The River Rises

[Another post from 2011 that never say the pixels of day. This particular flood was in the "hundred year flood" category, perhaps even "thousand year." Before the River crested in Baton Rouge the level had been closed to everyone, even those of us on foot, and there was no grass visible on the river side of the levee.

The Crest was something like 50 feet that left mere inches of free-board at the top of the levee. Was I nervous? You bet I was. My place is 20 to 30 feet below that flood stage, depending on who you believe. If the levee gave way my house would have been 6 to 16 feet UNDER WATER. Not good.

Since then, the Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) has been doing a great deal of work on the levee downstream of the LSU campus at Duncan Point. The River runs straight and fast along the western edge of Baton Rouge then takes a turn to the west at Duncan Point. That turn means the River puts an awful lot of hydraulic force on the bank right there and does its best to move the point to the other side of the River, one grain of sand at a time. Of course, when there was 1.625 MILLION cubic feet per second flowing past . . . well . . . it isn't moving one grain at a time.]

So . . .

Here's a series of images that document the rising river between May 4th and May 9th. I hope to keep getting a daily image of the river rise until I can't get up on the levee, allegedly May 20th.

These images were taken looking north along the levee from the trail head on River Road at Skip Bertman Drive.

Poor Jethro (my every day bicycle) . . .

 [I started writing this post over a year ago then forgot all about it. Oh well, here we are again, a year and more later. Try to think of the below as a voice from the recent past. - ed.]

I've only got 2 bicycles.

I know, I know, how can I possibly live the bicycle life with only 2 bicycles?

Well, not only do I have only 2 bicycles but I hardly ride the 2nd one at all. It doesn't really fit very well and I just don't enjoy riding it that much. I've been meaning to sell it for some time but somehow can't bring myself to part with it. That's something I'm going to have to get over soon as I want a 2nd bike that I can rely on and that I want to ride.

Part of the problem is Jehu - the 2nd bike - is a hybrid-ish Specialized Sirrus. That's not the problem, really; Specialized makes some really good bikes and the Sirrus is no exception. What is the problem is the way the machine was set-up. And even that isn't the real problem.

The real problem is I purchased Jehu before I really knew anything about bicycles or bicycle shops. What was I ignorant of? Things like how important a bicycle's geometry is and what an "aggressive" set-up means and how there are times when a shop buys a bicycle they just can't sell and it's getting to be time to buy the next year's stock and we need to get this old stuff out of here and here comes just the rube to sell this to.

Ye . . . I'm that rube.

Again, don't get me wrong, the Specialized Sirrus is a good, maybe even great bike. My bike Jehu - named for a character in the Bible's 2 Kings who was one of the ancient kings of Israel - got its name because I can be (or at least once was) relatively fast while riding him.

Back in the way back when I spent a year and a half as a Christian I was driving with my church's leader in my even-then-ancient pickup. It didn't take long for him to say, "Slow down, Jehu!" When I asked what "Jehu" is or was he cited 2 Kings 9:20 from the King James version of the Bible:

". . . And the watchman told, saying, He came even unto them, and cometh not again: and the driving [is] like the driving of Jehu the son of Nimshi; for he driveth furiously. . .." [emphasis mine. ed.]

Given my personality, I kind of liked being called Jehu. But I can't say that really applies any more as it's been 20 years since I have owned a motor vehicle and I am no bicycle racer, to be sure. Nonetheless, my "fast" bike is still called Jehu.

My primary bicycle, Jethro, on the other hand, is not so fast but really steady and capable of hauling weight without complaining. I kind of thought of "Jethro Bodine" from the "Beverly Hillbillies" when I first named the bike - not too bright but really friendly and able to work and enjoy it.

Alas, even a friendly, none-too-bright, willing worker develops issues over time. I've been loosing spokes on the rear wheel for a while and the front wheel started throwing spokes recently.

I finally had to replace the rear wheel last week. The rim had gotten out of round and out of true. We couldn't really do anything useful about the out of round but the rim was returned to true with each broken spoke repair; the fairly regular spoke breakage didn't help things at all.

The final blow came on Lundi Gras when taking a couple of bicycle tourists in town on their way to . . . well . . . that's a story for another post . . . suffice it to say we were headed from home to the grocery store then on to a dinner gathering of bike folk. On the way to the grocery store yet another spoke on my rear wheel "twanged" followed by the sound of it clanking against its neighboring spokes.

I was cooking dinner for what turned out to be 10 people and needed to stop for supplies so I just twisted the broken spoke around a neighboring one and pushed on. We got to Bet-R, my newly favorite grocery store, bought what we needed, and continued to the party. We didn't get far before I heard the spoke-on-spoke ping-ting-ting again; my twisted spoke had untwisted and was free again to play with its neighbors.

Off hops I, again, and twists the culprit onto an adjoining spoke, again, only more so this time. Back in the saddle and off to dinner we went. (Dinner when well, everyone ate heartily, and the fire pit extravaganza was well received.)

Even though the next day was Mardi Gras The Bicycle Shop, my Local Bike Shop (LBS), was open. After breakfast - onion and potato frittata, toast, coffee - my guests and I rode to the shop. I got a replacement wheel; my guests got a tune-up and derailleur hanger replacement and some cable love. I felt a lot better having a new wheel.

Just yesterday, Sunday, March 13, I was taking another bicycle tourist who stayed with me on his way from Austin to New Orleans to catch the LA Swift bus down at the main CATS terminal. We got there in plenty of time so I said my farewells and headed back home. No sooner than I had mounted up and hit the first down stroke than I heard the dreaded "twang" of a breaking spoke, this time on the front wheel. I didn't even look to see which spoke broke or where it had broken; I could see the wheel was out of true again and there was nothing I could do where I was.

Today, back at The Bicycle Shop, the good shop folk expressed confusion about which wheel had thrown what spoke. Surely the new rear wheel hadn't blown up? Indeed not.