For as superbly engineered as the Indian Challenger is, there’s always room for improvement. Or, at least, personalization. If there weren’t you’d be reading about a different custom job than this one from Carey Hart. He and his shop, Hartluck Designs, go way back in the bagger world. When the latest Challengers hit the market, he saw a chance to focus on fine tuning. Specifically, tweaking the ride position, seat height, and ergonomics.  

With performance baggers taking center stage in the limelight right now, precision handling is a must for canyon-carving on the bigger bikes more than ever before. You probably know about Carey’s motocross origin story. With that experience comes great specificity on how his motorcycles are set up. Now that he’s logged well over 100k miles on the Challenger model, Carey Hart took all of that input from the bike and started fine tuning the ride position, handling, and braking. He also played with some of the ergonomics on the bike while fine tuning the suspension and ride height to his exact specs. As he puts it, “I’ve always been about performance because of my MX background. Luckily for me it’s what is popular now. My first couple of projects were a little ahead of their time, but now I feel I’m in a good place. So now I can focus on pushing the performance aspect on small details rather than playing catch up.” 

Power wasn’t an issue but Carey still made a set of pipes for the Challenger. He also brought in Indian’s performance cams and a Dynojet tuner. That’s exactly what you’d expect on a fine tuning project where you’re not trying to reinvent everything. The upgrades give him exactly the bump in grunt he wanted 

Now, handling was another matter. We say “fine tuning” but in order to get that when it comes to overall ride quality, that meant changing out the suspension, brakes, and even a Barnett chain conversion at the driveline level. Getting a little extra lean angle in the twisties comes courtesy of the two-inch extension in the GP Suspension forks and matching shocks. “Though I never had any major issue with dragging the stock floorboards,” he says, “I wanted to get the bike up off the ground a bit more, but do it properly with suspension adjustments. Now the bike feels a bit taller under hard front braking into tight corners.” 

And then there’s the wheels and brakes equation. Carey made the HartLuck signature Jade Affiliate wheels (19-inch front, 18-inch rear) for the bike and chose Dunlop rubber for traction duty. Both wheels are finished in badass gold anodizing. Swapping in Brembo Monoblock racing calipers up front also gave his machine a boost in stopping power. “I wanted to get rid of the bulky stock rear brake master, so went to work and figured out an adapter to use a larger diameter Beringer rear master and Rizoma reservoir. It gives the bike more of a racing feel and aesthetics.” 

Both the racer feel and the look continued into the handlebars and controls, starting with the ODI Hartluck V-twin bar. Matched with ODI HartLuck grips and ODI end caps, the hand control setup not only screams, “MX racer,” it also has the ergonomics to match. Carey completed the hand controls with a Beringer clutch perch and front master cylinder. He crowned the bars off with a Rizoma  mirror. Down low, Kraus Motor Co. floorboards and passenger pegs sport custom shift and brake levers courtesy of San Diego Customs.  

Not all of the changes came from performance upgrades, though. Others were a little more about the look: “I’ve always wanted to play with the location of the bags on my bike,” Carey continued. “In the end, the lids on the saddlebags are now flush with the top of the rear fender. Flush mounting them also gives more visibility to the swingarm and exhaust, as well as giving the Challenger more of an aggressive profile.” Carey also cleaned up the rear fender and hid the rear indicators. He made a license plate mount to keep the rear fender similar to stock, just cleaner.  

For as much work as all of those changes were, the biggest hurdle was the one that plagues us all: the merciless march of time. Carey was really set on getting the above changes done in a mere three months while still allowing time for actually riding it as much as possible. “I have a few long haul trips this year and I wanted to make sure I got everything done. I’m not about fashion, but function! That way I can see what works for a real long haul, and what doesn’t, for future projects,” he says. 

But Carey also got by with a little help from his friends. “I’d just like to thank my right hand man Big B (@feedbigb). When I’m under a harsh timeline like this one, he jumps at the opportunity for a long road trip to pick up parts or paint. I think he prefers to stay at a distance when I’m in this process. My favorite part is when the bike is complete, he lets me know ‘what he would have done,’ or ‘what I should have done.’ LOL.” 

Carey would also like to thank Indian Motorcycle for allowing him all the freedom on his projects, Progressive Insurance, Dunlop, Kraus Motor Co., San Diego Customs, Fox shocks, Saddlemen, ODI, Airtrix, and “all the builders who always take my calls when I have a question. The V-twin world is an awesome community, and I’m so lucky to be a part of it.” HB

WORDS: Mark Masker