Indian Motorcycle flew me down to Temecula, put me up in a nice hotel and took care of meals during this review.

My relationship to big-bore, full-on luxury touring mounts like the new Indian Pursuit is…complicated. Years ago, thesecond “big” motorcycle我拥有的不是那么大的追求,但我t was a full-on tourer with hard bags, body-mounted fairing and decent rider comfort accoutrements – for the 1980s. I had a long-distance relationship going at the time, and had to knock out a lot of one-day 625-mile trips (one way) to see my sweetheart, so the miles piled up quickly—as did my touring acumen as I blasted down I-5 in the middle of the night in a driving rain, snug and dry behind the full fairing of my little ‘Wing as I blitzed past semis and RVs chugging up the grade tothe top of the 4,300-foot Siskiyou Pass. Ah, youth, young love and motorcycles. Those were great rides.

Nope, marriage was not in the cards and over time, and especially over the last 20 years, I’ve mainly gone long distances on my rugged and largely bone-stock Suzuki DR650, kitted with a few comfort items but not much else. I’ve become a convert to the less-is-more school (church?) of motorcycle touring, and having the ability to peruse unpaved roads that wander off into yonder hills long ago trumped heated seats and mega-watt audio systems. I’m sure you know what I mean.

Still, when Indian offered me a chance to put some miles on some variants of the new Pursuit, featuring 925 pounds (wet) of touring luxury, memories bubbled up of those open-highway sorties behind a bug-shielding fairing accompanied by a V-Twin heartbeat. It was a siren call I easily caved to.

Myself and about ten other journos—including some notablemoto-dedicated YouTuber influencers—hopped aboard a small fleet of Pursuits in varying trims and lit out for a destination I’m always delighted to return to: the tinypie-obsessed town of Julian, California, which I discovered recently while riding the KTM 1290 Adventure S. As expected, the pie did not disappoint. Neither did the Pursuit Limited, whichstarts at $29,999 for the base “Limited” versionand ratchets up to $33,999 all in with the blacked out Dark Horse Premium package. Additional options, including audio system configurations and other add-ons can drive the price to nearly $40,000.

As noted, this is a large, heavy motorcycle by design. Gassed up and with my generous avoir du pois aboard, curb weight was right around 1,100 pounds. That’s before stuffing the large panniers and top case with gear and adding a passenger, which could send the total riding weight closer to a ton depending on how much pie the rider and passenger have indulged in. Fortunately, I’m a big, strong fella so I could handle the tonnage, but I also noticed that some riders of smaller stature seemed to have no problems handling the bike at slow speeds since the low seat height allows flat-footed stops and slow-speed paddling. Once under way, some of that weight seems to melt away and the Pursuit rides with a neutral, planted feel, even when pushed close to its cornering limit.

Indian has paid special attention to the Pursuit’s suspension, and the bike has a claimed max lean angle of 31 degrees, a touch more than its Challenger bagger sibling and quite a bit more than the big air-cooled Indian tourers like the Chieftain and Super Chief machines. Helping matters on the Pursuit Limited is the rider-controlled rear Fox monoshock, which is part of the optional $3,000 Premium trim package that also adds style bits, Smart Lean tech, aux lights, and a fancier seat. But the on-demand suspension adjustability is key here, and allows the Pursuit’s back end to be adjusted for preload via the Ride Command+ 7-inch touchscreen (above). It has some simple presets (solo, 2-up-, 2-up with luggage, etc.) but also offer finer manual controls,and I pumped a few extra PSI into the fully-optioned Deepwater Metallic (aka dark blue) model. This bike also featured a cut-down “flare” style motorized windscreen, and tasteful chrome trim. It was one of two Pursuits I rode. Front suspension is not rider-adjustable no matter the model.

