The Dirt race team has loved working with Orange Bikes for the last two years, but change is in the air.

We are immensely proud here at the Dirt editorial offices of all the hard work that race team manager Ben Reid and his assembled gang of racers and mechanics do for us. It is no easy task building a team from scratch and keeping it going year on year. The whole ‘team deal’ is a careful balancing act where the needs of both the riders and team sponsors need to be met and constantly juggled. Ben Reid is a one man band and has done an amazing job for us over the years. He has he has to be a diplomat, father, mother, cook, mechanic, psychologist, doctor, driver, accountant and more.

Dirt would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone at Orange Bikes, it has been a great ride and everyone is leaving on good terms. There’ll be a good few changes to the team for next year, including sponsors and riders. Check it all out below. Here’s the word from Ben Reid:

“What can I say, it’s been an absolute pleasure working with Orange for the past two years, a relatively small crew but everyone there is all about the racing and couldn’t have been more supportive towards the team, nothing was ever a problem and anything we needed we got. The new 324 is a great bike and is as effective as it is simple. I think our results over the past two seasons speak for themselves with Harry’s (Heath) consistent top 20s in 2014 and placing 12th in MSA (his best results to that date) and Jacob’s (Dickson) amazing 3rd at the World Championships as a first year junior.

2015 was another successful year for the team with Phil’s (Atwill) 19th at the World Cup finials in Val Di Sole, Isak (Levinson) breaking into the top 30 on occasion as he finds his feet again after a horrific two seasons in 2012 and 2013 plagued with injury… and lets not forget Jacob taking the BDS overall and also placing 3rd in World Cup overall, 2 National Champions this year as well with Isak winning the Norwegian title and Jacob the Irish, not to mention the teams rapidly growing fan base and huge media impact.”