Any info would be greatly appreciated...A time line would be great too.

Bill Danisk(sp?) out of Ohio was making stems for his son. I bought one for my brand new GT mini in....I wanna say '86? My first recollection of the brand. Curious to know more myself.

early 1981 actually,probably earlier,just going off of magazine ads i found..sick stuff!!

I remeber racing DK guys like Bill Au and Doug Zimmerman back in 83, and seeing those stem quill sleeves, seat clamps, stems around 82. I am sure some Oh guys will chime in with an easy answer

Here is a good link with some history.

DK history

Prolly closer to 1980 but as a tm /company 81/82.

jrad in here is a son in law and can answer any of your questions.

Yeah, I remember having my first DK stuff in the early 80s.

Bill was the son, Charlie was the dad. I started racing in 82 and when I got my first actual race bike it had a dk mini stem on it.

and Nikki was the daughter. Both Bill and Nikki raced although I believe Nikki did a bit better on the national scene.

While riding for GT I had a co-sponsorship deal with DK for stems only, that must have been back in 81 or 82.

Very early '80's. stems were made, seat post clamps and head locks were bought. Hubs were Matt Ling's dad and were only briefly.


And Deanna that was in '85

Hi Deanna, Nikki says thank you for the props!

Charlie worked as a tool maker at GM and made the very first stems at his work for Bill & Nikki in 79, he also made stems for a few of their team mates/friends. These stems were not labeled as "DK"; they had personal custom engravings: "Wild Bill", "Trick Nik","Crankin Chris" & "Toots" are the names I know of, I believe there were a few more of these. The first stems to be sold were labeled as "K&G" and were sold at K&G bike center in Kettering OH. in 79 or 80. Nikki, Bill and even Charlie raced for the K&G team back in the early days.

The hubs Andy mentioned were first made here in Dayton, and later by Jack Ling. Some of these hubs were also labeled as "JAX", not sure if that was before or after the DK hubs?


Nikki race photo shot by: Mike Reddy Sr.

i have a gjs with a (one of) cable stop made by this guy (dk)
he got the gjs at the bikeshop that was next door to the dk guy .
the cable stop clamps to one of the bar braces so the guy could use center pulls.
thats what the origonal owner said about the part . it also came with a blue dk first gen stem and its cool in the fact that it wasn't ever polished and you can see the saw marks when it was cut from a block of aluminum.
....im thinking ,maybe he said the guy made two of them cable stops . one for this gjs and one for his son.
dion

For me my experience with DK started around 1984 with Charlie (Papa DK) cosponsoring my Crit Plate Factory Team with the best race stems ever-made. and shortly after that a friendship between myself and Charlie ensued between our two companies with DK's distribution arm of the business System Cycle Supply starting to distribute my Crit Reversible numbers plates across the country and even overseas to England and beyond...

Checkout the website http://www.dkbicycles.com/splash/index.html

and e-mail Bill Charlie's son who has brought the family business to a whole new level and carried the DK name forward in an ever changing market and I am sure he will be glad to help you in anyway with the history and timeline of the company and products.

Mike

Tons of great info. Thanks everyone!

Dad and Kids.
too kool love the history
dion

Mike,

I enjoy reading about great BMX product companies from a quarter century ago that are in business now like DK and Crit Plates. I even enjoy more hearing that they are still business friends after all these years.



This is a Crit Plate / DK combo photo from the 80s.




Mike

Mike,

That is one of the coolest BMX photos I have seen in a long time.

Thanks ...

I always liked the angle of that shot. It showed some DK products in action so I hoped you would like it too. It's a shot I took of my son. I don't remember all of the details of the shot, but I think it is in Kettering, Ohio and the middle 80's.

Mike

I remember buying my first DK stem in July 1983 and I still got it.