What Smells .............catch you along the way ??

[Des]

We took my niece on a ride ..... and along the way she noticed something that many of us probably at this point don't think much about anymore ........ SMELLS

We stopped briefly and she said to me ... "oh man we passed that KFC back there and that chicken smelled great!!"  I just laughed and said yeah ... if you were riding in your mom's car you'd never even noticed that KFC.

Here lately on my way to work I've been noticing ... SMELLS.   Pass through a community on the Reservation on my way to Tempe and the other morning I got this over whelming smell of waffles & hot syrup!  Then around the corner past the fertilizer plant the ammonia smell was horrid.  I come up behind a car with a woman and I can almost taste her perfume!!     Never did understand why some women prefer to bath in perfume instead of soap & water like the rest of us!!  What's really disturbing is when you come up behind a vehicle and the booze SMELLS.   is so strong YOU FEEL like you've been drinking?!  And they wonder how a cop know!   

So besides the normal ... skunks and such ... what type of SMELLS catch you along the way??

[Strider]

One of the great things about riding a bike....the smells.....

Like when you can tell a Burger King from a McDonalds.....

Memerable smell?????  No doubt, Sudan, Texas on the way to meet Kendall for the first time in Clovis.  Now Clovis in an ulfactory experience within itself, but Sudan was unique....

5 miles before I got there, I kept thinking, "What the hell is that smell?"

When you get there, it is like the largest "cattle feed lot" I had ever seen at that time!

Hard6 and I came across one even bigger in Kansas, I think............

WHEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   

[hotglue #43]

One of the greatest smells.....
Riding thru upstate New York in the fall.. when the grapes are ripe...
The whole world smells like ya stuck yer nose in a jar of concord jelly!!!!!

[FryeVRCCDS0067]

One of the things I love about riding is the many smells. My favorite is the smell of dropping into a forested area with a creek running through it. The air smells clean and cool.

And of course the smell and feel of riding through clinging fog at dawn reminds me to thank my maker for letting me wakeup another day on this gorgeous earth.

[ricoman]

A country ride and the smell of freshly cut pasture.
Often pass a nearby commercial bakery- uhmm, where's the coffee ?

[Big IV]

I like dropping into a neighborhood on the weekend and smelling them doing laundry house by house.

Canton, NC has a huge paper factory and you can smell the dyes from the interstate. It is a smell that sticks with you.

[threevalks]

Let's not forget Road Kill.

[Normandog]

Riding thru an orange grove in Florida was one of the best I remember.
Followed some dude into town one morning and could smell pot smoke. 

[Tundra]

Florida smells...Pastures, cows and horses have their own if your downwind. Fresh cut grass, Theres a little bridge we pass on one of our rides where someone is "jacking deer", last week we counted 24 carcasses down there, that will put off a smell in the hot sun! and of course the beach, you can always smell the suntan lotion on the tourists. My favorite, a campfire 

[Master Blaster]

Well I can throw in one or two of the worst.  southern Louisiana try not to get downwind of a Pogie plant.  Its where they net these small fish, and turn them into fertilizer.  Another biggie is the wrong side of a papermill, but they have improved through the years.  One of the best for me is being at altitude and comming into an Alpine meadow with the requisite small lake and stream.  Riding the desert and finding a road that parallells a river, and dips in and out of the desert terrain and the lush areas by the river.  That one you not only smell but feel the delicious coolness of.

[Slyk Willy]

about riding are the smells.  

[fudgie]

Love all the farm smells. Also like rolling in to camp with the camping smells. I remember on the way to Cheaha last year soon as we crossed the AL line we could smell all the flowers. That sticks with us.

[Black Pearl's Captain]

I often smell Motomama's excellent cooking when I'm riding. Sometimes it's not even a dream.

Raymond

[Jack]

When I worked in New Orleans, the smell I enjoyed was the smell of roasting coffee.  Occasionally, you could smell the Crystal Hot Sauce factory.

[sugarbee]

I was thinking about this just yesterday.  I love the smell of clover that is out right now.  But, when I was out riding yesterday I caught of whiff of some cow pies baking in the sun....pee-yew!  I like the sweet smells, but when we ride through Bogalusa, they have a paper mill and the smell of that is not very pleasant either.  But, it's all part of the experience and I wouldn't change it by opting to ride in a cage.

[Spirited-6]

Fresh cut grass is one of the smells I like. There is one county road that I ride has Honey Suckle along the road in a low spot, smells great. 

[Michael K (Az.)]

Coming up to newly mowed lawns or fields are always energizing for me. Rode by a huge garlic field that was just harvested one time and it smelt like the worlds biggest Italian kitchen!!
For the bad smells, well that's what that twisty thing on the right is for! 

[Black Dog]

Man...  The smells 

Cruizing along on a warm summer evening, then dipping down in to a 'frost pocket'...  the dampness smells like when I was a kid, and we would get up extra early to catch worms for fishing.  Back roads in northern Wi, or the UP of MI, and smelling someone's camp fire.  A sunset ride through the WI countryside, the smells of the forrest, the blooming Honey Suckle, and yes the 'road kill' that you know is gonna be there, even before you see it 

Yep...  We bikers know why dogs hang their heads out the car window 

Black Dog

[Misfit]

I like the smell of the pine trees in the mountains. I would have to say that my favorite is bbq. Is there anything that will get your attention quicker than the smell of a good bbq?

