What do you smell when you ride?

[HappyTexasMom]

Funny you bring this up, because I was just recently thinking that one of the things I find interesting about cycling is being more in tune with what's around me based on smell (even though not all of those smells are pleasant).

I don't know that I've smelled anything that hasn't been mentioned. Stale water when I ride by the canals. Fast food when I ride near restaurants. I stay off the main roads, so don't smell a lot of exhaust. Sometimes I smell cologne but can't see anyone, which kind of creeps me out. Laundry, flowers/trees in bloom. When it's really hot the pavement has a smell...I think it's melting.

[GLC1968]

I smell a lot of what has already been posted as well. Lately, I keep smelling this weird but pleasant woody cinnamon smell. It reminds of the taste of cinnamon flavored toothpicks. I have no idea what plant it is, but I've smelled it in a ton of different rural locations, so I think it's some type of wild plant.

When I lived in NC, I'd smell McDonalds 4 different times on my commute in to work. ICK!

I hate smelling cigarette smoke more than I hate the smell of exhaust.

[Tuckervill]

You haven't lived until you ride by 4 of these in a row, all sitting out there baking in the hot sunshine.

Karen (lives by Tyson)

[sundial]

That reminds me....I do ride by a chicken house on one of my routes. Peee-YEW!

[solobiker]

I sometimes ride by the Coors plant and smell the yeast from making beer.

[GLC1968]

You haven't lived until you ride by 4 of these in a row, all sitting out there baking in the hot sunshine.

Karen (lives by Tyson)

*shudder* And THAT my friends is why I no longer buy chicken from a grocery store!

[newfsmith]

I smell a lot of what has already been posted as well. Lately, I keep smelling this weird but pleasant woody cinnamon smell. It reminds of the taste of cinnamon flavored toothpicks. I have no idea what plant it is, but I've smelled it in a ton of different rural locations, so I think it's some type of wild plant.

If you lived here in the Northeast, I would guess you were smelling Sweet Fern, Comptonia peregrina. This time of year that is what I smell on my way home from work.

[OakLeaf]

*shudder* And THAT my friends is why I no longer buy chicken from a grocery store!

Yep, those are those "cage-free" hens that you pay double for their eggs in the grocery store.

I never rode by the egg farm until this year, after the EPA finally shut it down.

I smell a lot of multiflora rose in season, which is as pernicious as many of the nasties that have been mentioned in this thread, but it smells so wonderful.

[Tuckervill]

Those chickens are for eatin', not layin'.

Karen

[crazycanuck]

We often pass a chicken feed or pet food manufacturer if we ride a certain to work.

The worst thing I've ever smelt on a dirt ride was a very old rotting Kangaroo...uuuugghghgh blech

[papaver]

hay
manure
woods
rain
the sea (but i don't live nearby the sea), farmers use algae on their land
blossoms in the spring
caramel (i live close by a sugar factory)
beer (when I pass Hoegaarden or Stella Artois)
fries and steak (on a Sunday noon)

[sundial]

The worst thing I've ever smelt on a dirt ride was a very old rotting Kangaroo...uuuugghghgh blech

EWWWWWWWWW!!!!!

[arielmoon]

I would love to say I smelled lovely flowers on my rides but more often than naught I smell roadkill and skunk.

[beccaB]

people grilling stuff for dinner. Why wasn't I invited-I'm hungry! The smells of summer= Americana!

[bmccasland]

I smell the willows growing along the Mississippi River on the flood side of the levee. Willows (and cottonwoods) smell different to me than other trees - more of a musty smell.

BEER! The levee path goes under two graineries.

There's a funny smell that sometimes drifts over from the shipyards where a Navy ship is currently under construction. Not really a paint smell, not sure what it is - I can see them welding. Does welding metal give off a smell?