The Harley Alternative That Makes More Sense For Long-Distance Riders
Long-distance riding is less about how quickly a motorcycle can cover a few miles and more about how well it handles the hundreds that follow. A proper touring machine has to deal with changing weather, endless highway stretches, heavy luggage, a passenger, and the small aches and pains that appear when a ride lasts all day. That means comfort matters just as much as engine performance, while stability, wind protection, storage, and technology become increasingly important as the miles pile up. Harley-Davidson is one of the big names when it comes to touring, but there is another American tourer out there that makes just a bit more sense.
America’s Touring Battle Has Two Very Different Flavors
Harley-Davidson Built The Touring Blueprint
For decades, Harley-Davidson has been one of the defining names in American touring. Its Grand American Touring motorcycles have traditionally combined large-displacement V-twin engines with substantial fairings, generous luggage, low seating positions, and a sort of relaxed highway character that encourages you to keep going.
The current range continues with this ideology, too. The Road Glide, for example, uses a 1,923cc Milwaukee-Eight 117 engine and comes equipped with navigation and connectivity features. The larger Road Glide Limited and Street Glide Limited push further toward two-up touring, adding features such as heated seats, heated grips, larger luggage, and upgraded wind protection. Harley has even spent considerable effort modernizing the touring formula without abandoning the character that made the category famous.
Indian Motorcycle Takes A More Modern Route
Indian Motorcycle, however, approaches the segment from a slightly different direction. Its touring motorcycles still have the visual ingredients American riders expect: big engines, substantial fairings, low seats, and plenty of luggage. But underneath that familiar silhouette is a platform that places considerable emphasis on liquid cooling, electronic rider aids, sophisticated suspension, and integrated tech.
The differences become clearer when you set some of the Indian bikes right beside their Harley counterparts. You find that the engines are liquid-cooled, the electronics are packed more tightly into the Indian, and accessories are included straight out of the showroom. Usually, with a Harley you end up spending more to match an Indian setup.
The Indian Pursuit 112 Is Built Around Long-Distance Capability
Why We Chose The Indian Pursuit 112
We are going to compare the Road Glide Limited with the Pursuit 112 in this article, and admittedly, Harley has brought its tourer much closer in comparison for the new model year. But the Pursuit 112 comes with some features that just make it a better ride. The liquid-cooled engine, for example, is better suited for long-distance touring as engine heat is managed much more efficiently.
Other mechanical parts such as the suspension and brakes are more premium, and the electronics are more comprehensive. We’ll get into each of these a little later, but what you have to remember is that while both are brilliant bikes and both have their own personalities, each of them appeals to a different type of touring enthusiast: One wants the heritage attached to their motorcycle, while the other wants the legacy plus modern engineering.
The Engine Is Designed To Keep The Miles Coming
The heart of the Pursuit 112 is Indian’s PowerPlus V-twin engine, displacing 112 cubic inches, or 1,834cc. Indian claims 126 horsepower and 133 pound-feet of torque from this liquid-cooled powerplant. Harley’s Road Glide Limited, on the other hand, uses an air-cooled Milwaukee-Eight VVT 117 that displaces 1,923cc. Harley’s engine is bigger, but produces a lower 106 horsepower. Additionally, air-cooled engines are not as efficient at managing heat as liquid-cooled engines.
It’s also how Indian has tuned the Pursuit 112. The Indian’s V-twin produces a strong surge of its torque lower in the rev range, but there is considerably more performance when the road opens up, giving you the power when you need it. Touring rarely consists of a single highway stretch. You go through towns, cities, quick corners, long straightaways, and sweeping curves. The Pursuit’s engine gives you the kind of flexibility you need to tackle all of these with a fair amount of ease.
The Chassis Is Tuned For More Than Straight-line Drags
The chassis is another area where the Pursuit stands out from the crowd. At the front, a 43mm inverted fork offers 5.1 inches of travel. At the rear sits a single shock with electronically adjustable preload and 4.5 inches of travel. The Pursuit is not a lightweight motorcycle at 937 pounds, so the suspension offers the right kind of setup for touring. Additionally, that adjustable rear shock comes in handy when you have to suddenly account for a passenger and luggage on longer touring days.
Of course, the chassis geometry highly favors a straight line with a 65.7-inch wheelbase, but the 25-degree rake and 5.9-inch trail allow for better agility when compared to the Road Glide. Braking hardware on the Pursuit is equally serious. Brembo calipers grip dual 320mm semi-floating rotors at the front, and a 298mm disc provides stopping power at the rear.
The Pursuit 112 Looks Like A Tourer, But Thinks Like Something Newer
Now, the Pursuit 112 has the mass that is expected from a premium American touring motorcycle. But Indian has kept the design relatively clean with three solid paint options and two dual-tone schemes. It gets a frame-mounted fairing that’s equipped with an electrically adjustable windscreen, driving lights that have been integrated into the lower fairing, and LED lighting all around. The saddlebags and trunk offer a total of 36 gallons of space and have been integrated into the design so they don’t look like aftermarket additions. The seat is a cool 26.5 inches high, allowing any rider to have both their feet planted firmly on the ground.
The tech pack on the Pursuit is fairly comprehensive, too. First and foremost, you have the seven-inch Ride Command display that provides navigation, Apple CarPlay, Bluetooth connectivity, configurable gauges, and ride statistics. A 200-watt audio system is built into the bike as standard, and riders can specify the PowerBand Audio Package, which raises the output to 600 watts through six speakers. Its biggest advantage, though, is the rider assist system, which includes features such as blind spot monitoring, rear collision warning, bike hold control, and electronically linked brakes.
The Part Harley Riders May Notice First
Price: $35,499
Perhaps the first thing that people may notice is that the Harley-Davidson Road Glide Limited is priced lower out of the gate. But for the extra $2,500, the Indian Pursuit 112 gives you a more powerful engine, better suspension and brake setups, and electronic features that would otherwise require aftermarket additions on the Road Glide Limited.
Source: Indian Motorcycle
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