Inside Giddings Motorcycles: Workshop Tour & Owner Q&A

Step inside the workshop of Giddings Motorcycles!

Join me for a behind-the-scenes look at Giddings Motorcycles – a specialist motorcycle workshop founded by Andrew Giddings in 2016, based in Lenwade, Norwich. In this video, I bring in my Triumph Street Triple RX to get the old rubber swapped out for a fresh set of Bridgestone S23s.

While we’re there, we put Andrew in the hot seat with a quick-fire Q&A – covering workshop life, previous engineering experience, essential bike maintenance tips, and what you should check before your next MOT.

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CHAPTERS

00:00 Intro
00:48 How long have you been here?
01:07 What kind of bikes come here?
01:54 Do many older bikes come in?
02:29 Do you miss working on the older bikes?
03:03 Sponsor interlude
04:05 Damaged dust seal found when removing the old tyre
05:24 What’s your previous experience?
05:50 So you mostly do MOT’s?
06:10 What are top reasons for MOT failures?
06:44 Have you got advice on preparing for an MOT?
07:06 Do you do a lot of servicing?
07:44 What’s the most memorable bike you’ve worked on?
10:17 Thank you message and Outro

Whether you’re a biker and local to Norwich, a fan of motorcycle engineering, or just curious about what goes on inside a real motorcycle workshop — this one’s for you.

👍 Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and add your questions in the comments!

Ride safe – catch you in the next video everyone! 🤘

Cheers, Mike

www.motobikemike.com

VIDEO MENTIONS
Giddings Motorcycles – https://www.giddingsmotorcycles.co.uk/
CJ Ball Honda, Norwich – https://www.cjball.co.uk/

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#giddingsmotorcycles #motorcycleworkshop #workshoptour #bikegaragenorwich #bikemotnorwich

