Friday 4^th December 2019

We had forgotten at dinner last night, to make it a Christmas dinner with the kids. So we had a Christmas breakfast with cheesy crumpets, bacon and maple syrup.

We walked the dog to the nearest water point a mile away as he was going to be left on his own a lot today. We took empty water bottles with us to fill as we are not planning to move until after the kids have gone home so wanted a top up as we will be low by then. We found the water point was out of use with no notification. There are few enough water points on this canal as it is without one being out of use. Over the 22 miles of canal there are just four watering points, and the three others are all now behind us. We notified CRT who say it will be next week now before it can be fixed.

Back to the boat to drop Harvey off, and carried on to the nearby Triumph Motorcycle Factory where we had booked a tour for 1:30. The factory is huge and they actually manufacture 66% of any bike there and assemble them.

The walkway to the factory is lined with paving slabs commemorating famous Triumph riders and the factory tour consists of an exhibition centre, café and shop as well as the tour itself.  

The exhibition centre is actually free to visit and contains bikes of all ears from 1902 up to the present day. There are displays of various engineering aspects of the bikes and bikes that have belonged to many famous people including the bike Steve McQueen rode in the film ”The Great Escape”, the bike used by David Beckham in a TV advert, and signed by him on the tank and one presented to Brat Pitt on his 40^th birthday and engraved on the tank cap.

The tour was absolutely fascinating, lasted 1½ hours and we all enjoyed it. Unfortunately, there was no photography allowed on the tour. The construction is maintained on a conveyor and begins with the assembling of the engine. The crank and camshafts are brought in from overseas rough cast, these are a part of the 33% not manufactured on site, although all machining is done within the factory. The engine is then mounted on the frame at which point it is officially declared a vehicle and is given its individual VIN number. Once the handlebars are affixed the bike is then hung from a moving rail and continues its journey around the factory having the build progress.

There are several models of bikes built and all can be fitted with individualised parts and different colour schemes. All Triumph motorbikes are built to order and built up on the same conveyor. This is achieved by each bike having its own bar code and each item for that bike being in place on the conveyor so that it is fitted to the correct bike.

At completion of build each bike it is already filled with coolant and oils and is road tested on a rolling road. After which it is fitted with its own seat and sent to dispatch.

Unfortunately, the factory was not in production during our visit as they only work a ½ day on Friday’s. I was a bit disappointed at this as I would have liked to have seen it in practice. However, as our guide said, with the factory not in production we did get to see a lot more.  

For dinner we crossed the canal to the marina where there is a Brewers Fayre restaurant. Our Eva had her first adult sized burger. And ate the lot.