Scout's Honor Cross-Country Motorcycle Ride On Indian Cruisers, Part 1

Editor's note: Justin Coffey and Kyra Sacdalan, partners in the travel documentary company WESTX1000, are taking on a new challenge with the help of Motorcyclist—leaving behind their lightweight dual sports to wrangle a pair of Indian Scouts across the country, from California to Daytona. Follow along...

After two years of off-road adventuring, we’ve decided to change gears, ditching our small dual-sport bikes for the promise of on-road comfort courtesy of classically styled American V-twin cruisers. They’re the kind of bikes—and audience—we're wholly unfamiliar with, which will make this adventure all the more fun. Because before we set eyes on the new Indians, you’d have been hard pressed to talk either one of us into riding a cruiser of any kind.

Lust at first sight, the latest iteration of the Scout pushes us to ask for more out of motorcycling—to take an honest approach to the unknown, and then offer an honest opinion. Why Indian? Because they've crafted beautiful American bikes that are modern, unassuming and approachable. And with the help of Motorcyclist Magazine, we are about to embark on the Great American Motorcycle Adventure, riding a Scout and Scout Sixty from California to Key West.

The journey—some 3,000 miles in total—will test our wills, as well as our willingness. We'll shake hands at Indian dealerships along the way, skip the 'must see' destinations scattered across the Southern States, finding our own way from one side of this glorious country to the other, and then we'll drink Pap Dobles and watch the sunset at Sloppy Joe's!

This is a transition from our typical style of motorcycle travel, but this adventure isn’t going to be ordinary—promise. Riding a pair of iconic, American-made motorcycles from Hollywood to Hemingway’s home, looking for good times and even better people, will hopefully open our eyes to the Cruiser Craze. Or perhaps, we’ll be vindicated in our presumptions about these kind of bikes. We’ll see. And then we’ll tell you exactly how it went, #Scouts_Honor!

About WESTx1000: Conceived in a coin-op laundry room in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, what started as an excuse to ride dirt bikes in Baja has become a portal into the lives of two authors, photographers and cultural anthropologists. Whether they’re documenting the infamous Baja 1000 off-road race, searching for surf in the Pacific Northwest, investigating Japan’s eclectic motorcycle culture or riding their dual-sports from Barstow to Vegas, the idea stays the same… “You don’t listen to anybody who hasn’t done exactly what you want to do.”—Austin Vince