When the Indian Sport Chief debuted two years ago, it showed that the American motorcycle company had its finger on the pulse of the performance cruiser custom scene. Dripping with Californian club-style details, it wore the sort of parts that riders of that ilk would add to their bikes anyway; tall risers, wide bars, a small fairing, and upgraded shocks.
Now Indian is pushing that concept further with the Indian Sport Chief RT. New for 2025, the Sport Chief RT takes everything good about the Sport Chief, and cranks it up with just enough extra parts to make it a skosh more versatile.
It’s a short list, with the changes mainly focused on adding storage and a passenger. While the ‘regular’ Sport Chief wears a solo seat, the new Sport Chief RT has pillion pegs and a generously padded two-up seat that looks like it was plucked straight from the Saddlemen catalog.
The seat is flanked by a pair of compact hard cases, good for a total of 37 liters of storage. They’re too small for extensive touring, but they’re fine for tossing your favorite flannel into after a ride. The cases are lockable, and are also available as an aftermarket accessory across the Indian Chief range.
Up front, the Sport Chief RT features the same fairing, tall risers, wide bars, and round, touch-enabled TFT screen as its sibling. But it now also sports an all-new PowerBand Audio Bluetooth speaker behind the fairing. Working in unison with the bike’s dash, it packs in two 65 mm mid-range speakers, two tweeters, and one 100 mm subwoofer, offering 90 watts of audio with a five-band equalizer.
Beyond those extras, the rest of the Sport Chief RT is identical to the base model Sport Chief, right down to its wheels, suspension, and brakes. It’s powered by the same air-cooled Thunderstroke 116 engine too, which pumps out 156 Nm of torque. You get inverted KYB forks, adjustable piggyback shocks from Fox, 19F/16R alloy wheels, and twin Brembo four-piston calipers up front.
The Sport Chief RT’s extra bits (plus the relevant brackets to accommodate them) will set you back an extra $2,500 over the existing Sport Chief’s price tag, bringing the Sport Chief RT’s base price to $22,499 in the US. We’d wager that that’s about the same amount of money that you’d pay to source the relevant parts from various aftermarket brands—but at least here they’re pre-installed and color-matched.
The price difference is less in the UK, where the Sport Chief goes for £20,295 and the RT goes for £21,495. But that’s because the PowerBand Audio system only comes pre-fitted on US models—everywhere else, it’s an optional extra, compatible with any modern Chief model.
Other accessories for the Sport Chief RT (and every other Chief) include a stylish T-bar to mitigate damage in case of a tip-over, higher moto-style handlebars, lower and taller windscreens, and an adaptive LED headlight.
You can get the Sport Chief RT now in black, red, and gunmetal (dubbed ‘Heavy Metal’ by Indian), all of which look sharp. If you like the Sport Chief, but need some of the amenities that a bigger bagger offers, the Sport Chief RT is likely to appeal to you.
Source: Indian Motorcycle
