Porcupines. They smell bad enough when they're alive (although SnowDog has a taste for them) let alone when they've been on the side of the road for a few days.

All the time on my rural 50+ mile route here in Southern CT. I would say, on this route, I regularly come across 10 or more dead animals. Last week, I came around a bend not 30 seconds after a Cadillac, with a retired couple, smashed into a deer head-on.....what a MESS!!!!....The dear was disemboweled, but, thankfully, the driver and passenger were not seriously injured. I'm just glad I wasn't 30 seconds faster.

I eat my road kill

As my dear departed father used to say, "Nature in the raw is seldom mild."

Do as any homicide detective will tell you to do...breathe in and out through your mouth.

I guess you could avoid the whole 'stink in the country' by doing all your riding in the CITY.

I'll take manure spreaders and the ocassional bad judgment of a 'coon over the CITY any day (altho big pig operations are pretty bad)

Depends on your city. I'm a city rider, and I can tell you all about roadkilled possums, squirrels, and feral cats. Oddly. I've never come across a flat rat, and I'm not complaining.

That doesn't always work, sometimes it is rank enough that you can taste it. I try to hold my breath. If I am going uphill that doesn't work.

It is funny how you can tell what it used to be even when it is only a chunk of flat fur. I guess I am an expert in roadkill ID. :D

Can you smell the difference between human death and road kill?

Yeah, pig operations are bad - but CHICKEN op's are in my opinion worse by far. Never rode by one on the bike (yet) but let me tell you that my truck and I exit the area quickly as possible when I come across one.

I encounter road kill on every ride, when I see it I gauge the wind direction and plan the holding of my oxygen intake and then play a game with myself to see how long I can hold it. When I exhale I then look back to see how much ground I've covrered. :p

A few years ago somebody slammed into an Emu. The smell wasn't the worst bit -- the worst bit was the 300-yd semicircle of feathers.

Heh this thread reminds me of a godawful 300 meter stretch of road I ride on. Anyone here from northern OH who rides on riverview road probably knows what Im talking about. During my century rides I ride all the way down to Akron by way of riverview which is always a great ride running next to the canal. BUT! BUT! right outside Akron there is a Compost treatment facility right next to road. Just imagine a overpowering rotting cow/horse dung smell with a horrid chemical bleach tinge to itl. Breathing through your mouth helps only a little but I have it in my head that if I breath through my mouth Im actually eating the molecules of s#$t. Ack I can smell it now... and I have another century ride planned tommorow. Hot and humid too I cant wait :(

Alex

actually yes....in fact, even different manors of death smell completely different. "floaters" smell completely different than say someone who been in a fire. The worse ones have to be "decomps"...today we had a homicide from a gunshot wound to the head.....then he was put into the trunk of the car for a few days....maybe a week.

....its been about a 100F here the last few days. Can you say ripe?

Think I got you all beat. On a commute two weeks ago saw a (about 7") FISH by the side of the road. Nearest river is about two miles and several hundred feet lower. Dam - if he had just made it across that highway!

You've obviously never owned one. I've had mine since '94, and it is BY FAR the most reliable and well built car I've ever owned. Tha includes Hondas, Toyotas, and just about anything else you can name. Outside of regular maintenance like oil, tires and such, nary a breakdown. Gets pretty good gas mileage (24/HWY), and after 12 years of ownership I still giggle sometimes when I drive it.

I can even rack a bike on the top. But no soul-less newfangled Orbea like for me, I reserve that spot for my 1974 Mondia Super. :D

John D.

That's pretty bad, I know from first hand experience. However, the worst two words are "Cow Truck". Anyone who has lived near a dairy knows what I"m talking about. Each week, cows at the dairy die, and are piled up at the side of the road. There is a truck that comes by once a week to pick them up. That truck is the definition of the "Scent of Death".

It's even worse in the summer in California, when the cows get to "marinate" in their own juices (and gases) for a week in 100+ degree heat. I dare anyone to throw a rock at a bloated cow and not puke at the result.

I second the porcupine nomination. I'd nominate the 'possum as a close second.

When I was young and stupid, I was riding my old Triumph Bonneville motorcycle through the countryside and saw a paper bag in the road. I lowered my left foot and kicked it as I went past. Seems it wasn't a bag at all, but rather a sun-bloated carcass of some sort of roadkill. Cat? Rabbit? It splattered all over my leg and the bike. :eek: Yuck! Lesson learned, of course.

Good riding,
desmobob (with a strong nose and a weak stomach)

A bud of mine and I rode past a dead buzzard. Yummy compared to the numerous sasquatches on the sides of the roads 'round here. You NorthWesterners know what I'm talking about. 8' of decomposing hairy ape-man just isn't nice to the nostrils.

Cole

Beavers! Damn they stink like hell!

Not if they're showered and shaved.....ummmmm....oops, wrong forum..... :o

there's nothing like a rural ride out past newly fertilized farms. A few miles of cow crap and my pace slows down to avoid breathing as much as possible. I second the cow pile. Thats just nasty. It does help if you're hungry though, clears it right up.