Change of plan
I have been in Puerto Madero quite a bit lately riding through it to practice on the wheel and to get to the reserve for early morning rides. This morning, I'm riding up to the bridge and I hear a ding dong sound. So I stopped what I was doing and pulled over to see what's up.
One thing I should tell you is that my electric wheel is so quiet that birds don't hear me coming. First photo shows birds getting out of the way as I pull up to the railing. It makes me want to install a horn on my wheel.
So I was waiting there, and I hear the ding dong sound again and realize if I stay on this side of the bridge and it opens, I will not be able to get back to the other side which is where I live. I mean, I have already blown a couple of hours riding through the reserve and I should get some work done, so I don't want to be stuck on the wrong side of the bridge.
I decided to take video of the bridge opening if it does in order that my kids can see what happens when they open because they don't open very often. the kids saw the bridge open one time but they were so little that they don't remember it. So I'm capturing this for you but also so that my kids can see it since we don't go out on the weekends too much anymore now that they're bigger.
I'm shooting video and I swing around to the correct side of the bridge and go to a spot where I can see the entire bridge. I paid left to see the pump house where all the machinery and hydraulics are to make the bridge work. And I see that men are going down to the spot where the bridge is going to swing if it opens.
I checked both sides to see if any boats are coming which would be a clue telling me if the bridge is going to open or not. There are no boats. At this point I don't know if I'm wasting my time and my SD card or not.
While I'm waiting, I'm taking video of ducks overhead playing in formation pictures of the cranes that are everywhere because this used to be a port after all.
Then finally it happens! The gates go down as a pedestrian runs to get off the bridge. Sometime passes and then I hear the wine of hydraulic pump and the bridge starts to rise.
It must lift the weight off of the edge of the road so that the bridge can swing. So the bridge comes up about 6 in and then starts to swivel.
This is the part where we talk about how the road goes sideways when you want to go to work or home.
cover photo
Lastly there is only to show the pile-up of cars behind the closed gates where everything is gridlocked so the bridge can open for the boat that never came through! It must have been for maintenance - that is my guess.
Here is the video of the whole thing in case reading it was not descriptive enough.
For those who never knew about the workings of a rotating bridge
Now, you can say you have actually seen it.