welcome back everyone thanks for tuning in it’s Mike here we’re going to do something a little bit different today we’re going to do a workshop visit this one will be Giddings Motorcycles which is just in Lenway on the outskirts of Norwich and if you do live in the Norwich area then you’re bound to have heard of him because he has got an impeccable reputation around here at doing such a good job on all of the locals motorbikes so I need some new tires i phoned up Andrew he’s going to fit them for me and he’s agreed to allow me to have a little nosy around in the workshop take a video ask him some questions so if that’s of any interest to you stick around [Music] so how long you been here now Andrew uh 9 years 9 years yeah yeah 2016 yeah I came here 2016 yeah yeah yeah for the first six months it was a bit quiet and then then we had April 27 April 2017 it got very busy the year so what sort of range of bikes you did come here then it’s changed actually since I since I first started um in the motor bike trade people everyone had like a fire blade but now everyone has something like this and they all take different size all these are 180s and 1270 but before I used sold like 190s 19050 and 1270 so that the tires have got smaller really what I hold in stock many i hold a lot of 180s cuz everyone’s got one like this or they’ve got an an adventure bike people didn’t really had an adventure bike i started they had a a touring bike you’d buy a a BFR800 or something like that that’s what people used to have when I first Yeah when I first started yeah yeah it was um it’s all the base parts do you get many older bikes coming um I I Well yes and no i get a lot of older bikes but they don’t need MOTS now after 40 years so that’s stopped that a little bit and um what’s also um I I I when I first opened I’d do anything people phone up saying I’ve I got this wrong or that wrong with my old my old motorbike yeah and um I take it on but now I’m so busy doing Mats and tires I don’t have much time for that sort of thing yeah so I don’t see so many of those older bikes now no no okay do you miss that i suppose a little bit yeah if I was if I didn’t do and I wouldn’t have so much Yeah i’d have more time to do more but then Well there’s an old bike there that RVF 400 there and that that’s um that’s coming for fork seals and done the fork seals but could have other things wrong with it they don’t come much better looking than this really do they i mean no that is really beautiful that is So we’re just going to take a quick one minute break from the video and say a massive thank you to this video sponsor Bikeshore bikeshore is one of the UK’s leading motorcycle insurance specialists working with over 40 insurance schemes to find you the best deal be sure to ask about their policy add-ons such as personal accident cover excess protect helmet and leather cover as there’s lots to tailor for your specific needs i’ve been insured with Bike Shaw for the past 7 years and their customer service has always been spoton and with over 20,000 reviews on Trust Pilot rating them 4.4 four out of five stars it looks like that I’m not the only one who’s happy with them if you own more than one bike they offer a flexible multibike policy and if you’re into your track days and love coverving up corners on the circuit Bike Shore even offers track day insurance for more than 30 track venues throughout the UK so in summary if you need great bike insurance make sure you check out Bike Shore and once again a massive thank you from me and with that thank you SS let’s get back to the video this bit of metal’s just come out your You see your dust seal there look all right i think that’ll be on the inside of this dust seal okay it’s very unlikely I’ll have one of them that won’t affect it but uh we’ll have a look at that when I take it off yeah that spring yeah yeah so the seal has a spring inside that seal just to um and it’s just by unfortunately I think I know why that’s come out actually cuz I don’t think your wheel spacers are the original wheel spacers it’s got these wheel spacers these wheel spacers have a lip these don’t look original to me this lip is designed to make sure your wheel spacer doesn’t fall um out easily when you take the wheel off i see them on a lot of track bikes so when they can take the track wheels off get another tire track quickly and put it back in they haven’t got to use get their mate to hold the It’s easy they go in like this and they’re designed because that lip so they don’t come out when you take the tire out so they don’t fall out the problem with that is cuz what’s that’s done is that’s pushed out it’s damaged the spring on the inside of the seal I think okay that having that there so um it’ll be it’ll be okay cuz the seal is just it’s not really dirt dust getting in there but um it’s not the bearing’s got another seal on the bearing itself um but yeah that’s probably what’s caused that that to go like that we’ve been here 9 years where were you before i used to work at the the CJ Bull the Honda Honda Garage okay i was I was there for 9 years as well so Oh right okay yeah that was from 2007 to 2006 yeah wow okay yeah so yeah and then before that I was at Bristol College doing bike mechanics for two years so So a lot of the work you do is Yes yeah more and more and and um and less and less um I don’t even do a lot of Yeah yeah avoiding doing some servicing and stuff like that now yeah yeah and so repairs like fork seals and tires and brake pads and Right okay so fork seals brake pads would you say that they’re the top reasons why bike wouldn’t go through the MOT uh oh I don’t know now don’t know probably something like the A variety of things why bike fails yeah they don’t film they don’t fail very much there’s no emissions testing other bike um what’s the name quite often tires people don’t realize that their tires are blown a little bit i sometimes point at the tire like here it’s worn out here and they’re like but it’s okay there they’re like it’s okay there it’s like no it’s worn out in the middle yeah i get that a lot advice to people who you know their bike’s coming up for um what should they be looking at i you can’t check everything really um on your bike cuz you’re not um but you can check things just like your your lights all work and your your horn works horns don’t work a lot cuz people never use them um so I’m usually pressing it and I keep pressing it and usually it comes back to life do you do a lot of servicing i I I I do and I don’t so it’s it’s because motorcycles are kind of quite timeconuming to service you know some of the big services it’s quite often I’m avoiding doing the big services in the summertime someone’s holding off till the winter to do them or or um Yeah it’s it’s tricky how How many miles has your bike done now it’s 12,000 oh is it had the big service did I do I don’t know i don’t know who I come from you do so many bikes about now i realized I put the tire on the wrong way around it’s all right it’s all right yeah have you got a like a a memorable that’s coming that you’ve worked on that you thought ah that’s a Yeah yeah i trying to think I had a very uh what was it no it was a Verago 535 come in here when I first started here that wasn’t running right that was a nightmare to get running right it was the CDI in the end not advancing the ignition so it come in and um it would it would ride fine up to about 5,000 RPM and then beyond 5,000 RPM it would it would struggle and um customer wasn’t sure what it was we tried all the things like taking the carburetors apart and things like that i had phoned a company up who sold um an aftermarket um uh CDI it’s like the thing that it increases the speed of ignition advancing as the revs rise and I said to them you know I said um can I buy one off you and I said to them it’s you know the bike’s still running but it’s not running very well at higher RPM and they said oh no it just won’t run at all if it’s gone so you know so I didn’t buy one so I carried on and on and on trying to find out what was wrong with it then I went to GB Motorcycles in Corston and he had one there used genuine CDI and he said I’ll just borrow it you could borrow it i just borrowed it i put it on the bike soon as I’d ridden onto the road outside of his shop i took the bike van in the van that made all the difference and I was on this bike for ages at my wits end trying to work out i wish I hadn’t phoned them and asked them about the buying a CDI and this company’s made an aftermarket one cuz they said that that won’t be that and I I shouldn’t have I should have just got one that that that was Yeah that was when I very first opened that was a nightmare yeah that I still remember that now yeah cuz it was low it was low on compression so it even had a look at maybe the weed um yeah it was it was low on compression but then it wasn’t horrendously low so I wasn’t sure whether it’s something like that or I just couldn’t not great reliability i think it’s because of the nature of the way the in their uh Yeah they don’t they things like they have a fuel tank um under the seat and at the top so the fuel goes into the under here then goes to another separate tank under here with like a fuel pump underneath there to then pump it back up to the carburetors up here which is a a problem cuz all the all of them are going to be over 30 years old now so So that is well or about about that yeah so with that in mind um yeah it can be a bit of a a challenge so yeah yeah i just want to say a massive thank you to Andrew there for fitting my tires my Bridgestone S23s uh I can’t wait to burn around on them give them a real good go so if you are in need ofotes tire changing servicing give Andrew a call i’m sure he’ll be more than happy to help you as you can see top guy knows what he’s talking about you know utmost professional if you like the video please give it a like and a subscribe the continued support on the channel is well appreciated so for more bike reviews comparisons product reviews workshop tours now we will see you in the next video cheers ride safe