This was a question asked by a old mate & new member Dave Kimpton,I get alot of people saying they can’t ride a right hand gearchange Triumph (pre-1976) this seems insignificant compared to a Indian. Guy Allan in a past blog (Hand me that Shifta) was worried at that time riding “The Back Bastard” my old 1948 Chief, hard to believe he now is a hard riding 1947 Roadmaster owner now, so how do you teach a modern bike rider to get on your favourite Indian, point out the foot clutch, kickstart, and the hand shift, then if you want to make it hard explain advance & retard methods or even on some bikes the twistgrip on the opposite side! The pictures above prove even Indian had thoughts on the subject this 1948 brochure helped, the 1944 Army Manual obviously did’nt if you look at the 841  rider learning in the desert!

Two photos for the “Don’t touch & leave it as found brigade”, because the “patina” cant be reproduced so they say, well here are a couple of Indians that may fall into that category, I would agree that some bikes should be left in peace (the two on the top are a example), the difference between a “as found” & restored machine is huge, restore because they can deteriorate quickly, remember they looked new when they were in the showroom, otherwise people would have never bought them.

But probably a bit closer for some countries now, than only U.S.A. It’s hard to believe that you have been able to buy a new Indian pretty well for over 14 years now. There will be the T-shirt wearing “End of story 1953” group but most of these people are worried about theIr investment being sullied by “cheaper later versions”, sounds like bigotry to me. The next 12 months will soon see a line drawn or bulldozed in the sand, some will buy new Indian’s & bite their  tongue about previous declarations or statements they made in the past, but the fact is brand loyalty  this sells nearly all products today, Ford-Holden,Coke-Pepsi,Hungry Jack’s-McDonalds etc if you were looking at a new cruiser Indian would be on the shopping list.New Indian Owners will be people that enjoy riding & socialising  also not spending hours in the garage restoring or tuning their bike they won’t give a “Rats” about when Indian last raced, what year the Four’s finished, what a 101 is, or that a starter was fitted in 1917, that does’nt make them bad people one might be your son or grandson we are in the 21st Century now “End of Story”

Burt Munro’s birthday is today, he was born in Edenvale New Zealand in 1899, since he died in 1977 the legend has outgrown the man. It is nice to see that Indian built a tribute bike with the new 111 Thunderstroke engine in it this will be having a run I believe later this year , wonder if it will exceed the 1920 Scout engined original. Don’t forget the meeting tomorrow night as the guys from Indian will be there to show us all the stuff about the new engine & hopefully more details on the Munro homage replica. Your Smoke Signals quarterly Association magazine is out electronically the hard copy will be produced after Easter, something about this electronic age, it is fast. And lastly 200,000 hits on our website, the Americans are well & truly beating the Indian’s with a 20% view the next is the aussie’s at 42%, most of the Yank’s are Californian’s but we have everyone of each of the States view us at some time or other, so how come we have few members from the States?