In Pursuit of Cornering Clearance (And More Pie)

Saddled up and dialed in, we pointed our Pursuits downHighway 79, a meandering two-lane highway tracing through mountains, tiny towns and alpine meadows. It’s a road that can test Indian’s cornering clearance claims in many spots. I popped the Pursuit into Sport mode, which brought a bit of anger and aggressiveness to the 1,768cc liquid-cooled 4-valve 121 crank horsepower V-Twin. My blue Pursuit had a fair bit of pop and snarl under heavy throttle, and spinning the big mill up to its 6,500 rpm redline sounded great and gunned the Pursuit forward with unexpected ferocity. Power tails off at about 5,500 rpm by my gluteal dyno, with peak torque of 131 pound-feet hitting right about 3,000 rpm. Driveline losses through the six-speed gearbox and belt final drive certainly tamp those numbers down a wee bit; suffice to say the Pursuit is quick and fast, especially mostly unladen as was the case while I was riding. In time, we arrived in Julian for lunch—and pie.

Our pie, pizza and brisket sandwich lunch mission to Julian complete, we were shooed back out onto the road by the Indian staff with instructions to get back to our Temecula hotel on our own, a simple task given the built-in GPS on the Ride Command+ plus system, which also powered a six-speaker audio system on my blue bike, and a more basic four-driver fairing-mounted speaker system on a red base Pursuit Limited Darkhorse I swapped out for since it had a taller windscreen.

I complained about the flare-style “minimal” windscreen on the Indian Chieftain Elite in a previous review, and the similar (identical?) windscreen on the blue Pursuit had the same issue: even in the top extended position, buffeting rattled my helmet. It wasn’t terrible by any measure (unless I forgot to raise the windscreen at freeway speeds, then it was), but the larger more “touring” windscreen on the red Pursuit was pure bliss in comparison. With a generous pressure-relieving cutout at the bottom and clear optics, the tall windscreen should be an easy choice for any Pursuit owner unless you just can’t break your low-profile windscreen style addiction. At least if you want to swap them out, it’s a quick three-screw procedure to make the switch. Pro tip? Get the tall windscreen, or maybe both.

Instead of heading back up Highway 79, I opted for the flatter, less-curvy, perhaps more boring Highway 76 route back to Temecula, but I also had a secret plan: A run up theinsanely twisty County Road 6to thePalomar Observatory坐在刚刚超过一英里高的山。CR6, also known as S Grade Road, splits from Highway 76 and immediately contorts into a series of switchbacks and tight 200-degree roundels posted as slow as 15 mph. Those warning signs aren’t joking, either.

Initially I had the red Pursuit in Sport mode, and while that suits fast sweepers and straightaways (triple digits? No problemat all), the aggressive throttle map had the Pursuit bucking and heaving on the technical road to Palomar, so I moved it back to Tour mode and the big bike settled nicely. Charging ahead as fast as I dared on someone else’s $30,000 motorcycle, the climb up was mostly a 2nd and 3rd gear affair, with some drops to first in some very tight bends. Thankfully, traffic was light and one driver politely let me pass on a small straight but I came in hot from the pass and had to climb on the dual 320mm Brembo front brakes to avoid kissing the guard rail.

Disaster averted, I dialed back the speed a bit and focused on smoothly moving the Pursuit up the roller coaster road on the race line when possible. It was here the Pursuit’s weight became more apparent and I repeatedly ran out of cornering cushion as I beveled the small folding floorboards on both sides of the bike. But in all honesty, it worked much better than I expected. The leverage from the wide handlebars and the Pursuit’s very neutral handling manners acquit the Pursuit nicely on such a writhing road and my danger meter started pinging a bit before the footrests kissed pavement, so aggressive tourers can look forward to the fun factor of the Pursuit on similar black diamond runs. No, it won’t have you passing Ducatis on the way up to Palomar, but it will certainly entertain riders willing to push the limits of what a modern heavyweight tourer can do on a hyper-technical stretch of roadway. Feel free to follow that squiggly line on the map if aboard a Pursuit.

