2026 INDIAN SCOUT 101 – THE WARPATH CALLS

My chubby for the 101 has not abated since I first rode it at the press launch last year. I got a real…well, “thing” for it. It flicked long-dormant switches in my motorcycle brain.

I dreamed of parking it outside of a nasty strip-club on one of those crazy hot nights when the moon is full and everything seems possible. I longed to ride it hard, fast, and artillery-loud with like-minded sinners along empty streets and lonely highways. This is how the Scout 101 spoke to me.

I will allow it may not speak to you in this way. Or maybe you’re just not listening.

 

Let me explain. Back in the 80s and 90s, blokes like me wanted a bike exactly like the Scout 101. We tried building them, but we could never really manage it. What the Scout 101 is today, remained elusive to us back then.

You couldn’t even fit Öhlins suspension or Brembos to your American bike in those days. And if you tried to get the kind of performance out of your V-twin you now easily get out of the 101, it would explode. Sure, we tried anyway because we were unhinged zealots full of drugs and bad manners and that is always a marriage that ensures total commitment to deranged motorcycle experiments.

In short, we wanted a bike that was low, that went like stink, that stopped, and that had suspension that didn’t turn your spine into pain-yoghurt. And of course it had to look the business. If she wasn’t taking off her underpants at the first set of traffic lights, you had failed.

But, since it was just not physically possible to make them old V-twins stop, go around corners, or get to much over 160 without exploding, we settled for just making them look good and sound great. Girls really didn’t much care about the other stuff.

But we sure did. So, we kept trying. And failing.

 

But now Indian has succeeded where legions of my fellow madmen and I had failed.

There are other Scouts. They are all new, and they are pretty good, and certainly better than they were up until Indian rejigged the whole range last year. One of them is aimed at cruising. One is aimed at touring a bit. One is aimed at gentler souls than mine. And one is probably aimed at people who just want to putt around on a nice, torquey V-twin.

But the Scout 101 is not aimed at people like that. It is aimed at people like me. And people like me want…Hell, demand their American V-twins look and go like they were carved from sin and glory.

This is the bloody bike I strived and failed to build in 1991.

 

The seat is a mere 680mm off the ground. If your legs ended at your knees, you could still reach the ground. Its 1250cc engine makes 111 horses and 109 Nm of torque. These are numbers that would have seen your engine cases detonate after maybe the third stop-light drag-race. That is, if you could have even afforded to build such an engine. Now it’s built for you – and it’s happy for you to…erm, get up it, as it were. I defy you to crack it wide open in third and not grin your fool head off.

It weighs 249kg. It has Brembos, upside-down Sachs forks (not even a thing in the 90s because I sure as shit would have attempted that), and adjustable piggy-back shocks on the back. It’s a single-seater like all the very best hooligan bikes have always been, but yes, you can put a pillion-pad on it. Just know your pillion would have to be small, super-cute, and very giggly. Or get her to follow you home in a taxi like the good old days.

There is even good ground clearance to go with those great shocks. Yes, it’s relative. But you’re not buying a Scout 101 to do track days. I have been putting mine up and down Mother Putty’s Ten-Mile on a few still-warm afternoons, and it’s a quite a hoot to string some of those corners together.

It is also quite electronically sophisticated. Yes, it is 2026. That single round instrument dial is packed full of cleverness. All the info you could need, variants in the display, and a great turn-by-turn navigation system that comes standard.

 

I’d seriously consider it over its bigger cousins. It’s lighter. It’s more agile. And it has “hell cool” written all over it. It is the most special Scout Indian make.

You may not know where the model name “101” comes from, but be assured there’s more than a bit of great history to Indian, which is celebrating its 125^th birthday this year.

 

The original Scout 101 was debuted in 1928. It was designed by Charles Franklin and was one of the many weapons used in the war that was raging between Indian and Harley back in those days. The Scout 101 became a benchmark in the history of motorcycles and came to be known as “the best motorcycle in the world” at that time.

Those are impossible shoes to fill for any bike in 2026. But you know what the best motorcycle in the world is as far as any of us is concerned?

 

The best motorcycle in the world is the one you look at over your shoulder when you’re walking away from it. It’s the bike the strip-club bouncer declares is a “Cool bike, mate” as he waves you in. It’s the bike a pretty girl tells you is “just so beautiful” after she’s asked you if it’s yours. It’s the bike your mates wished they’d bought after they’d realised they can’t leave you behind in the bends anymore.

 

That’s the Scout 101 to me.

If it was mine, it would not leave the showroom without some glorious pipes, and some kind of tail-tidy arrangement. The 101 has to sound like it means business, because it certainly means it on the road. The first is non-negotiable, the second is no deal-breaker.

Reality has a terrible way of intruding on one’s dreams and reminiscences. Especially as you get older. But we’re not done yet, are we? Hell, no! Those sweet old days and crazy hot nights aren’t all that long ago. So, while I know they ain’t ever coming back, I also know that none of us should go out quietly, or wondering “what if?”

Stop wondering. The warpath is calling.