Plow King
13-07-2008, 07:34 PM
Oaky doaky, this one is on time. Enjoy.
1/ Who are you?
Bill Dengate...Just a regular guy with a wife and two kids living in the burbs. I work a job and run Dhdirect on the side.
I guess you could say I'm a pretty busy guy. And I like bikes... a lot.
http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d85/Norcohavoc/billandgrace.jpg
2/ What influenced you to become a member of farkin.net?
Years ago I was a member of a pretty dodgy Downhill newsgroup and a lot of Aussies from it jumped ship when Farkin started up.
From memory, I think Scott was on the same newsgroup.
3/ Which genre of mountain biking do you enjoy the most?
Definitely DH. Though I do seem to be doing quite a lot of XC-ish type riding out at Stromlo lately.
I also go to Melba BMX track with my kid on Wednesday nights and tool around.
4/ Where do you live and how would you describe the riding scene
I live in Canberra. The riding scene is awesome. There's just so much stuff to ride within 15 minutes and if I just want to muck around We have a cool little track with some jumps just over the back fence. There's so many good riders and crew here.
Club races here seem like a big get together with a race happening on the side. We've also been doing lifties at Stromlo a lot lately getting
into the social ride thing. It's been great fun. Also there is a heap of local young guys coming through which is really healthy. At DH races lately some of the biggest classes have been u15 and u13's!
5/ What bike/s do you ride?
Turner DHR, A Turner Flux XC bike and BiLT hardtail. All Off the shelf dhdirect stuff here!
6/ I was informed from another farkin member that you used to work for NASA Is this true? If so what did your job entail?
Yeah I still work there. Actually I'm there right now! I'm currently sitting at a console driving a 70 meter antenna tracking
two spacecraft that are orbiting Mars.....But I'm not paying attention to it because I'm doing this Farker of the month thing!
As far as jobs go it's pretty cool I guess, but like most cool jobs they kinda become "just a job" after a while. Here's a link
to my work's homepage. Some pretty interesting stuff in there.
http://www.cdscc.nasa.gov/
7/ How would you describe your riding style?
Pretty much non existent! I suck at jumping, can't corner for shit and
pedal like most 44year old guys do....slowly! I just like to tool around and have fun. After all, that's what it's all about isn't it?
8/ Who do you think will take out the World cup round in Canberra next month.
I'd really love to see Rando take it out but the smart money would be on Sam Hill wouldn't it?
http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d85/Norcohavoc/billrace.jpg
9/ The worst decision you ever made?
Years ago I was tossing up whether to buy a house or this Alfa Romeo car. I bought the car and it nearly sent me broke.
The house would have cost the same and would be worth about $400,000 now. I wrote the car off and only got about $6000 from the insurance company. It didn't even pay out the loan I had on the car.Don't ever insure your car for "Market value".
10/ Do you enjoy working in the mtb industry? What have been some of your low/highlights.
Yeah, There's a lot of cool people in the industry and it makes your own toys cheaper which helps! For me the
Highlight would be a few years back when I think we had 5 of our guys in the top 30 at a Thredbo National. That felt pretty good. Unfortunately I don't think anyone else noticed except us.
Lowlight.... Well lets just say we nearly shut the doors on dhdirect a while back because things were real slow. Instead we've
decided to re invent ourselves with a slight change in direction and some new products and things are looking bright again!
11/ Where is your favorite place to ride?
Stromlo, Majura, Kowen, Thredbo....They are all favourites for different reasons!
12/ Tell us a joke
Hmmm,Better keep it clean.....
Q:How do you make a dog drink?
A:Put it in a blender and add milk.
13/ What was the single best riding experience you have had?
Ohh tough one this.There's so many.....Maybe camping and doing runs in the Brindabellas in the snow one year with about 5 mates. The trail we were doing was about 15 minutes and most of us had never seen it before. The one guy who had just kept shaking his head telling us if we could see what's under the snow we would never be riding as fast as we were. We later saw it and he was right! Butyeah it was a weekend of riding, eating, drinking and telling tall tales around the campire in the snow. Good stuff! Actually I find some of the more memorable rides are the ones when the weather sucks or things go to shite cause it seems to bring everyone together a bit more or something. Wet races at the top of the hill are always awesome for that!
14/ Is there anywhere in the world you would like to visit to ride your mountain bike?
Gotta say Whistler. I'd like to take Ben (My 12 year old son-pinner) and check it out. Everyone who goes there raves about it.A local guy here went one year for 2 weeks. Came home and sold his house to go back the next year, so I figure it must be good.
15/ Do you have any other hobbies apart from mountain biking?
