Originally Posted by
PaulRivers
1. Regarding smell, you can sweat quite a bit and still not smell if you're clean. The smell comes from bacteria that lives on your skin, so if you shower before biking you probably won't smell when you get there even if you sweat quite a bit. Some of the same advice might apply to your clothes - don't wear something stinky, haha.
This is why ( or one reason why ) cyclists fall head over heals in love with merino wool. Wool is an inhospitable environment to the bacteria that produces the stink; they don't do any better in wool than naked people do in Antarctica. You can sweat to your heart's content and not smell. People go for merino in particular because it's a very soft wool.
I wear merino almost every day ( even on the exceedingly rare days I don't get on the bike ) and at the end of a ride in, I take a "bird bath."