The most prestigious custom event in Japan is the Yokohama Hot Rod Custom Show, better known as Mooneyes. If you pick up a trophy there, it means you?re at the top of your game. And at the most recent show, the top award went to Takuya Aikawa of Sureshot for this skinny Dyna Low Rider.
This is not the first time Aikawa has enjoyed a short walk and a handshake at Mooneyes. He took out the ?Best of Show? award in 2019 with a 1968 Shovelhead?a very different build to this 1997 FXDL.

Aikawa has been running Sureshot since 2003, and is based in Chiba, just to the east of downtown Tokyo.
?Slender and skinny customs are the style of my shop,? he tells us. ?I wanted to make a slender Softail-style frame for this machine, based on the Dyna frame with the evolution engine.?
He?s called this machine ?DST??an amalgam of Dyna and Softail. But turning the concept into reality was easier said than done, because it meant changing the twin rear shocks to to a monoshock setup, and installing a cantilever swing arm.
Aikawa-san first considered the structure of the frame. ?I was pondering how to create a beautiful silhouette like, a rigid frame chopper,? he says. ?I wanted to recreate the beautiful triangle that stretches from the neck to the axle shaft, on a bike with suspension.?

The factory Low Rider frame is thick, with a square main tube. It didn’t fit Aikawa?s concept, so he fabricated a new main tube. Other parts, such as the down tubes, are modified factory components.
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