I'm into Aussie muscle cars. Comes from growing up in Wagga I think! I've got an old '69 GT Falcon I'm restoring and it's going to be awesome when it's done. And don't bore me with the new cars are better routine...That's a whole other soapbox for me to get on!
http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d85/Norcohavoc/billstromlo.jpg
16/ Do you think you could beat Sam Hill at chess?
Nahh, He'd smoke me. I'm a total chump when it comes to chess.
A little history of dhdirect
I started dhdirect out in 1998 and the main focus was to get affordable gear to guys who were sport class type punters like myself and my mates. At the time there was a big hole in the market and it seems you either had to have a million dollars or you ran a crap bike. There was a huge gap between the "haves" and "have nots". You either had a proper DH bike with 6 inches travel that cost $6500 or a mountain bike that was hot rodded and you got a whopping 2.5 inches up front bugger all out back. V brakes were $250 an end and discs were on another planet. I had a bike that seemed to need a rebuild on the rear shock every other week and I started looking around at alternatives. I stumbled on a crowd in Taiwan called Shock Works who did some pretty out there stuff for the day at the right price and a deal was worked out. Dhdirect was born! Afetr a few years of trying to gain acceptance through the normal channels via bike shops and printed media it just seemed too hard. Throw in a few shops who were very happy to take product but didn't want to pay there bills (It's OK, they have all since gone bankrupt oweing us lots!) and the descision was made to trade online. This proved to be a good descision and we went from strength to strength. We were the original importers of Da Bomb and not long after took on Keewee bikes.....which later turned out to be the same guys doing Torpedo7 (shock Horror!). This relationship soon dwindled as it was clear they were doing their own thing! Da Bomb went to another importer and we started doing our own brand BiLT gear and hooked up with Imperial. Both have gone quite well and have proven to be a worthwhile projects/partners. Around 2002 we also started a relation ship with Turner bikes which continues today. They are by far the best company I've ever dealt with and have been the solid partner we always needed through good and bad times. Recently we have picked up a few extras like Rennen and Diverse products and there's more to come in the future. We've had a few lows and highs over the years as most businesses do. We are proud to have supported many racers and helped out with race support to the best of our ability over the years. Best of all I can go to bed at night and sleep well knowing we have acted with honor and integrity in our business dealings and have never shafted anyone.....well that we know of!
Anyway, Gotta go. We are doing lifties at Stromlo this arvo and I need fuel, Glenno's knocking at the door wanting a brake rotor and Ben's bike needs a tune up, the cat has a furball and needs to go to vet and the trailer has a flat tire.....Get the picture?
1/ Who are you?
Bill Dengate...Just a regular guy with a wife and two kids living in the burbs. I work a job and run Dhdirect on the side.
I guess you could say I'm a pretty busy guy. And I like bikes... a lot.
http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d85/Norcohavoc/billandgrace.jpg
2/ What influenced you to become a member of farkin.net?
Years ago I was a member of a pretty dodgy Downhill newsgroup and a lot of Aussies from it jumped ship when Farkin started up.
From memory, I think Scott was on the same newsgroup.
3/ Which genre of mountain biking do you enjoy the most?
Definitely DH. Though I do seem to be doing quite a lot of XC-ish type riding out at Stromlo lately.
I also go to Melba BMX track with my kid on Wednesday nights and tool around.
4/ Where do you live and how would you describe the riding scene
I live in Canberra. The riding scene is awesome. There's just so much stuff to ride within 15 minutes and if I just want to muck around We have a cool little track with some jumps just over the back fence. There's so many good riders and crew here.
Club races here seem like a big get together with a race happening on the side. We've also been doing lifties at Stromlo a lot lately getting
into the social ride thing. It's been great fun. Also there is a heap of local young guys coming through which is really healthy. At DH races lately some of the biggest classes have been u15 and u13's!
5/ What bike/s do you ride?
Turner DHR, A Turner Flux XC bike and BiLT hardtail. All Off the shelf dhdirect stuff here!
6/ I was informed from another farkin member that you used to work for NASA Is this true? If so what did your job entail?
Yeah I still work there. Actually I'm there right now! I'm currently sitting at a console driving a 70 meter antenna tracking
two spacecraft that are orbiting Mars.....But I'm not paying attention to it because I'm doing this Farker of the month thing!
As far as jobs go it's pretty cool I guess, but like most cool jobs they kinda become "just a job" after a while. Here's a link
to my work's homepage. Some pretty interesting stuff in there.
http://www.cdscc.nasa.gov/
7/ How would you describe your riding style?
Pretty much non existent! I suck at jumping, can't corner for shit and
pedal like most 44year old guys do....slowly! I just like to tool around and have fun. After all, that's what it's all about isn't it?
8/ Who do you think will take out the World cup round in Canberra next month.
I'd really love to see Rando take it out but the smart money would be on Sam Hill wouldn't it?
http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d85/Norcohavoc/billrace.jpg
9/ The worst decision you ever made?
