I remember coming back from school one day, chucking my bags and boots and heading straight for the television remote. Browsing through the cable channels, my eye caught a huge black bike ridden in anger by a mountain of a man, wearing a leather jacket and dark shades, with a jaw line that looked chiselled from granite. He was chasing a Freightliner truck through the storm drains of LA, trying to save John Connor. That’s when I was introduced to Arnold Schwarzenegger. And that’s when I was introduced to the Harley-Davidson Fat Boy. That iconic jump where the 300kg cruiser is airborne for a couple of seconds before landing hard, sparks flying from the underside as the bike bounces a few feet in to the air and continues chasing the bad guy. That moment. That scene is what etched the Fat Boy into the hearts of millions.
The Indian on the other hand didn’t have such a dramatic impact, but a rather more emotional one – Burt Munro’s lifetime dream of building the world’s fastest Indian. With his shed-built 1928 Indian Scout, the determined 68-year-old New Zealander travelled half way across the world to the Bonneville salt flats, where he set the land speed record at 183.586 miles per hour (293.74kmph); a record that still stands. The story of Burt Munro was immortalised in film with Anthony Hopkins playing the lead role.
Fast forward to the present and I’m taking in the early morning glow bathing Delhi’s most iconic monument. The air is calm around Rajpath but it will soon be shattered by the thunder of two iconic V-twins, two giants that have more than a century of history and heritage. Time to meet my heroes then.
Family affair
Harley-Davidson started from humble beginnings. Two childhood friends, William S Harley and Arthur Davidson had a dream – to build an internal combustion engine that could be used to power bicycles. It was a family affair with Davidson’s brother Walter, machining the parts for the single cylinder engine and his cabinet-maker father building a 10 x 15 wood cabin that was the first Harley-Davidson factory. Heck, even Davidson’s aunt Janet pitched in, painting pinstripes on the first Harleys.
The V-Twin didn’t come until 1907. It had a 45-degree angle that that has forever been a H-D trademark and those V-Twins took the company into the big league with more than 800 dealers spread across the United States in little over a decade since inception. A major chunk of their inventory was lapped up by the police, and soon enough the military picked them up for war use. Harley-Davidson has never looked back.
Getting it right
The tale of the Indian starts with George M Hendee, a bicycle maker who in 1901 commissioned Oscar Hedstrom to build a motorised bicycle for him which would be used to pace bicycle races. The first production motorcycle had a single-cylinder mill much like Harley’s early days. The V-Twin came in 1906 – a 42-degree 633cc that found enough demand to require a larger workspace and, ultimately, a new factory.
Indian Motorcycles were ahead of their time with (at that time) advanced features like leaf-spring front forks, automatic oil pump, a 2-speed transmission, floorboards and starter hand cranks. It all resulted in them selling 32,000 units. In 1913! Let that sink in. Three years later came the Powerplus, a 1000cc flathead V-twin with side valves. This caught the attention of the US Army and with America on the brink of war, Indian concentrated much of their production towards the army. Consequently, sales dropped due to limited civilian inventory. Ironically, Harley profited from the same war.
Racing history
It might not seem so today, but both these marquees have an illustrious racing history. In 1908, Walter Davidson rode a stock bike to victory in the federation of American motorcyclist endurance and reliability contest held on the dirt roads of the Catskill mountains. Out of 65 competitors, only Walter managed a perfect score over the gruelling two-day 580km event. A few years later Harley-Davidson set a new record at the 1912 Bakersfield road race in California. At that time, Harley-Davidson-supported racers – known as the ‘wrecking crew’ were untouchable.
In 1903, Oscar Hedstrom rode an Indian to a new world speed record of 90kmph. The same year, he went on to win an endurance race from New York City to Springfield and back. The success spread overseas with the American T K Hastings winning a 1,000-mile reliability trial in England aboard an Indian. In 1911, Indian Motorcycle racers Oliver Godfrey, Charles Franklin, and A J Moorehouse came first, second, and third in the Isle of Man Senior TT and Erwin G ‘Cannonball’ Baker won the president’s race in Indianapolis. ‘Cannonball’ also set the fast time in a three-flag run from Canada to Mexico via California, which was covered in three and a half days.
Meeting your heroes
The arrival of the Harley-Davidson Fat Boy is signalled by a distant bass note that builds into a drum- roll as the huge lump of metal rides in from the distance. Early morning joggers converge on the bike for photographs and selfies. Young and old alike, the Fat Boy Special has everyone in awe. I guess it’s the size that works. Everything on the bike is supersized; from the fat front tyre and the forks, to the eight foot length that make it instantly recognisable. I’m not too keen on the sticker work on the tank though and prefer the clean black paintwork the original came with. I do like the Dark Custom styling where most of the chrome bits are now powder coated in black. Arnie would approve.
It’s time for me to swing a leg over the Fat Boy and bring that massive air-cooled 1600cc V-twin lump to life. Stretch your left leg to the gear lever and first gear falls in place with an almighty thunk. I’m off and soon revelling in that armchair position and tractor-like torque. On the move the 130Nm of torque hauls the 320kg bike to the ton in no time at all. In fact, the Fat Boy hustles and handles in a way that seems to belie its own weight. It is surprisingly easy to ride, even for my modest frame and biceps. It’s a unique feeling, arms and legs outstretched, each twist of the throttle accompanied by a tidal wave of seamless torque that continues unabated as you pull in the next gear. Riding a Harley-Davidson is an event, and it makes you feel like the king-of-the-road. Though I can’t begin to imagine the condition of the stunt rider’s spine after he did that jump in the Terminator.
Modern relics
I come back to find that the Indian Chief Dark Horse has joined the party. Place both bikes together and the general consensus seems to tip towards the Fat Boy – thanks to Arnie and all those movies, in everybody’s mind, it is the default super-cruiser. Though personally, I find myself gravitating towards the Indian. Essentially a stripped down Indian Chief with everything blacked-out, the Dark Horse has a sinister aura to it. It is low-slung and impossibly long and the vintage accents like the swooping mudguards, hidden rear wheel, twin slash-cut pipes and off-white dials make it way cooler.
While the Fat Boy seems like a sofa on wheels, the Indian Dark Horse is the two-wheeled equivalent of the Lazy Boy. Everything on the Dark Horse screams effortless cruising. Even the huge 1811cc air-cooled V-Twin feels relaxed at low revs, with 139Nm of torque flowing in from 2600rpm, masking the mammoth 357kg weight. Despite its sheer size and weight, it is quite easy to ride in traffic with only two things to look out for – the heavy clutch and the sheer length, especially the tail pipes that end way after the bike does. This is a bike made for the highway and I took it there, to the wonderful Yamuna expressway. Now you’d expect a bike of its size and weight to be as ponderous as a drunken hippo but surprisingly, it is quite the opposite as we deal with traffic on the way to the expressway. And then on the open road – which is what these super-cruisers are built for any way – the Dark Horse just flattens everything. No matter what the speed, it remains super-composed and utterly unshakeable. Bikers say a bike only comes alive in the corners – ride an Indian and you will find a deep joy riding in a straight line as well. And yet the Indian can lean and scrape its pegs – and is comfortable doing that – but that’s not the way to ride a cruiser, is it? Even Burt Munro only went in a straight line.
So there you have it; two living, rolling, thundering icons that have stood the test of time. Bikes that are instantly recognisable and bikes that instantly command respect. Modern-day legends. Icons.