Guest Article: Bikes Smell Awesome Too.
@snoov moves the topic away from Lance, doping, EPMS, and Berty’s Spanish adventures. Our brains are so crammed with nonsense our childhood memories get jammed deep down into the center. A memory waits to be released and sometimes it’s a remembered smell that floats it up to the surface.
VLVV, Gianni
My front tyre has been losing more air than the rear for a couple of months now. I’d just figured it was the valve as I had clumsily bent the little pin that’s inside while removing the pump before we hit the road. I bent it back and it seemed to be okay. It has always lasted our rides but this evening I decided to strip the tube off and test it in a basin of water. To my surprise there was no air escaping from the valve but there was a tiny hole in the tube so I patched it up and put it back on the bike. It occurs to me now that the low pressure of a tube out of the tyre is nothing compared to my normal 120psi and so if the valve was leaking, this test probably wouldn’t show it. Then I decided to test all the tubes I have lying around and repair any holes so that they’re all ready to go. To be fair I’ve only had two punctures since taking to the roads and one was a classic pinch puncture bumping up the kerb-cut right outside my flat as I arrived home from a ride.
I didn’t find any holes, but when I let the air out of the first tube right in front of my face I took a deep breath of the expelled air. The smell was delicious. It brought back memories of the many punctures I’ve fixed in my time on bikes. It brought back the lesson I learned when my Dad dropped me off at the only skatepark in Scotland and at the time when it was one of the best in Europe. I had an American BMX that I’d begged my parents to order over for my birthday and Christmas which I’d also committed my life savings towards, an SE Racing Quadangle. I had arrived with a puncture which I planned on making good but after pumping it up for the second time and rolling forward … pssss. I was too keen to ride and one of the locals asked if I’d checked the tyre for glass. I hadn’t and found a large piece straight away, once the third puncture was fixed my Dad arrived and it was time to go home, day wasted.
The smell also took me back to when I was still at Primary School (maybe 8 or so) and had gotten my first puncture. I went into the house and told my Mum. She said we’d have to go down to Woolworth’s and get a Puncture Repair Outfit! Now that was exciting, I remember thinking how great it was going to be and tried to imagine what it would look like, what it would consist of and even what colour it would be. The disappointment of not being able to ride my bike had completely disappeared, I was getting a Puncture Repair OUTFIT!!! Not only was I going to be able to fix punctures, I was going to look fantastic while doing it. I hadn’t even begun to imagine what other activities would now be open to me. So, we got in the car. We drove to the shops down near the beach and esplanade. Parked up and walked towards “Woolies”. I can’t help wondering if my Mum had noticed my level of excitement, and maybe questioned that somehow, my expectations were somehow out of wack. I’m pretty sure she noticed the tears though, when she picked up the box and showed it to me. It was about 15 centimetres long (6″) and I just knew that there was no way going to be an overall in there.
I notice that no one has ever done a reverence article on flared trousers (see awesome picture above).
They were a bugger to tuck in to Pathfinder socks.
I love the smell of inner-tube in the morning, it smells like…victory.
You do realise there’s a body on the grass behind you in the picture don’t you?
I remember the first bike shop I ever frequented as a kid: Dooley’s Cycles in Paisley. It was a cramped, cave-like place nestled in the lee of a railway viaduct. Upon entering the crowded shop, jammed full of bikes and accessories, to reach the small counter, you were struck by a heady scent of oil, grease and rubber. Sure the air was probably a bit musty too, but it was intoxicating as if one was breathing special cycling air. It’s still there, a bit smarter and cleaner than in my childhood, but there still that scent that modern shops just seem to lack.
Tea spoons as tyre leavers no doubt.
Was the skatepark Livingstone? I always wanted to go there but we lived in the south of England – Romford was the one I went to the most and it was brilliant.
Bravo! A lovely piece.
The mere mention of SE Quadangle fills me with envy. I always wanted one of those, but had to make do with a DP Freestyler……
My only real beef with Park glueless patches is the lack of glue. At the end of the road season a couple of my like minded buddies and I would gather up all our punctured tubes, get out the TipTop Touring Patch kit, throw “Hot Dog The Movie” in the VCR (a ode to the pending ski season) and huff glue under the guise of saving money and the environment.
Good times.
Yes! The smell of the bike shop. I remember walking into Bicycle Center in Danbury, Connecticut as a kid, or when I would patch a tire, the scent should be a perfume. It might not work for everyone, but I’d be all over that.
I had a hutch trickster with redline flight cranks and green skyways. It was a beauty.
My friend had a quadangle but the frame kept cracking. He also had a sky blue PK Ripper that I always lusted after.
I go to the local bike shop somewhat weekly to eat lunch at the work counter — and study whatever operation is underway.
Ha, that photos is just great! Nice one, snoov. Very cool. I have pretty poor eyesight so I like to think I have heightened smell. More than once I’ve been out on a bike and passed a pretty girl, had her perfume reach my nose…and be immediately taken back to a GF from my past who wore the same one. Totally crazy to me a little perfume can transport me back five, ten, or fifteen years!
scaler – Ha, Hot Dog! We’d watch a lot of North Shore growing up! Had it on a vhs taped off of HBO. Rick Kane is the man! And gotta love Turtle as well.
@scaler911
now we dont even bother with th formality of the movie…
I hope you didn’t wear the bell bottoms to the skatepark. Obvious feax pas.
My bike shop only smells like money being vacuumed from my wallet. Sort of a burning smell, really…
Great piece and the photos are priceless. That John Bull repair outfit looks Ace as well. The ones I used as a kid in the US never came with a cigar, and the only nail was the one I was pulling out of my tyre.
