SDBluefish

I was thinking this morning about all the different smells I encounter on my daily commute. Today I took my 'city' route - 13 miles through residential neighborhoods and an industrial zone. Here's this morning's Scent Tracklist:

1. Rosemary (my front yard)
2. Coffee (coffee shop at the local shopping center)
3. Garbage (dumpster behind local shopping center)
4. Sage (road crossing canyon preserve)
5. Garlic/Fried things (Pho shop at more distant shopping center)
6. Cut grass (fella doing early yard work)
7. Dead squirrel (ick)
8. Diesel (rental truck storage yard)
9. Asphalt (road work)
10. Cinnamon rolls (bakery)
11. More cut grass
12. More diesel
13. Glue (flooring manufacturing/distribution center)
14. Cut lumber
15. More diesel & exhaust & asphalt
16. Coffee cart
17. Pine-Sol (janitor cleaning lobby floor)

What's on your list?

starla

Interesting...I will have to ride tonight and take notice...one thing I love to smell is honeysuckle. it's dying back now, but for a few days, I was in bliss. The things you miss in a car!

noisebeam

I mostly smell on a regular basis
-washing detergent scents from dryers
-a wide variety of foods cooking, both from home and busineses
-exhaust
-tobacco smoke
-orange blossoms when in season (overwhelming everything else)
-sewage from the 1mo. long construction project that is nearly over

Al

Ka_Jun

Mist, foliage, the sand factory next to the bike trail, the artificial scents people put on (perfume, etc.) when I pass, wet sand...

nick burns

-Greasy food smell from any one of the half dozen fast food joints near my house
-Exhaust
-Salt marsh aroma, especially pleasant during low tide
-Landfill odor
-Occasionally fresh bakery smell if I change up my route
-Meals people are cooking in their homes
-Institutional food being prepared at my workplace for meals on wheels
-Stale cigarette odor that always seems to be present around the entrance to my
building

tate65

I roll past no less than 4 donut stores, which sucks on thoes mornings I eat light.

oh and 5 strip clubs, and they too have a distinctive smell that I can't really describe, a mix of fake smoke perfume and ???

CastIron

I pass a bakery and a really good pizza joint. Man, when the wind is just right...

pityr

I forgot today was garbage day for one of the neighborhoods I go through I usually make a point to avoid the area...

jpdesjar

I enjoyed smelling people's chimney smoke during my colder commutes.
Now I enjoy smelling sunshine and the blooming trees.

RazorWind

I wish I encountered smells other than diesel and automobile exhaust on my commute.

dave.lloyd

Brasso and Enorme?

Hobartlemagne 

Theres and old house near my office that reeks of mothballs. You can smell it from the street.

DataJunkie

With the exception of noisebeam I have y'all beat.

My route goes right by an open air sewage treatment plant. Yummy

noisebeam

The construction zone was a very involved one. I'm not sure what was being done, but it had to do with sewage lines running along and then across an in ground freeway. The lines were temporarily bypassed with six 2' diameter pipes laid in parallel above ground (using a full lane) and six giant SUV sized mobile gas powered pumping stations that these pipes ran thru. While I rode along side it on my AM commute, I also rode 1mi from it going home and a light breeze from the correct direction brought the dominant smell from 1mi away.
The pipes were removed a couple days ago, so it appears the project is over.

edit: amazingly I found a web site about the project with some small photos.
https://www.cityofmesa.org/engineerin...3-083-001.aspx

Al

Alox

Rendering plant (ugh)
cedar from 2 lumber mills
Pot smoke from the windows of moving cars and trucks (surprisingly frequent)
cherry & lilac from trees
PM10 from the Diesels warming up in the bus yard.

noisebeam

I've noticed this about half a dozen times.

Al

rando

Fried food, burgers, exhaust. for a while I had a donut place but it looks like it's being renovated or closed. the worst is ted's Hot dogs, a great burger/dog joint that I ride past on the way home. always gets me salivating. grilled meeeeeeaaaaatttt....

SDBluefish

On the way home, I took the scenic route (15 miles along lagoon & bike path). Here's the rundown:

1. cigarette smoke (door to office building)
2. exhaust/diesel
3. cut lumber
4. salt marsh
5. water pumping station (can be rank, but today just a swampy kind of smell)
6. sage and chaparral
7. horses
8. pond weeds (nearly ran over some ducklings, yikes!)
9. chaparral
10. exhaust
11. coffee (coffee shop)
12. garlic (italian restaurant)
13. garbage (dumpster)
14. dust/cigarettes/beer (short cut through a canyon where high school kids hang out)
15. Osmanthus hedge by kids' school
16. PIZZA! (end of year party for kids' science club - I'd forgotten)

So we had pizza and then came home. Now all I can smell is that I need a shower!

Ka_Jun

What's that smell on your clothes you get after cycling, I'm not talking about the sweat or b.o., but it seems like a metallic kind of alien environmental smell? Anyone else notice this?

madcalicojack

Ted's is awesome. And what's with the DD??? That place has been there since I was a kid. I hope they are just renovating it. I'll be leaving town soon anyway, but that DD is kind of a personal landmark.

aubinmg

My commute is 99% along the Rideau Canal, from Hog's Back to downtown. In the spring I get lilacs and apple blossoms and one spot that smells like someone is frying onions for the entire city. In the late fall after the canal is empty I get the distinctive stench of mud, rotting vegetation and dead fish, yum.

sumguy

The most notable odor I encounter is a strawberry scent from a car wash. I think it accumulates in the storm drains. I also get to smell a field of rotting cabbage across from work - fortunately this is a seasonal problem. The usual fast food joint and bar smells as well.

JMRobertson

Seaweed and cows... a fairly nice commute actually. 14 miles one way.

greaterbrown

Hey. How about a bikely or mmr map with the smells indicated along the commute route.
Love to see that.

cradduck

1. Night Blooming Jasmine (just around the corner).
2. Freshly cut grass (ewwwww...puke) from all the gardeners.
3. The ocean.
4. Car exhaust.
5. Many unidentified plant smells.