Years ago I was tossing up whether to buy a house or this Alfa Romeo car. I bought the car and it nearly sent me broke.
The house would have cost the same and would be worth about $400,000 now. I wrote the car off and only got about $6000 from the insurance company. It didn't even pay out the loan I had on the car.Don't ever insure your car for "Market value".
10/ Do you enjoy working in the mtb industry? What have been some of your low/highlights.
Yeah, There's a lot of cool people in the industry and it makes your own toys cheaper which helps! For me the
Highlight would be a few years back when I think we had 5 of our guys in the top 30 at a Thredbo National. That felt pretty good. Unfortunately I don't think anyone else noticed except us.
Lowlight.... Well lets just say we nearly shut the doors on dhdirect a while back because things were real slow. Instead we've
decided to re invent ourselves with a slight change in direction and some new products and things are looking bright again!
11/ Where is your favorite place to ride?
Stromlo, Majura, Kowen, Thredbo....They are all favourites for different reasons!
12/ Tell us a joke
Hmmm,Better keep it clean.....
Q:How do you make a dog drink?
A:Put it in a blender and add milk.
13/ What was the single best riding experience you have had?
Ohh tough one this.There's so many.....Maybe camping and doing runs in the Brindabellas in the snow one year with about 5 mates. The trail we were doing was about 15 minutes and most of us had never seen it before. The one guy who had just kept shaking his head telling us if we could see what's under the snow we would never be riding as fast as we were. We later saw it and he was right! Butyeah it was a weekend of riding, eating, drinking and telling tall tales around the campire in the snow. Good stuff! Actually I find some of the more memorable rides are the ones when the weather sucks or things go to shite cause it seems to bring everyone together a bit more or something. Wet races at the top of the hill are always awesome for that!
14/ Is there anywhere in the world you would like to visit to ride your mountain bike?
Gotta say Whistler. I'd like to take Ben (My 12 year old son-pinner) and check it out. Everyone who goes there raves about it.A local guy here went one year for 2 weeks. Came home and sold his house to go back the next year, so I figure it must be good.
15/ Do you have any other hobbies apart from mountain biking?
I'm into Aussie muscle cars. Comes from growing up in Wagga I think! I've got an old '69 GT Falcon I'm restoring and it's going to be awesome when it's done. And don't bore me with the new cars are better routine...That's a whole other soapbox for me to get on!
http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d85/Norcohavoc/billstromlo.jpg
16/ Do you think you could beat Sam Hill at chess?
Nahh, He'd smoke me. I'm a total chump when it comes to chess.
A little history of dhdirect
I started dhdirect out in 1998 and the main focus was to get affordable gear to guys who were sport class type punters like myself and my mates. At the time there was a big hole in the market and it seems you either had to have a million dollars or you ran a crap bike. There was a huge gap between the "haves" and "have nots". You either had a proper DH bike with 6 inches travel that cost $6500 or a mountain bike that was hot rodded and you got a whopping 2.5 inches up front bugger all out back. V brakes were $250 an end and discs were on another planet. I had a bike that seemed to need a rebuild on the rear shock every other week and I started looking around at alternatives. I stumbled on a crowd in Taiwan called Shock Works who did some pretty out there stuff for the day at the right price and a deal was worked out. Dhdirect was born! Afetr a few years of trying to gain acceptance through the normal channels via bike shops and printed media it just seemed too hard. Throw in a few shops who were very happy to take product but didn't want to pay there bills (It's OK, they have all since gone bankrupt oweing us lots!) and the descision was made to trade online. This proved to be a good descision and we went from strength to strength. We were the original importers of Da Bomb and not long after took on Keewee bikes.....which later turned out to be the same guys doing Torpedo7 (shock Horror!). This relationship soon dwindled as it was clear they were doing their own thing! Da Bomb went to another importer and we started doing our own brand BiLT gear and hooked up with Imperial. Both have gone quite well and have proven to be a worthwhile projects/partners. Around 2002 we also started a relation ship with Turner bikes which continues today. They are by far the best company I've ever dealt with and have been the solid partner we always needed through good and bad times. Recently we have picked up a few extras like Rennen and Diverse products and there's more to come in the future. We've had a few lows and highs over the years as most businesses do. We are proud to have supported many racers and helped out with race support to the best of our ability over the years. Best of all I can go to bed at night and sleep well knowing we have acted with honor and integrity in our business dealings and have never shafted anyone.....well that we know of!
Anyway, Gotta go. We are doing lifties at Stromlo this arvo and I need fuel, Glenno's knocking at the door wanting a brake rotor and Ben's bike needs a tune up, the cat has a furball and needs to go to vet and the trailer has a flat tire.....Get the picture?