WORDS: LOCK BAKER PHOTOS: RYAN HK
RUBBER-MOUNT RE-ENGINEERING THE LIFE CYCLE OF DYNA DEVELOPMENT THE MK 1 It started when I purchased a 2000 Harley FXDX in 2010 with my associate Alex Lerner of SL NYC fame. Before this time, I had built seven complete custom motorcycles but had yet to experiment with a rubber-mounted bike as a platform for customization. Fast-forward four years and the bike had received a complete makeover: handmade sheet metal, a 95-inch kit, belt drive, cams, magneto, new exhaust, and all sorts of subtle fabricated doodads. I crossed the country on her solo in 2014, from Connecticut to California, rode her up and down the Pacific Coast Highway to San Francisco, and enjoyed hundreds of miles of reliable fun before I decided it was time again. Time to go back in.
THE MK 2 My inspiration to build usually comes from problem solving. I had made up my mind that there are problems with the original rubber-mount system to improve on. For instance, there was the vague feeling in the rear end of the bike when cornering. Most aggressive Dyna riders are familiar with this. The bike you see here is the result of a two-year adventure into solving this problem without giving up my beloved rubber mounts! There is no easy answer as to how this bike works now and what makes it behave the way it does. It is now what I call “semi-rubber mounted,” a concept experimented with by other engineers in the past with varying degrees of success. I want to be clear that this part of the design, and essentially what allows the bike to function as well as it does, was not my idea. I simply adapted it to my motorcycle, and I want to extend a thank-you to all who shared their knowledge and expertise in this area with me. This stage of the development dragged on for what seemed like forever. I was both building and prototyping the design as I went. The bike’s chassis received a complete reengineering as you can probably tell, including over a threeNOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2017 / 25