[3fan4life]

One of the pleasures of riding is the "smells".  

That's why riding a motorcycle truly is about taking time to "smell the roses" or the "cowpies" as the case may be.

The smell of fresh cut grass, wet leaves, honeysuckle are all nice things to experience.

But, my favorite smell is when you're passing a house and you know that they're fixing bacon for breakfast.

[2tonevalk]

The best smell is fresh cut hay, honeysuckle, and beach salt air.  The worse.....paper plants and cattle feed lots.
Other than that I'm good.

Robert

[hubcapsc]

I have to reply even though these aren't motorcycle related smells... The wisteria and
wild azalia are blooming all over here, they're full of bees and they smell GREAT!



-Mike

[qc-teky]

We have a "Rainbow" bubble gum factory here in Memphis - I love riding by there - but then I have to stop by a convience store.
Lots of BBQ places here too.

[RoboCop]

Least fave: liquiefied poop shot out of a huge fertilizer sprinkler heading into dairy farm country.

Most favorite: rolled out of campsite in central Idaho mountains to the delightful perfume of just warmed sage, pine, and wildflowers.  that was years ago but I remember it like yesterday.

[Iron Mike]

Thhe campfires on the way home from work tonight were awesome!  A bakery.It reminds me of goood times up north in the summer.  The 80 yards of chicken sh!t pilied up accross the road are getting to be a bit much though.

[Big IV]

I remember when Montgomery Gentry first came out they were being interviewed on the local radio station. The radio DJ was asking about why they rode motorcycles. One of the duo's response was the smells.

My wife has chimed in: honeysuckle and laundry are the two that stand out to her.

[sheets]

Like all the others have mentioned . . . the wind in my face, over my arms, the sights and smells along the way is what its all about.  Passed a guy walking down the road along a river with a couple fish on a stringer.  Could smell the fresh raw fish as we went by.  Ya smell the good and the bad . . . feed lots and smokey motors are no fun.  Cool thread. An original.   

[SlowRoad]

Funny I run across this thread tonight. Just this morning, I crossed the Tennessee river in Decatur AL and the smell of the water with the faint fishy smell that goes with it reminded me of weekend boat rides when I was a kid. Every Sunday afternoon in the summer the whole family (all 6 kids and mom and dad) would load up after church and go to the lake. I just took in a deep breath and tried to absorb as many memories as I could pull into my lungs.

Honeysuckle on a humid summer night would have to be my favorite. Again, try to inhale as much as possible to just suck in the sweet smell.

On the flip side, there are lots of chicken farms around here too. Those will make you go looking for honeysuckle to wash out the lingering smell they leave in your nostrils.

[RedValk]

Honeysuckle in late April and early May.....that's one i have many fond memories of good rides.

[..]

The smell of campers cooking breakfast wafting across the BRP. The aroma being held close to ground by the tree canopy.

Freshly mown grass with a side order of wild onions.

The chill of a dry frosty morning.

Riding behind a pack of Valkyries on full throttle can smell like a petro refinery. 

Meth lab in a Kentucky hollow.  ???

[RedValk]

good one...fresh grass cut...i forgot that one!

[Jabba]

I seem to smell pot a lot.  either I am really sensitive to it, or it's use is rampant in indianapolis. 

I like to grass and honeysuckle, and apple blossoms. 

The smell of a just cut wheat field is a good one too.

To me the late August smells are very memory jogging.  When it gets to be that time of year... it smells like FOOTBALL to me.  I played football for 12 years, into college... and that's the memories that the late summer brings to me.

Jabba

[hubcapsc]

I seem to smell pot a lot.  either I am really sensitive to it, or it's use is rampant in indianapolis. 

Burning or growing? I identified a smell that I thought was weed to a friend of mine,
and she said it was Galax...

So I googled Galax... apparently it smells "skunky"...

-Mike

[Michael K (Az.)]

Turns out the olfactory sense is a HUGE trigger to past memories! Boy are we lucky we don't have the windows rolled up on these 2-wheeled thinga ma jingeys!

[ChromeDome]

General Mills has a facility 15 miles from me and when ever I am near it almost always smells like breakfast ceral. Otherwise .... just about everything everyone else has posted. 

[QOTFU]

I love when we're out on the bikes and we go by a Mexican restraunt. Those fajitas smell awesome!

On the other hand..LOL..... we were riding in Arkansas summer before last and there was a pretty good rain that morning. It heated up to nearly 100 and we were near the Tyson Chicken processing plant...... OMG! I thought I was gonna puke!

[Bonzo]

A smell that bothers me are the "Garbage Scows" Tractor Trailers hauling garbage up the NYS Thruway and Rt 17 from NYC. The favorite smell is the scent of Anisette from Stella Doro's Cookies in The Bronx!

[cwl3gemt]

Best smell. the smell of a freshly turned over farmers feild. its just that smell of the fresh dirt, with a little mud mixed in with it.

the worse. A chicken plant on the way to des moines just outside dallas center. Im sure RJ and Kamikaze know where im talking about.