Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/949296
The handlebar takes its hues from Indian's 1950's dirt trackers ridden by legends like Bobby Hill and Bill Turman and combined with the revised footpeg position, gives the Bobber a more aggres- sive rider stance than the standard Scout. A bobber rider rides alone and thus so will you on the Indian. With no provisions for a passenger, this gives the Bobber a certain coolness about it; something like a Springfield certainly does not possess. As does the color black. And this bike has black. Deep breath in and… black wheels, black fork bottoms, black radi- ator cover, black chassis, black exhaust headers, black mufflers, black shocks, black springs, black engine covers, black cylinders (with chrome accents), black Small details like the "knobby" front tire, the bar-mounted mirrors and the stitching on the single seat make the Indian a real nice piece of eye candy (the gigantic twin cannon-style mufflers, a little less so). But I think I like this Bobber so because I like the bike it comes from—the standard Scout, a machine I tested back in 2015 and was genuinely surprised at how much I enjoyed it. The Bobber takes things a touch lower—one inch lower at the rear, to be exact—and gets pegs mounted 1.5 inches closer to the rider on a machine weighing a claimed 554 pounds wet, four pounds heavier than the standard Scout, which is strange, considering the Bobber has (much) smaller front and rear fenders, no passenger seat and a smaller/ shorter handlebar. 2018 INDIAN SCOUT BOBBER First Test If It Were Mine… …the first thing I'd do—and probably only thing I'd do if the 2017 Indian Scout Bobber were mine—is source some shorter, louder mufflers. Not only do the standard mufflers give the bike sound unbefitting to its badass- ness, they need to be shorter to work with the chopped look of the bike. Other than that, I wouldn't touch a thing. Cool, isn't it? The bar-mounted mirrors and seat stitching are a nice touch. The blackness really does ratchet the badass factor up substantially. Chrome simply wouldn't cut it on a bike such as the Bobber. CYCLE NEWS CRUISER BUYERS GUIDE CYCLE NEWS CRUISER BUYERS GUIDE