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Today has been a busy day for new bike releases, and the Indian Motorcycle brand is looking to get in on the action as well, with and update to the FTR1200 lineup.

The revision, which is being cast as for the 2022 model year (though available now), is a rather large one for the flat-track inspired motorcycle, and they seem focused on the core criticisms levied at the machine.

A news item that got lost in the shuffle, there is some pretty big news from Medina, Minnesota as Polaris CEO and Chairman Scott Wine has announced his departure from the American powersports company.

This is a shake-up for Polaris Industries, as Wine’s tenure at the American firm has been some of the company’s best, with sales more than tripling and Polaris joining the Fortune 500 listing during Wine’s time as CEO and Chairman.

Most notably, Wine oversaw the takeover of the Indian motorcycle brand, which continues to gain marketshare against Harley-Davidson, and he closed the struggling Victory motorcycle brand in the process.

The year is 2020, and at best, the climate control systems for motorcycles are rudimentary. Only a handful of motorcycle models come from the factory with heated grips or heated seats installed, but if you want to cool down, the options are even more scant.

The best bet for motorcyclists who want to cool down is to look to the apparel market, where vests made from freezer pack border on our best option…unless you want put a backpack sized A/C unit on your passenger seat, and run a hose into your jacket.

Thankfully, the eggheads at Indian Motorcycle have been thinking about this very issue, and have developed a pretty clever solution to tackle motorcycle air conditioning.

Mainstream headlines right now are talking about how the United States is surviving on home delivery purchasing services – like Amazon, Instacart, and UberEats – in order to get the goods we need while maintaining stay-at-home orders. For many, it has become a way of life.

Now, the motorcycle industry is starting to catch onto the same idea, as Indian Motorcycle announces its Click.Deliver.Ride program, which the company says lets you shop, configure, and purchase your new Indian motorcycle online and over the phone – all without changing out of your COVID-19 sweatpants attire.

In reality, the program is just a basic online lead-generation platform for local dealerships, which have always been able to handle the bulk of a motorcycle purchasing transaction over the phone (or via an online form). Though perhaps the ability to home-deliver has not always been so prevalent at the dealership level.

The Indian Motorcycle brand is recalling its newest creation, the Indian Challenger because the engine output shaft bearing may not have been sufficiently lubricated during the motorcycle’s assembly, which could possibly result in the bearing failing at a very low mileage.

This gets us to a recall with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration because operating a motorcycle that was assembled with an improperly lubricated output shaft bearing may result in unintended or sudden deceleration, which may increase the risk of a crash.

It is a rarity in marketing to see a brand target a competitor as explicitly as Harley-Davidson just did with Indian and this “unofficial” ad on social media.

The guerrilla social media marketing campaign isn’t officially sanctioned by the Bar & Shield brand, so we are told, but it is hard not to see this as the American motorcycle company’s faithful throwing some shade at its biggest contender.

Every now and then we see a recall notice that kind of raises the eyebrow, and makes you wonder if things aren’t just a little too silly sometimes. This is one of those recalls.

This is because 3,147 units of the 2019 Indian Chieftain motorcycle are being recalled because their tail lights are too bright, and exceed the maximum allowed lumens set by the federal government.

As such, this means that the 2019 Indian Chieftain fails to comply with Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) number 108, “Lamps, Reflective Devices, and Associated Equipment” and must be recalled.

Here is a recipe to make something we will instantly like, and it requires only three ingredients. Take a modern motorcycle, and put a dustbin fairing on it; take that machine out racing; and put grand prix legend Randy Mamola behind the handlebars.

The result is the IndianxWorkhorse Scout Bobber, and as the name implies, it is a collaboration between Indian Motorcycle and Workhorse Speedshop, as they aim to celebrate 100 years of Indian Scout motorcycles.

The bike – named “Appaloosa” – will race at the upcoming Sultans of Sprint Series, and while we don’t need to repeat saying who will be racing the machine, it is just cool to see Randy Mamola involved with this project.

It is here, finally. The Indian FTR1200 is arriving in dealerships in the next few weeks, which means that the motorcycle press can finally hop on this street tracker and talk about it.

But, we have already done that. Asphalt & Rubber was one of a few publications that got to ride a prototype of this machine back in October 2018, and since then we have seen countless outlets and social media darlings swing a leg over the Indian FTR1200.

Furthermore, racers already have the bike in their garages and are competing in the Super Hooligan National Championship series, and while the press launch for this bike was underway in Mexico, other outlets were busy getting exclusive tastes of the machine, including A&R.

So, while we are very excited to be the first to tell you how the new Indian FTR1200 does the business, this is very much a machine that has been in the sphere for quite a while, and thus is already a known quantity.

We didn’t let the hold us back too much, and I can confidently say that no other publication has spent more time in the saddle of the Indian FTR1200 S than us, getting to know every bit of this new motorcycle and where it takes the Indian Motorcycle brand. Let me explain.

When we first rode the Indian FTR1200 prototype motorcycle – one of our better A&R Pro stories, if I do say so myself – it was clear that the American brand was seeing this model as the first iteration from a platform of machines.

When pressed the Indian reps on whether we would see more bikes with the new v-twin engine arriving, and the answers in reply were deliciously vague, though hints of an ADV machine and other models could be read between the lines.

So, it doesn’t surprise us today that our colleagues at Motorbike Writer have gotten wind of Indian releasing two more variations of the machine, a “Street” bike in 2020, and an “Adventure” bike in 2021. Though, the story looks to have originally come from the ADV Rider web forum.

This is a very interesting proof of what we suspected, but we should say that the conclusions reached by Motorbike Writer are mostly incorrect.