Heading back down, I heated up the rear Brembo assembly trail-braking into the corners, and had to take evasive action when afull-size tour busappeared from behind a hillside in one tight corner, the eight rear wheels fully in my lane as the driver heroically shepherded the colossus up the hill. I’m pretty sure the sign back there at the turn off said “No Trucks.” Or giant buses. Thankfully, I was only going about 20 mph as the corner was extremely tight, so I was able to ease onto the shoulder so the bus could sneak by and move on to block both lanes in the next corner.

亲密接触与巨兽总线在我身后,我rejoined the 76, raised the windscreen again and clicked the box into 6th gear, the engine ticking away at low effort as I joined traffic headed north into the population zone. For a few miles, I turned off my new Cardo FreeCom 4X comms system and powered up the Indian’s Powerband audio system. Launching into my road trip tunes playlist, the red Pursuit’s lesser sound system didn’t have the punch of the blue Pursuit’s more immersive six-driver setup. Indian says buyers can opt for a sound system featuring a dozen total speaker drivers, but I didn’t get that bike in the press ride lotto. The audio sounds…good, but also strained and bit short on bass response as the amplifiers fight to overcome road noise, that diesel semi one lane over and my AGV full-face helmet. Also, some drivers were giving me some side-eye as I rolled past. Doesn’t everyone loveRammstein? I guess not.

In all honesty, companies like Cardo, Sena and others have got the helmet comms and speaker quality thing pretty well dialed in, and the stock mega-watt systems on touring bikes today can’t really match the full-spectrum quality of a well-researched pair of speakers a few millimeters from your ears inside a helmet. Obviously, that’s only true if you arewearinga helmet that works with such tech; many riders in many places don’t and will likely be happy with the PowerBand audio system’s performance at most speeds. Whether that’s true of those nearby who also get to listen, well, that will depend on the rider’s playlist I suppose. Maybe skip Rammstein’s Greatest Hits.

Conclusions

Following my time wringing the two bikes out, I’m not quite ready to trade in my DR650 on Indian’s new full-lux Pursuit touring platform, as nice as it is. But never say never. I’m still enamored with the knees-in-the-breeze mode of touring that also allows for explorations far from the tarmac, but tucking in behind a fat fairing on a heated seat with the kitchen sink in the rear top case isn’t a bad way to go either… especially when I want to carry clothes, camping gear, cameras, a drone, my better half and perhaps a favorite bottle of libations for the end of the day’s ride. Minimalist packing forces hard choices. The Indian Pursuit Limited is a truly comfortable and capable open-road mile eater, with performance on par or exceeding the competition and every tech toy in the book. And it can bring a smile to your mug as you scale a tight, twisty road it really has no business strafing.

Nitpicks? Not many. Clutch feel was a bit vague, but both bikes I rode had less than 500 miles on them and were press bikes, so who knows how much abuse they’d already endured. I’d personally avoid the “low” flare-style windscreen unless you are truly a slave to fashion or are under 5-foot-8 in boots (I’m 6-foot-1). Style-wise, the Pursuit Limited looks good, especially in the Deepwater Blue and chrome livery I initially had. The red and blacked-out Dark Horse was more subdued, but cut a nice profile as well. Is it better looking than the competition? I’d say no, but it’s certainly on par with the big touring bikes from Milwaukee and Japan.

Where the Indian Pursuit Limited shines brightest is in the engine department and the Ride Command+ tech suite. The powerful, fully liquid-cooled 4-valve PowerPlus 108 mill is more refined, more powerful and more manageable than the other monster V-Twins out there, with turn-key horsepower and torque that at present, can’t be matched by any OEM making a mass-market V-Twin powered tourer. Aftermarket tuning and exhaust options can boost output even further if you have the disposable income to burn.

You don’t need that extra help, though. Well into triple digits and heading to redline in 5th on a long, deserted straight on Highway 76, the Pursuit Limited had all the go I would ever require from a comfort-centric touring machine. It’s another winner for Indian, and I would imagine the competition is working hard to respond in due time. Stay tuned.