Ducati Monster Forum

Most of my riding is commuting to and from work.  I have an over 40 mile ride each way on seconday roads in New
Hampshire.  One of the things I enjoy about riding is the different smells you pick up along the way.  Riding is a
feast for the senses.

Yesterday evening, it started when going by some people having a cookout.  The smell of burgers cooking on the grill made me
want to turn around for a bite.  A few minutes later I went past a farm where they had recently spread manure on the
fields.  That quickly took away the moment.

Other smells on the way home yesterday included...
A meadow full of wild flowers.
A lake with a noticiable breeze coming off and a relly clean smell.
A pine forest.
Fresh asphalt.
Roadkill skunk - it was a couple of days old so not too bad.  The fresh ones in the morning can be brutal.
An old ratty truck burning oil -- good candidate for cash for clunkers.
A sawmill and logyard with fresh cut wood.
fresh cut grass.
I'm not sure what caused it, but at one point I distinctly picked up the sweet smell of honeysuckle.
Burger King has a pretty recognizeable odor.
A seafood restaurant -- fried fish, clams, scallops, shrimp, outside and insdide.  That's where we went for supper
after I got home.

For the morning ride in, it was the garbage truck I was behind that was most memorable.

Other smells I'm familiar with include...
A landfill.
The ocean.
The smell of dirt from recent excavation or logging.

Anyone else have favorite or least favorite smells?

After living on the beach in FL for the first 27 years of my life, it's something I miss greatly.  I thought when I left FL to come to Atlanta and start my career, I'd never want to go back.

It's something I miss everyday, and I can't wait until I'm able to relocate back home somewhere.  Sure the mountains are a lot of fun, but you can't beat pushing a beachcat out through the surf in the AM and having a day of it.  Fishing, diving, sailing......

Yup, you could say I miss the smell of salt air.

Ever fall behind Cheech and Chong? That's always an amusing smell.

Gilroy CA.

The smells are quite seasonal, too, at least in NH.

I've noticed that, even though I wear a helmet on the bike and usually drive my car with the top down, I still smell many more things on the bike.

Garlic! :P

After five or six weeks indoors from healing from hip replacement, I finally got to ride the bike up our Hwy 28 towards Highlands NC to the Ga. state line on the Chatooga river (where they filmed Deliverance).  Over what we call Callus Gap you head down towards the river.  That very wet, mossy, creek bed, fern laden smell was like mother nature's own Chanel.  That first breath of 130 MPH air with that fragrance after so long being laid up was precious.  The familiarity of it along with the recent rarity of it was a very good shock to my senses.

Yea, I'm always aware of the smells - one of the many reasons motorcycling is such a good way to get around.  [thumbsup]

LA

I'm not a big fan of garlic..... but the smell as you head through town is yummy

Sometimes I feel a bit K9 for this very reason. Today, got on the freeway and headed to the coast for a little loop:

New tires, leather and Ducati in the garage ;D Love that smell
BBQ being lit - too much lighter fluid for about a mile
metal traffic smell of 280 south
Salty Pacific air on  the coast - fog rolling in over PCH
white flowers in the Sun in Golden Gate Park
Eucalyptus forest near the Presidio
Hot Ducati pulling into garage  ;D Love that smell

For me , it's the smell of the damp woods in the Fall .

I will ride up a back road into the woods and stop. Then smell all the woody smells, the smell of hickory nuts and walnuts in the fallen leaves and the soil has a rich fragrance that mixes with all the other smells I just mentioned especially the day after a rain.

I also love the smell of new leather. Maybe that's why I keep buying and reconditioning the leather I already have.

Dolph     :)

Nothing quite duplicates the smell when you are behind an NYC garbage truck you are afraid to pass due to the liquid oozing out of the bottom [puke]

One of life's little pleasures I'm glad I will not have the opportunity to experience   :P

Dolph

I notice when people in cars near me are smoking tobacco. That never happens in my car.

The only bad one is on my work commute I pass a refuse transfer station. That's a huge warehouse with a flat roof where garbage trucks dump their loads and large dump trucks take the garbage to the landfill. On hot summer days, that place is BRUTAL.

Ahh, yes. Low tide.

The most memorable? I was on my way to class one day last summer and rode into a "fog bank."

Turns out the local landfill had had a 3-alarm fire and I was riding into a giant cloud of plastic smoke.  [puke]

nothing quite beats that smell... when it puddles on the floor and evaporates through out the day.

i like the smell of iron pipes. i dunno why. it just smells awesome. Watermelon also drives me nuts. if a butt ugly fat chick took a shower in watermelon id be all over her.

Riding through the forest on a hot day and you dip down into a valley (usually by a waterway) where a fruit bat colony is roosting, not a disgusting smell, just distinctive.
Brings back instant memories of living in the tropics.

The main Road into the City leads past the largest Sewage treatment plant in town, and then 10 seconds after that you hit the main rubbish dump.

Smell so strong you can taste it!  [puke]

The smell from the the Sewage works first thing in the morning is just Eye Watering  :o

favorite,, i don't like to smell anything,, except sea breeze maybe!!
i hate fish market at the end of the auctions .. and fresh cut grass! makes me sneeze

+1 on all the smells listed.
Smoking is bad bad bad but I do enjoy a surreptitious whiff now and again.

I do the country road commute and hit many you listed.

Woodstoves and burning brushpiles.

got behind a guy the other day puffing on a cigar in his Jeep.  Knew what he was doing before I actually saw it.  Amazing how much you can pick up.

