Riding a motorcycle through 114-degree heat isn’t my idea of a good time, but I was tired of waiting for the new Indian Chief, and Dante’s Inferno was the closest location I could find. The not-so-new debut from the latest incarnation of Indian Motorcycle, the Chief has been on the market since January. It just hasn’t cleared the emissions hurdles to be available for sale in California, which is why I traveled to Mesa, Ariz., this week to ride one.
Welts and heat blisters be damned. The 2009 Chief was worth it.
To be honest, I didn’t really know what to expect from the bike before I got there. Despite its 108-year legacy, the Indian brand, and the bikes that have been built in its name, have been fumbled more times than a football by a second-string running back. Sure, the pictures I’d seen looked great, but so do a lot of fashion models until you see them in person without the benefit of an airbrush. I needed to see and experience the bike up close, which I got to do at a place called Chester’s – a Harley-Davidson dealer that has separated Tonto from its American sidekick with a stand-alone building devoted entirely to Indian merch and motorcycles.(See video after the jump).
