Featured Clive Wood, Triumph specialist, Swineshead, Lincs.

ok steve in surrey tell another steve in surrey did you just drive up to lincs for a service? Is he that good?
And welcome

 

I went to meet Clive yesterday and let him look round my Speed and get it booked in for its annual service. Mrs Clive makes a cracking cuppa by the way! We chatted for an hour and he certainly knows his stuff. The Speed is booked in for its service and he is only 15 miles from where I live!

 

Thanks to the forum for bringing Clive to my attention. I took my Thruxton over to him this morning to have the set up checked over. The shop I bought my bike from doesn't have the Triumph diagnostic equipment and after buying the bike in February I wanted to check all was as it should be.
Clive and Jill were brilliant. Whilst Clive took my bike from me upon arrival Jill took me through to the house to leave my waterproofs and bag before making me a cup of tea along with a beautiful bacon sandwich.
Clive went through the whole bike checking fasteners, connectors, tolerances and components. He relaxed my throttle cable adjustment, cleaned the air filter, replaced the plugs which were quite blackened and then balanced the throttle bodies. As a precaution he also remapped the bike to ensure that the programme hadn't been adjusted at any time from standard and fine tuned the idle speed.
At each stage he explained what he was doing and talked me through different aspects of the bike whilst he worked.
His set up is truly impressive. A large orderly workshop with all the appropriate tools and a real passion for the brand and detail. Some of his customers even travel over from Ireland to have their bikes worked on.
Overall I am very pleased. The bike ran a lot crisper on the way home with cleaner pick up and a greater willingness to rev, so much so that a couple of times I was looking for a sixth gear!
I can truly recommend Clive. With a set up and service like his there's no point in me trying any maintenance at home other than the usual cleaning, oil and fluid checks and of course chain disciplines.
A word of warning; if you do head out that way make sure you get clear directions I ended up at a matching address on the other side of town with a very confused householder wondering why a biker had arrived!

 

I had my Speed serviced on Saturday - Clive and Gill ( cracking cups of tea btw Gill - thank you! ) were very welcoming. Clive plugged my Speed into the diagnostics and asked how it was on/off the throttle? and asked what map it was running? I said the throttle was ok but you had to be smooth with it and as far as I knew it had the standard map in... so Clive then tells me what map and when it was loaded and that the throttle bodies were not balanced. Off comes the tank and various other bit and he balanced the throttle bodies and my word what a difference on the way home - its like a different bike - so much smoother but feels like it has so much more usable power... he also loaded a map in that was more suited to my exhaust system ( turns out my local main dealer had mapped it for a full lowboy set up without telling me but I still have standard headers and a cat... ) it runs so much better, brake fluid change & oil & filter and I was on my way once Clive had thoroughly checked over my Speed - I cannot recommend Clive and Gill highly enough, a lovely couple with a great set up and only 15 miles away from me!

 

About 50 mile trip for me but a lovely run from Retford and almost tempted to carry on into Norfolk afterwards! Clive was telling me that he sees a lot of modified bikes but when a standard bike is set up correctly the owners are usually surprised at just how well they perform. The range of maps for my bike consisted of about 8 variations but with the specific one reloaded by Clive to ensure that the original hadn't been adjusted at any time I noticed a difference as soon as I set off for home.

 

Funny this, May from Reading posts once no intro mentioning a firm. This bloke joins, no intro posts once on the same day, pushes a service, never posts again!
Ok it's a good service as backed up by our honourable members
But basically it's spam!
Not saying it's bad spam but just saying!

 

PS, it's a humourous observation before anyone bites me head off!

 

Clive is now doing Q & A for triumph problems in Motor Cycle News