Some of my native smells in the Coastal GA area include Paper mills and Swamp. which are present 90% of the time blocking any pleasent smells from invading your nostrils.

i pass a bakery every day. that smell is amazing, esp combined with theburger joint right next to it.

however, if it has rained, i can smell the water treatment facility over either of those 2.

in winter i dont' smell much unless i'm behind someone running rich, we are stopped in traffic and someone is smoking, or if i get stuck behind the 18 wheelers hauling garbage out of philly. i can usually smell the snow though. before it starts there is a certain aroma, same thing with rain actually.
i love springtime because the smells get better. fresh mulch, flowers, fresh cut grass...a lot of them make my eyes water and i start sneezing. go allergies :-X

one route into the city goes by the zoo. i always know it's springtime when i can smell the zoo from the hwy.

omg. that's bad.

Last week early AM and only a double shot of espresso in me, riding along the delta from East Bay to Sacramento, long stretches of fields and not much else, and twice in different spots I was suddenly hit with a blast of cooking bacon smell...mmm  [bacon]. Cruel, but nice.

In general, when starting my commute back home from San Francisco, coming up the ramp and onto the Bay Bridge, I generally go by at least 2-4 cars that have a blast of dope smoke pouring out the window.  Nice smell, but geez, people can't even wait to get home before they blaze one up.  Phones, iPods, eating, radios, books, makeup, etc. are already bad enough.  Ah well, maybe they're less likely to get road rage that way.  ;D

I like the smell of Klotz when I pull up to a red light.  Don't smell it when I'm riding, or when I'm standing still, but it seems to catch up to me when I'm slowing to a stop.

Last Saturday I rode my new 1100S Monster to Bear Mountain Bridge and back home.  Along my ride on US 9W running parallel to the Hudson River, I didn't experience a feast or odors for my nose.  But when we got home and my bike was parked for the night I experienced that 'new bike' smell for the first time in my life.  :)  WOW!

Yesterday we rode to Sussex County NJ, where I got to feast upon fresh New Jersey Air (no that's not an oxymoron).  I crossed the Delaware River on Dingman's Bridge into PA.  Once in PA I smelled that PA grass in the eastern Poconos.  There is something about PA grass that has a sweet smell in the Summer.  On my loop home on I-84 I smelled someone burning wood or starting an early campfire.  As I recrossed the Delaware river on I-84 I could smell the forthcoming of Rain.  (I had no rain gear with me)  The clouds were gathering all day and the sun was not seen for a few hours.  When we arrived home I once again could sample that 'new bike' smell. :)

RidnDucati

i rode thru jerome, az a few years ago (well, maybe about 10) and the combination of the forest and the old town and the harleys was pretty nice.  i was on a borrowed monster and got at least a couple of thumbs-up from the locals (almost all bikers)

Every once in a while I can smell a woman's perfume when riding behind a car,  must have way too much on.  i smell weed smoke occasionally, I always try to pull up next to them and stare at them to make them paranoid, then speed away before they accidentally run me off the road. 

Love going by bakeries.

Smelling weed on the freeway is always a little disconcerting.

I love messing with high people!!  Although about a month ago I was behind an SUV with dark tint and big rims and smelled and saw smoke pouring out the window.  I was expecting a young dude when I pulled up next to him and it the dude was in his 60s with a suit on.  Kind of ridiculous to see him puffing on a big fat blunt. ;D

why ridiculous?

old guys gotta relax too

ridiculous to be risking driving not sober, but kudos to him for doing what works for him.

as a recovering cigarette smoker, i can smell it 8 cars back. glad to have quit, happy to be able to smell... and breathe... but do miss the experience of having a smoke. a cigar or pipe once a week or so keeps it all in check, but it isn't the same.

other smells: the garage in the morning (yes it is different than the car), cut grass, the dozen mexican food places that make fresh tortillas on my ride in...

you never know, it may have been a rolled cigarette and he just stank of weed.

i knew a guy like that.  he smelled like weed all the time.  and his name was Frederic.  and he was fat.

yes, we called him Fat Freddy Freak.

(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3036/3019369890_0d9a121823.jpg)

he was no Mr Natural!!

One of a kind....

high-larious.  I also came upon a car with weed smoke/smelll pouring out...thought the same, must be some young punks. Turns out to be an elderly couple, man and woman, passing a joint back and forth, not even trying to be on the down low.  They were old as dirt too.  I thought man, strike one for being that old and still driving, slower reaction and all, and strike two for being HIGH to boot.  I'm pro old people as I'm nearly there myself, but sheesh, keep the weed at home gramps. :D

Cypress Hill - I Wanna Get High (With Lyrics) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaX3D8MVhNc#lq-lq2-hq-vhq)

i smelled a 'Cuda today coming home....

woodward dream cruise in full effect!

I smelled something today on a ride that was a 1st for me.

I bet not many of you have smelled this either.

I thought it was a dead Squirrel but as I went by it looked very different.

I turned around and pulled up next to it and shut my bike off and there dead in the road barely damaged was a Mink !

I could smell the musky odor of the Mink and it was strange.

There were flies starting to land on it so I felt it better to let it lay deceased in the high vegetation along a nearby creek.

I picked it up by it's back feet and threw it into the heavy vegetation and left wishing it had made it across the road to where ever it was going.

Dolph      :)

where are you?

mink and ferrets look a lot alike.

and why would you stop for roadkill anyhow??? makin a stew?

South Eastern , Ohio.

It was only the 2nd Mink I've ever seen and I know the difference between Ferrets and Mink.

I used to trap Fox , Musk Rats, and Raccoons when I was in Junior H. S.

Sold the pelts for $$$$.

I tried to trap Mink but they are few and far between where I could trap and they are wylie.

It was barely damaged like it got a glancing blow so not like the usual roadkill.

Dolph    :)

and she would eat you for attacking her  ;D