equipped sumbitch ticked all my dark and crazy boxes.
It’s really quite beautiful.Yeah, I still got them. I think them boxes are with me for life. Big Yankee twins speak to me. Sure, they speak to lots of people, but they likely speak to me in a slightly different way. I blame that on my well-spent youth. And strippers.
It’s even handsome on the other side.I actually could not NOT love the Sport Chief. For important starters, I think it’s hatefully gorgeous. That 116-cube engine is beautiful – both in how it looks and what evil-hell it does when you put it in Sport mode. I have spent stupid amounts of money trying to get a big V-Twin to do just what this thing does now – and largely failed…and shot my carby across the road and caused a little fire under my balls.
No harm in putting some Italian magic on this.In Road mode it’s just a normal grunty, lazy-revving, 156Nm-at-3000rpm, big twin. In Sports mode it’s that 156Nm on meth. It now wants to rev like drunk girls wanna dance. In both cases, you just remember to hang on.
No idea what it does in Rain mode. And I do not care. I never put a bike in that mode. I also do not collect handbags. So there could be a link there.
The seat is comfortable, the shocks look and work fine. What more do you need?But the rest of it is beautiful too. The blunt-force look of the bikini fairing works perfectly with the higher drag bars, and the profile that runs from the ’bars down the tank, to the single seat (yes, she’s catching a cab after her shift at the table-dancing bar), and ends at the bobbed rear guard. Spot on, to my eyes. Yes, I am looking at myself in shop windows.
Of course the pipes are…um, less than optimal. You’re meant to throw them away and buy other ones.Don’t blame Indian. Blame pollution laws.What also pinched my love gland was how the whole package behaved itself on the road. Firstly, the suspension is pretty damn good, inverted KYBs up front and Fox piggybacks at the rear. Sure, there ain’t all that much travel. But there’s enough. Maybe not ride like a reflection-admiring idiot and you won’t have an issue.
The dash is a touch-screen which also give you turn-by-turn navigation.I chased my mate Cam’s Aprilia RSVR and he chased me, all the way to Spencer and back to Singo, and I have aimed the Sport Chief up and down the Putty a few times on solo runs. Bugger-all shop windows, sadly, but I found it quite a hoot to arc through corners. There’s some integrity there, and fine-arse Brembos if you’ve got in over your head some.
It’s not a spreading chestnut tree, but then, I am not a village smithy, either.I became very attached to it. To the point where I was on-line looking at a fat 60cm spiked sissy bar, some bags, and a new set of pipes. That’s pretty much all I’d do to it if it was mine.
Understand that Indians have many points of difference over Harleys. In the riding, they feel similar but still different. They sound different. They handle differently. But…not all that much, and maybe you need to ride them back-to-back, and for some solid distance, to really pick the differences.
Not that kind of clubhouse.In the end, you must decide which tribe you wanna join, I guess. But you also have to know it’s entirely because of bikes like the Sport Chief that Harley has completely re-vamped its Softail range. It had to. Just like it had to re-vamp its touring range when Indian fired the Challenger at Milwaukee’s frontline.
The war rages on. Praise be.
You gotta love deserted roads.You see, they are both, at their essence, the big V-twins your mum doesn’t want you riding, but your dad thinks are all the cool he never had. That will not be the way her dad thinks about it, but her mum might well ask you to take her for a spin. Relax, brother. You can’t. Single seat, remember?
Still, it’s damn fine to know there are bikes that still have that effect on people. And the Sport Chief is most certainly one of the bad guys – in the best possible way. It’s there for when the darkness calls to you.
