Neave twins
Unless you’ve been an avid follower of BSB over the last two years then there is a very good chance that you won’t know who my brother or I am. That’s because we have only been road racing for three years. So allow me to introduce myself, I’m Tim and my identical twin brother is Tom.
We’ve both come from a flat track background but spent 2016 and 2017 racing in the Metzler National Superstock 600 Championship where we made history by being the first twins to stand on the top and middle step of the podium on two occasions. During the 2017 season we got pole positions, lap records and seven podiums between us, including three wins. Tom finished joint fifth (although I would call it sixth), and I ended up seventh in the championship so it was a really good year for us both.
I’m taking care of the column this month as Tom is over in Barcelona playing dominos. Oh and racing in the Superprestigio flat track race, which is probably one of the biggest off-road races in the world against some of the best racers in the world, including a handful of MotoGP riders. But I’ll let him tell you all about that next month. In the meantime I’m back at home working hard on the family farm and prepping for the 2018 season. Tom plans to compete in the National Superstock 1000 Championship next year but I’m going to tackle British Supersport. We’ve found an R6 that would be the perfect bike for the job so we are hoping to get our hands on that as soon as possible so we can start tweaking and testing. The new season can’t come soon enough.
I don’t know if you made it to the Motorcycle Live show at the NEC but it was really good this year. We were there with our long term sponsors Belstaff who had Tom’s bike on their stand. So after Tom had signed a few napkins and finished pouting for the cameras, we got invited up on the main stage a couple of times too; once with a bunch of other BSB riders for a quiz and then again for a chat with Jamie Whitham about how 2017 went and our plans for next season. We know Jamie pretty well now because we got him over to ours to work on the farm (type in Neave Twins 2017 on YouTube to see what the boys get up to when they’re not racing). I’m sure he had a good day out, but I reckon he’d be better off sticking to what he does on TV. He’s a top bloke and he’s really helped to push our profiles, which is majorly important for us. We’re just everyday guys who go to work like everyone else, but we’re hungry for success and it helps no end to have advice from people like him.
One thing that we have got sorted for the new season is a sponsorship deal with Feridax, who import and distribute Shoei, Sidi and Spidi – brands we’ll be racing in during 2018. It still feels a bit of a dream to get that kind of backing, but they haven’t called yet to say that there’s been a clerical error so we’ll just keep our fingers crossed and go with it. Having kit you can trust and rely on is essential when you’re pushing your hardest, which is what we do at all times.
Winter’s truly here now, but that doesn’t mean we’re not riding. As well as working hard on the farm and training four days a week, we make sure to get out riding bikes every weekend and every Wednesday afternoon. We are out on motocross bikes, flat track bikes, mini bikes, and whatever else we can get our hands on. We’re riding and training more than we’ve ever done so hopefully come the start of the season we’ll be on the pace and pick up where we left off. We’ve both got some big steps to take, but I’m optimistic about 2018. The nice thing is that we won’t be racing each other, as that means we’ll have more time to help one another rather than trade paint. We might be twins, but that doesn’t mean we go easy on each other.