Michigan, Detroit & Niagra Falls
09 May 2024
I’m at Motoworks for when the service department opens at 10:00.
The technician’s written report is impressively detailed. It might not win many converts from the Thomas Hardy Appreciation Society as it’s terse, crystal-clear and absolutely to the point.
The impact of the seized component was that coolant was not circulating properly, so a relatively small volume of fluid just kept getting hotter and hotter. Essentially, I’ve been riding an air-cooled, fully-faired, six-cylinder motorcycle for god knows how long. It’s a miracle it didn’t fail earlier.
I’m a bit annoyed about this as I had told the dealership I use in the UK, at least three times, I thought there was a problem. On each occasion, they assured me everything was working as expected.
I suppose that’s what you get for your $481: a proper diagnosis, but I’m not sure BMW UK customers would tolerate this upfront expense.
Looking at the invoice with the benefit of 20-20 hindsight, $170s worth of parts failure has incurred recovery, diagnostic and repair labour charges totalling $1,450, underscoring the immense complexity of modern motorcycles.
As the bike was under an insured warranty policy in the UK, this entire cost would have been covered.
I had tried to take out a similar policy for this trip, but could not find one, only to learn from Motoworks - too late - that such cover is available, including tyre damage and breakdown.
If you’re planning a trip of this scale, it will probably expose any undetected, underlying issues with your bike, so it’s worth having.
[10 July 2024: I took this matter up with BMW when I returned. They investigated promptly and thoroughly, finding that the same component had been replaced on the last occasion the dealer investigated the issue and paid for under the warranty. Since then, I had ridden it 12,000 miles through extremes of weather and temperature so I have to concede it was an incident where no one was culpable. Just one of those things. Impressively, BMW offered a generous sum of retail credit as a goodwill gesture, which suggests they too thought I’d been unlucky.]
Jordan, Wilfred, Johnny & Chris (from BMW North America who is visiting Motorworks) try to work out an interesting route for me from Chicago to Detroit as this conceptually borders on oxymoronic.
Going to see the street art in Gary, Indiana is a possibility, where artists have taken to using the derelict buildings of this once highly prosperous city as their canvas. However, the consensus is it’s just too violent so they suggest going on a rural route that will take another hour.
Not for the first time, the weather turns nasty so I just stick to the joyless I-94 freeway. It’s like being back in the UK: manically busy, the driving standards are maniacal and it’s strewn with pot-holes.
Stopping near the gentle-sounding Benton Harbour at a Starbucks, a fresh-faced chap with a baseball cap on the wrong way around is sat at the next table, leafing through a couple of quality, 20th-century English and American novels. He asks about my bike, and then the trip; the highlights and lowlights.
I tell him of the general sense of unease and Fentanyl-induced problems of New Mexico. He just raises his eyes, purses his lips and shakes his head knowingly. I say I had taken him for a student and ask why this all seems familiar. Does he work in social services or similar?
“Oh no, I’m not as young as I look. I’m a serving Police Officer. I’ve got a day off. My wife’s working, so I thought I’d do some reading.”
He goes on to explain that the ‘South Bend’ area of Lake Michigan, east of Gary is largely blighted and the town of Benton, where he was working until recently, is the most violent in the state. Again, Fentanyl plays a part but here, the gangs have started to cut in with cocaine and blend it with the cannabis sold on the street. This both differentiates it from legitimate cannabis (now legal in the majority of US states) and also tees up a new wave of customers, such is the addictive power of Fentanyl.
I eventually make it to Detroit and seek out Buddy’s, home of THE original deep-pan pizza and a recommendation of Jordan’s from Motorworks. It’s superb. The base is like the best Ciabatta: a thin & crispy crust, but soft, aerated, light bread inside. This is then filled with a blend of Italian sausage, tomato, rosemary and topped with Rucola and Parmesan that is so authentically Neapolitan, I half-expect a shouty Sophia Loren to storm out of the kitchen and start remonstrating with the bartender for no discernible reason. At under $50 all-in, it’s more in line with what a pizza, a beer and a couple of glasses of wine should cost, compared to San Francisco and Chicago.
