drpaauwe

I try to ride at least half my trips to school and work in any given week. They are in opposite directions from my house, which is nice if I'm going from school to work or vice versa because I can stop at my house and not go out of my way.

The down side is, both routes literally stink. On the way to work I have to go right past the garbage dump. On the way to school, it's the water treatment plant.

Thought it would be interesting to see if anyone else has a stinky commute.

GV27

There are tons of skunks on my ride. I smell 'em every morning.

CCrew

I know what you mean. I ride by a Whole Foods every morning around 6am when they're baking cookies

habernac

I ride by a set of train tracks and it stunk for months when there were not one but two skunk carcasses within 6 feet of each other.

ClintP

I live in Amarillo and there are cattle feed lots nearby. Depending on the wind, it can blow some poo stank from far away. On the days where it is kind of wet, you can almost taste it. Ugh.

Big_e

There's one particular block I have to ride through on my commute. The rear of all the houses are facing on this block so it feels like I'm riding through an alleyway. I don't know what these families eat but I swear they all must let the milk curdle for an extra month before throwing it out. Since the backs of the houses face this street, that's where the trash sits and it STINKS!

oakback

I used to ride by a garbage transfer station (not quite a dump, but just as stinky), which is also located amongst a swampy area (also stinky, depending on recent weather). It really, really sucked to be following the path of a garbage truck that recently passed; sometimes I wouldn't see it at all, but could smell it along my entire route (even when far away from the garbage transfer station).

I changed my route. No longer stinky.

AdamD

I ride by a Costco bakery once in a while and can smell muffins baking, mmmmm. I ride through East LA where I pass a tortilla factory and a place that smells like guacamole, I need to figure out how to get the tortilla guys to fry some up and have chips and guac.

4SEVEN3

I have to ride by a truck tank cleaning (18 wheeler tanks) facility that can get pretty rank sometimes.

I know what you mean about the garbage trucks. I work in the sewer buisness and the trash trucks smell 1000 times worse!!!

Lurch

The garbage trucks are on my route on Thursday mornings. Sometimes I have to pass them. Those guys have a hard job and can't even enjoy being out in the fresh air.

jkelley73

My daily commute takes me within half a mile of Griffin Industries, a rendering plant. If you don't know what a rendering plant is, count your blessings. They 'render' and recycle agricultural animal waste, grease trap waste, inedible food waste - you get the picture.

One day last year, one of their tanker trucks passed me going in the opposite direction and 'misted' me with whatever vile concoction it was carrying. It tasted like wet dog smells. I've never been so repulsed in my life. Thirty minute shower that night.

fuzz2050

I commute through a dairy yard, beat that.

jgedwa

I stink enough that I fear my route complains about me.

steveknight

I get whiffs of pot all the time. Pass coffee roasting places that smell more like toast then coffee.

Yan 

I ride by the Redpath sugar factory in Toronto everyday. Mmmm....

banerjek

Y'all are *******. For my old commute, I used to ride by "bioremediation ponds" and often get sprayed by "reclaimed water." On that same commute, I rode by one of the largest dairies in the state. You have no idea how bad things can smell until you're stuck behind a truck filled with dead cow carcasses. Skunks smell like roses in comparison and I have been sprayed twice in my life....

My new commute just takes me by the dump. It smells very unnatural, but it's nothing compared to my old route.

drpaauwe

oh my. that's some nasty stuff. okay, I do not feel bad about my route anymore. No grey water spray, no rendering plants, no feed lots.

BA Commuter

Same here on Wednesday mornings. However, the stinkin driver weaves from side to side of the street and makes it real hard to pass!

coldfeet

Not that bad, I ride past a water treatment plant, pretty good considering, also a malting plant, usually not bad, but somedays..... what are they doin' in there? I haven't seen a skunk, I know they're out there... have seen a a porcupine ... twice. I fear the skunk more. Reason? A near miss on a porcupine is a miss....Used to work near a rendering plant, one day some prat pulled out under the nose of a fully loaded truck,... it was awful for weeks! many years ago, i used to work in Tiptree, and motorcycled in. Ohhhhh....The Strawberries!

cyclokitty 

Garbage day can be pretty ripe. But that's it.

I use to ride near a bakery and that was heavenly! Mmm fresh bread!

joshandlauri

I win, I have to drive past the sewage treatment plant, 150 feet high if not more and filled with crap!!!!



corretion me and coldfeet win.

joejack951

My only stink source is the mushroom farm about a block away from one part of my commute. The wind has to be blowing for me to smell it. The stink pales in comparison to the descriptions of the nastiness some people endure as posted above. Yuck.

ItsJustMe

I'll take any biological smell source over a badly tuned car. I ride past dairy and horse farms, no problems. Even roadkill and skunks aren't as bad as a crappy pickup spewing pollution though. Manure smell isn't carcinogenic.

SlimAgainSoon

Pig farm. Just unbelievable.

You can't cycle by one of those. You can only curse your luck, hope you survive and then permanently delete that route.

Feed lots for cattle ... that's big stink. Really big. But I'll take a feed lot over a pig farm any day.

Sewage plants? Not even close. Garbage trucks? Perfume by comparison.

The only thing that could possibly be worse would be the rendering plant. Now, that's gotta be badder than bad.

ted_major

I've got nothing on feed lots or pig farms, but a couple of miles after I pass the garbage transfer station, I pass a chicken processing plant on one side of the road and a sewage plant on the other.