Triumph Factory Visit

 Planned a visit to the Triumph Factory over two years ago but due to the pandemic this was put back until a very wet and wintery day recently. I opted for the full, behind the scenes factory tour which I can highly recommend, there were about fifteen people on the tour and once equipped with safety specs, hi-vis and an earpiece, [it’s a working environment so the earpiece is essential to hear the guide talking over the sounds of industry] we made our way through into the factory via the excellent cafe.

This place is huge! The storage racking must be 25mtrs high, full of parts and completed bikes ready to be shipped to dealers both domestic and worldwide, the factory is state of the art, cnc machines whir with relentless efficiency as they produce the crankshafts, the 3D printer produces parts to build a whole bike in plastic during the development stages so any design problems are ironed out before metal is touched with a machine tool. 

All paintwork is carried out in-house even down to hand pinstriping which is an absolute joy to observe, everything is clinically clean and tidy and the whole operation is fascinating to observe, the quality shines through and a few myths were put to rest once and for all. One of the urban legends is that Triumph motorcycles are not built in Britain. They are. Fact. Triumph supply bikes to overseas distributors in kit form as it saves a fortune in tax rather than supplying fully built machines.

Unfortunately you are not allowed to take photographs inside the factory which you can understand from a  business point of view due to rivals seeing the production methods but the museum is well worth a visit and better still it’s free to get in! Yep, you can just rock up, get a coffee and a bite to eat and wander around the museum and poke the new models with a stick Gratis! 

There’s some really interesting bikes in the museum, Guy Martins salt-flat record attempt bike and the original ‘Ceegar’ streamliner, the Bond film bikes, lots of classics including the racers and Triumph factory customs, the factory tour has to be pre-booked and costs £16, excellent value for money and highly recommended. There’s also a shop so you can stock up on some Triumph merch. Must admit I took a shine to a retro styled racing jersey but hastily placed it back on the rack when I saw the price! £145 went a long way to sticking some new rubber on the FTR 1200 instead,  more of which soon…….