why does lube smell so good?
 

Am I just sick, or does lube and grease smell... almost like flowers? It smells sweet and beautiful. I find myself sinffing the tri-flow bottle, then the bearing grease tub.
Do the manufacturers put some kind of flowery scent in this stuff?

oh my lol

:lol: I dont know, but your post could be interpreted in very perverted ways. (Which is exactly how I read it.)

:bday:

I have the same issue, because I use bacon grease to lube my bike.

Okay, I'm in a funny / wise cracking mood and after making this post earlier
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=107718
I just can't get my mind out of the gutter, especially when it comes to lube!
But I'll refrain from saying anything at this point and spend the rest of the day trying to figure out how I'm going to beat my racing partner when I get off of work.
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=107855

heheh. you <3 you bicycle!

Flowery scent lube? yeah, it's available... not at a bike shop, and not for greasing up bike parts... but this is a family forum, so I'll leave the rest to your imagination.

FWIW, sniffing grease and/or lube is really bad for you.

It's just you.

[QUOTE=2mtr] I find myself sinffing


Ummmm. Did you mean "sniffing" or SINffing..... HOOOO BOY!

Cross Country Lube smells nice, I would rock it if it was a cologne or air freshener. Sadly I consider the smell its only redeeming quality, as a lube I do not enjoy it.

Holy Crap!!! I just about spit up all over my keyboard! :lol:

You are a sick puppy!

Continuing in the same know-it-all vein that has made me so loved elsewhere in the bikeforums:

Some solvents used for carriers in chain lubricants are derived from a class of chemical compounds called esters. Esters are "sweet smells" and are often used as flavorings in candies and foods. Esters are produced by a process called esterification in which an alcohol is combined with an organic acid. For example, if you take methanol (wood alcohol) and add it to butyric acid (rancid butter), you get methyl butyate which is one of the odors in pineapple (I think, it's been a long time). If you take salicyclic acid (aspirin) and add methanol to it, you get methyl salicyclate which is oil of wintergreen. One chain lubricant used amyl acetate which is the essence of bananas.

There are lots of other chemical compounds that have a pleasant odors, many of them derived from petroleum. Sometimes pleasant odors can be combined with unpleasant odors and the result can be lovely. That's what perfumers do.

You also have to add to that the fact that we are individuals. What you find pleasant may be vile to someone else.

Oh. My. God.

I thought I was the only one! I was actually considering mixing a little Tri-Flow into my aftershave. It says "Manly and well maintained."

I agree that some of the chemicals can smell good. The best one was when we used to run castor oil in our two-stroke race bikes. The combination of a leaded race fuel :eek: and castor (man that was ages ago) was pleasently intoxicating :D

:beer:

Whip open a bottle of Boeshield-T9 and you'll change your tune. That stuff reeks!

Also, I've recently switched over to marine grease to lube my hubs and bearings and if you ask me that stuff smells like a dog's ass ... er, uhm, I imagine that it smells like a dog's ass 'cause I really don't know. :o No, really! I'm serious!

Anyone ever smell triflow? It smells REALLY good, like bananas! I'm not kidding. Go down to your LBS and ask for a bottle of triflow, and then smell it!

Holy crap

Sometimes getting on this board is worth reading your comments

If you think it smells good, you will LOVE the way it tastes! YUMM!!! Also, it really helps if you are suffering from constipation.

Better watch out! I know a guy who ended up in rehab for six weeks because of that stuff. It takes forever to get Teflon out of your system.

That's what it is! Bannanas! TriFlow smells like bannanas. Or at least like bannana Laffy Taffy.
Thanks for the scientific explanation. Now I can tell all those naysayers to shut the fizzuck up when they say I'm just a reject from Deliverence. I'll stop by my shrink and see if it has anything to do with my youth riding on a co-ed tiathalon team. Those quick transitions lend themselves to creating nice sensory memories.

Yeah TriFlow smells like banana Laffy Taffy, or gum, etc that fake-banana smell.

WD-40 does always remind me of childhood, we used it on bikes and stuff because we didn't know any better.

Some of those ..... esters.... or whatever they are smell great, once I got a cold sore and it hurt like heck!! I never realized how much a person has to move their mouth, to eat and stuff, so I was very motivated to get it cured, so I got a tube of Blistex and put a big white glob of it on the sore, and kept it that way. I figured I probably looked really weird with this glob of white stuff on the edge of my mouth, but it beat the pain and that stuff smells great! It smells like cloves.... sorta... so I looked weird but smelled good, I figured.