They mistakenly brought me the ‘eight-squares’ size rather than the effete four-square variant I ordered, but only charge for the smaller one. Even this is really too much. It’s so good though, I eat four anyway and I ask the waiter if they support a food charity.
Not officially, is the answer, but there is a mission on the other side of Grand Circus Park so I ask them to box it up and I take it over. There is no mission, but a dozen or so homeless people camped on the steps of the Central United Methodist Church.
The self-appointed leader asks me how’s it going. I ask if they’d like to share the remaining four squares. Apart from one voice wailing “Uh kin it pizzuh”, there’s a murmured chorus of “Thankyer, sir”. Such manners and politeness in the face of adversity are heart-breaking.
I like the bit of Detroit I saw. It’s a once-grand city that has had its challenges with the relative collapse of the motor industry. But walk around downtown for an hour and it’s clear the city has met the challenges head-on and has ambitions of greatness again.
Sorry, there are no photographs. I-94 is comfortably the least photogenic 290 miles of motorway I’ve ever seen and it was dark and raining in Detroit. But you probably expected that. I did.
10 May 2024
The other side of Detroit is Canada, and another 280 mile-plus, interstate slog to Niagra Falls. Near Hamilton, various eight-lane motorways converge as I approach in the late afternoon. The traffic slows to 10 MPH. I know this as it took an hour to go ten miles. At least it’s a good test for the newly repaired cooling system, which passes with flying colours.
Usually, I find riding motorcycles intensely relaxing, therapeutic even. But traffic is exhausting both physically and mentally. And one, non-skill the Canadians have picked up from the French is driving.
I’ve been to Niagra Falls before, in 1979 with my late father, but only have a dim recollection of it. The rather nice Queen Victoria Park on the Canadian side remains as I remembered, as does the promenade.
This affords superb views of the American falls (a classic, straight drop) and the Canadian ones named ‘Horseshoe Falls’, which require no further explanation. Overall, the town seems much more developed, but then it was nearly half a century years ago…
The Prime Steakhouse on the 10th floor of the Crowne Plaza Hotel has full-length, plate glass windows in a curved dining room. Everyone gets a view of both falls as night falls and the lights illuminating the spectacle are turned on. It’s almost worth £130 for an average seafood bisque, titchy (well, 225g steak… but everything’s relative), and two glasses of wine.
Following my guiding principle of trying to drink wine from the region I’m in, I went Canadian… That was a mistake. They really haven’t learnt anything from the French on this point either: the white tasted of almost nothing and the red would be termed “Belgique” by the Bordelaise. Good enough for the Belgians to drink but not much else.
After dinner, I walk back to my hotel up Clifton Hill. It makes Blackpool South Beach look like the Vatican City by comparison. It’s vile beyond belief; a riot of neon, noise and shuffling tourists fixated on their phones, making Las Vegas feel like the Ancient Greece.
Certainly, the falls are an arresting sight but not inspiring. I remember my dad quoting the late Princess Margaret’s withering comment on seeing Iguazu Falls in Brazil. It was only two words: “Poor Niagra”. He’d also visited Iguazu so was pretty non-plussed also.
It’s not a size thing, dears, and anyway, it depends on your point of measurement: there are over 500 waterfalls taller than Niagra.
No, it’s the overall experience. Yellowstone Falls a few weeks ago, is what you expect of a natural spectacle, insofar it is part of a natural landscape. Also, it’s visited by nice people. The sort who will walk for twenty minutes or so to witness the spectacle, say hello to strangers on the way there and comment on how wonderful it is on the way back.
On any measure, Niagra is a Fourth Division waterfall, surrounded by the most tasteless urbanisation imaginable and attracts visitors from the global Premier League of ghastly, bovine tourists. I’m embarrassed to have been one of them
The grasping $24-an-hour, out-of-season parking charges make me hate the place even more. During the hour-plus wait to escape back into the USA over the Rainbow Bridge, the views are at least good and give me ample time to think of reasons to return.
I can’t think of one.
