The staff at Neaco are dedicated to our work, but equally we appreciate that you shouldn’t devote every waking minute to company and business matters. To illustrate that philosophy, we’re introducing Out of Hours, a new feature which throws a spotlight on the hobbies, diversions and passions of our staff in their spare time – revealing different sides, hidden depths and alter-egos which may surprise many of our customers.
Part One of our Out of Hours features Dan Verity, our Factory Manager who oversees all production scheduling and quality control at our Malton facilities. For most people, a bit of downtime means rest and relaxation, but for Dan it’s a rush of adrenaline driven by Newton’s famous Universal Law of Gravitation. Dan has a keen interest in gravity sports, which involve high-speed downhill racing in vehicles such as go-karts, skateboards, street luges and bespoke bikes. The bikes can reach top speeds of up to 65mph.
Dan brings his engineering expertise to his hobby by cannibalizing the parts of old bikes to create vehicles which designed to utilise the force of gravity for maximum speed. Many of his creations involve flipping old BMX frames upside-down to create low-slung racers for competition. Dan has competed in a number of downhill races in recent years, including a 2nd place finish at Cadwell Park in 2010 and 1st and 2nd place finishes in races at Dalby Forest in 2011.
Dan explained his approach to downhill bike design: “By flipping the frame over, you change the steering geometry so it’s more stable at high speeds. The result is a very different bike to the ones used by other racers, but its aerodynamic design is a competitive advantage, so there is method behind it!”
Dan is part of a gravity sports team, Green Machine, which has a Facebook page here. You can also find out more about gravity sports at these websites:
http://www.appleheadgravitysport.co.uk/
http://scottishcarties.org.uk/
Dan on one his ‘work in progress’ bikes (left) and the finished article (right) for his Green Machine team.