Barnstorm Cycles’ Custom Indian Sport Chief

Indian Motorcycle’s Sport Chief is a well-intentioned performance cruiser that comes equipped from the factory with some pretty legit components. In the right hands, it becomes a very capable customizing platform as well. Now that the Sport Chief is out and currently r0ckin’ and rollin’ at your local dealership, the Indian brass thought it would be cool to see just what the custom world would do with its sporty new Chief. That being said, Indian tapped Yaniv Evan from Powerplant Motorcycles, Jacob Cutler from Barnstorm Cycles and Carey Hart to build an all-new Sport Chief, stylized in a way that represented each builder best. Once the builds were done, each of the new Sport Chiefs would be gifted to three very lucky dudes.

Powerplant’s Sport Chief was delivered to Norman Reedus last week. Carey Hart will unveil his new Sport Chief to friend and fellow FMX alum, Jeremy “Twitch” Stenberg very soon. Today, we have the pleasure of debuting the custom Sport Chief from Jake Cutler at Barnstorm Cycles that was built for MMA fighter and 2x UFC Bantamweight Champion, TJ Dillashaw.

Stance is everything. This Sport Chief has a good one.

We caught up with Jake to pick his brain on the overall experience. First of all, he had limited time to git’er done, but he was determined to build a cool bike that played off the performance aesthetic and ergos of the stocker. Of course Jake would dress it up in Barnstorm’s signature style. Jake says he’s happy with the end result and pretty much hit the mark he envisioned. “I knew exactly what I wanted to do,” Jake says. “Right away, there was some stuff that happened during the process, like once I dug in, I f0und something and thought, ‘oh, yeah, I can work with this.’” 

Before receiving the bike, Jake had only seen photos of Indian’s new Sport Chief. After seeing the pics he knew he’d have some fun with the rear fender. Of course he wasn’t sure until he got the bike, and things can change as you dive deeper and realize that his reference images didn’t reveal certain things. However, as Jake took the stock fender off he realized the opportunity to play up the set of struts kind that were hiding underneath. He immediately started reworking the rear subframe and rear fender since the clock was ticking. 

Initially, Jake reached out to TJ to kick around some ideas. TJ shared some thoughts too. “He gave me some input on some of the grips, pegs, that kind of stuff, but I was describing the colors and everything like that and he kind of just told me to do my thing. So it worked out pretty well that way.”

Jake tried out a new painter for the Sport Chief project, Blue Moon Kustoms. Usually going with a local painter (New England area), Jake’s go-to didn’t have the time because he was already working on several other Barnstorm projects. So Jake did some digging and found Blue Moon’s Jayme Schmidt and that was pleased with his work. 

“I’d never worked with him before,” Jake says. “I found him on Instagram and just kind of honed in on him because he had a unique style. A lot of the work he’s done, like, skateboard decks and different stuff, I think he just paints for fun. I just really liked his work.” When Jake reached out to Jayme, he was into doing the project, but the tight timeline would’t permit a test panel. Jake sent Jayme photos of colors and a sample palette he envisioned. Jake sent him examples of other’s work that he liked as inspiration, which gave Jayme a general idea of the styling he was after. While the paint process was taking shape, there was plenty of R&D and fab happening at the same time, like the idea to expose the fender struts with a reworked rear fender (below). 

“Those [struts] were my inspiration for what I ultimately ended up doing, which was heavily modifying the stock struts that were under the fender,” Jake says. “I cut a bunch of stuff off, trimmed them up, then I had them 3-D scanned, drawn, and then machined into the final product that’s on the bike now.”

Jake says it was a very cool process and that process got him thinking about bars and risers. That thinking quickly turned to the exhaust and what to do there. Then the tank… and so on. “I wanted to change up the look of the motor a little bit, so I did all the engine covers,” Jake adds. “The motor definitely is a throwback to the early flathead motors and the original Indian days, which is very cool, but I wanted to modernize it a little bit.” Jake switched out the valve covers, the cam cover, went with the bigger intake for better airflow and a horn cover to give the overall motor aesthetic more of a modern look. 

Jake’s main goal with this bike was to amplify the Sport Chief’s performance look and feel. And to set it up for TJ so he feels locked into the cockpit when he’s on the bike. “It worked out because TJ and I aren’t very different in height and stature,” Jake says. “I was able to use myself as a template for how I figured it would work out for him and just kind of tried to improve on what they were doing from the factory.” Overall, Jake says it helps that the bike comes pretty dialed in out of the box. “There’s nothing wrong with it as is, but like anything, you can always tweak it and make it your own.” Speaking of tweaks, Jake added a 1-inch of lift on the front forks and that leveled out the frame rails, relative to the ground and also even gives it more lean angle, too, which never hurts. 

This Sport Chief has a lot of different finishes. The valve covers, engine covers, handlebar risers and more, all received a healthy dose of powdercoat. “I was able to get a powder that was really close to the brown cocoa pearl base in the paint job,” Jake says. “So I think it all goes together pretty well.” Normally, Jake is a black painted bike kinda guy. Going crazy with it was not a concept he was too familiar with, but he feels all the different colors they went with all gel very well. 

For the wheels, Jake didn’t know what he was going to do at first. “I was on the fence about going gold on the wheels but I got some input from some trusted advisors, and the consensus was to go for the gold,” Jake says. “I ran it by TJ and he said he was into the idea of having gold wheels, so I rolled the dice on that one, and I’m actually really glad that I did because I think that makes the bike in a lot of ways.” 

Overall, the Barnstorm Indian Sport Chief is a cool custom that retains the performance aesthetic while incorporating some cool custom paint, finishes and trick new parts. Jake did a great job keeping the bike’s factory lines, but amplifying areas where he felt there was room to do so. The overall stance and color is equally balanced, which requires a very skilled eye. After Jake was finished with the build, he met up with Carey and Big B over at TJ’s gym in Huntington Beach to deliver the bike and go for a ride. To say that TJ was more than satisfied would be an understatement.

“When we rolled the garage door up and stepped out into the sun you could just tell TJ was pumped right out of the gate,” Jake says. “And then we went for a ride and he kept looking over at me, smiling at stops. And then at one point he said ‘this thing fits me perfectly’ and you could tell he was just pumped on it.” 

Parts List: 2023 Indian Motorcycle Sport Chief