Twelve50 Bikes

UK Gravity Enduro Round 1 Ae Forest 13th April 2014 9 team members, 2 podiums , 5 great stages, 6 beer can chickens, 2 Weber barbeques and 4 WAGs. Those were the magic numbers for the opening round of the 2014 UK Gravity Enduro Series, Ae Forest, Scotland. Alex Stock getting 2nd Place in Elite for Twelve50 Bikes A trip north of the border so early in the year left unsettled nerves as to what the weather gods might smite us with. The fears were unfounded though as, with the exception of a couple of showers and some strong winds (that helped to dry the wet ground), conditions were near ideal. In fact, looking at some of the early photos that are emerging, those that didn’t attend would be forgiven for thinking we had a weekend of sun and blue skies! The winds did cause some havoc across the pits on Saturday with more than one gazebo getting airborne, landing in a crumpled heap of plastic and metal. The Billy Can seemed to have it worst than most with double flying gazebos an...

Sunday the 16th of March saw the official 2014 launch of the Twelve50 Bikes Race Team at Foel Gasnach, North Wales. Excited? You should be. The roster this year looks something like this; Alex Stock (Elite) David Read (Masters) Rick Minshull (Masters) Matt Steadmen (Masters) Cheri Mills (Elite) Nicole Mallet (Women) Russell Cosh (Veteran) Josh Dodd (Senior) Ross Adams (Veteran) Des Ryan (Head Chef) There’s more racing pedigree in that line up than a copy of the Racing Post on Grand National weekend. With glorious sunshine threatening dust in mid March (!), we’d not had riding this good for months. Kitted out with fresh gear from Renthal, Osprey, Mavic, Power Bar, Fox Head, Maxxis and Weber Barbecues we've not had support this good for years! New bikes have been built, tuned and tested. Existing bikes have been stripped, serviced and updated with shinier, lighter and all-round faster parts.  This year we’re going to rip. Come and say hello if you’re at any of the UK...

More barbecues than you can shake a stick at, freshly shot, plucked (that’s with a ‘P’ Mr Read!) and butchered goose, stargazing to shame Sir Patrick Moore, a midnight birthday count down and some of The Midlands finest trails. It could only mean one thing, team Twelve50 were back in town for the fifth and final round of the 2013 UK Gravity Enduro Series. With an unavoidable mid season venue change, Eastridge once again answered the call and rounded out what can only be described as an awesome seasons racing. Stretching the format with an additional sixth stage come race day Sunday, we faced old favourites, some with freshly cut corners to keep us on our toes. Saturdays seeding stage was repeated twice on Sunday, prompting extra attention paid to the stage that would bring nearly half the weekends racing. With a good mix of fast, loose, tight, technical, rocky and rooty trails, the woods lived up to their reputation and seemed to please everyone who came down the hill. C...

Round 4 of the UKGE race series saw us take a trip down to Dyfi Forest in Wales, with torrential rain and a land slide to navigate through on the way, it promised to be a damp affair......   If it's variation in trail types people wanted at this round, that's what the organizers gave us!! Team Twelve50 looked a bit thin on the ground at this round, with Rick out (recovering from a dislocated shoulder) and Cheri out with a recovering "Snapped humerous" it was down to the rest of the team to slug it out. We were also a major part of the team missing, our chef Dez... also out of action after Russ broke him on the local trails (Another dislocated shoulder) On the Friday with Russ and Ross (With Nikki helping) setting up the pits, Dave and Nicole went to ride the tracks to see what it was all about.   While we filled our faces with some of Russ's BBQ feed, Reedy was very descriptive of the tracks...... in a Northern no messing about kind of way Stage ...

Round 3 of the UK Gravity Enduro series was upon us again and this time around riders were descending on Hamsterly forest, up in county Durham. As the year was rapidly heading into spring, thoughts were on the weather and memories of wall to wall sunshine from this round last year. As we travelled up from Twelve50 Towers on the Friday morning the memories of tan lines and dusty trails seemed a long way off as the horizontal rain over battered the road as we left the M6 and headed east over the moors. On reaching our grassy clearing for the weekend, the rain had stopped and pockets of blue sky were appearing. Time to get the pits built! Second season in and we’re getting pretty slick at getting our home built for the weekend, we left Chef Des to get the customary beer can chickens on the bbq and we went out to look at the trails. Stages 2 and 5 where in close proximity to the finish area, so we decided to look at these first. Stage 2 used the top se...