Nice one @snoov. If that’s you on the left, then you are my childhood doppelgänger! Me and my friend had our own little ‘bike shop’ set up in our vestibule, and would fix punctures for our mates and do general tweaking, usually making our Dragsters into early mountain bikes by removing as many parts as we could, then going and jumping the crap out of them in the bush behind my house. This is the full-pimped version of the Dragster…
Oh dear, looks like I was rocking an EPMS back then too!
@mxlmax
Does the owner charge a Cover Fee? I ink Brooke at SpeedyReedy is about to start when I walk in, but she knows that $5 doesn’t come close tot he reduction in productivity when I’m in the shop, all noisy and wandering behind “Employee Only” lines like I work there or something.
@snoov
awesome. I love the smell of bikes. The old patch kits I used were probably the ones @sclaer911 mentioned; the smelled like cement glue. FAVORTIE. SMELL. EVER.
Now my shop smells like grease, Simple Green, TriFlo, DuMond Tech, and talcum (baby) powder. (For the tubes, not my ass.) if I’m lucky enough to have recently purchased some tires, it will smell like rubber, too.
I love the smell when I walk down there.
Fantastic post. I cut into a bell pepper recently while prepping dinner and smelled California’s central coast where I logged thousands of hours of training rides in my youth. The memories of cycling innocence and discovery are gold given the current bullshit.
@brett
I recognize you by the wedgie you’re sporting.
Is that a suicide lever on the top tube? Top marks, why the fuck haven’t we done an Anatomy of a Photo on that one?
Other smells: cow shit takes me right home to my old training rides. The smell of ozone has me at the top of “killer hill” back home in North Oaks in an instant…WD-40 has me drilling wholes in a custom metal cleat adapter I made for my old Duegi shoes to take SPDs like Motorola were riding. Man, I love that shit.
@brett love the white sidewalls and air horn very pimp but whats with the full on touring pannier rack on the front. Those pedals were fucking awful, they always felt like the were slightly twisted and were constantly falling apart and spewing ball bearings everywhere.
Awesome shirt.
@snoov – now you’re back can we get down to organising a Cogal?
Snoov, nice story
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaW0M6V85j8
@brett
That banana seat brings back memories as I learned to ride on a bananaseated Schwinn. On the first day when I figured it out, I rode up and down the block until my legs were ready to fall off and it was time for dinner. On the second day, I learned how to pop a wheelie and kept popping bigger and bigger wheelies until I went right over backwards and on my ass.
@brett
Awesome photo. You guys were more sophisto than us in the bike pimping department. The banana seat, stick shift and sissy bar/back rest was required for the pimp bike.
@snoov, where the hell are you? Great post. I really do love the way a smell can get straight to a memory that would otherwise be hard to conjure up. And that repair outfit photo is a killer.
@the Engine
I fear he is not back. I planned to post this and let him know yesterday what I was up to…nothing back.
I literally have no sense of smell. None. Can you describe this smell in colors?
@frank
you ever ride into south St Paul? the old stock yards must have reeked, now they are all gone and buisness parks have been built.
I love the smell of Campagnolo Original Spare Parts — namely a new set of Brake Pads (BR-RE700). Changing pads is tedious, but feels good (smells good) when it is done.
@RedRanger
That’s a remarkable asset if you have to deal with nappies. SWHMBIAV’s brother has the same lack of smell and a one year old, and his wife considers that an unfair advantage.
@minion
It really is. But it also scares the shit out of me. several years back I was working in a meat packing plant that ran cold. there was an ammonia leak that no one told me about and I worked the entire shift in that shit.
Love the smell of my bike shop. Only thing that is better is the smell of a saddlery. Leather saddles, leather reins, leather bridles… totally intoxicating. Since I rode ponies before a bike I am not being disloyal to my bike shop!
This is a really nice post, with the familiarity of a number of smells associated with cycling over the years.
There is a palpable sense of achievement and relief when you ride far enough out of a built up urban area that you can detect the change in air quality – I’d plan rides to get as far out of town as efficiently as possible so I could spend most of the ride breathing fresh air (and, unavoidably, the smell of cowshit) before heading back.
The smell of new tires, also is something I find quite exciting – probably because I will bang on some new tires before an important race, or a ride I’d been looking forward to.
And on bike shops, the best ones are the small, crowded ones that require rummaging and trying to impress grumpy old bastards. An increasing number of bike shops are large, airy, designed by advertisers and product managers in completely lifeless barns.
@RedRanger Yikes! I rode with a guy who was deaf in his right ear, (had shit balance and would write off two frames a year or so) but the really dodgy bit was riding in a paceline with him – if he was on the inside he couldn’t hear what you were saying so he insisted on riding on the outer traffic side. Thing was then he couldn’t hear traffic coming – and if you were having a chat in the paceline he’d turn his head toward you to hear better. A number of times trucks would whistle past him millimetres away from his shoulder without him noticing was quite scary.
@minion Of all the senses to not have smell is the easiest to work around. I mean I can still taste things. its more of an occupational hazard for the field I am working to getting into.
@Nate
Was it Yellow? I had one of those as my first bike too. No training wheels in those days, dad put me on it, pushed me down the low grade hill in our trailer park (yep those were the poor white trash days), and I didn’t know how to brake, or steer. Straight off the road into a fallen pine tree.
Been riding and crashing ever since.
@RedRanger interesting! It’s cool you can taste, many people with anosmia cannot. Although, if I couldn’t taste, it’d be helpful for my climbing weight.
Thanks for the post Snoov, pretty amazing what our senses can remind us of.
I always associate the smell of the bike with trees. In New Hampshire everywhere you ride is through trees, So if it seems I end up thinking of different parts of different rides by their tree scent. One of my favorites is a bridge over a river near home the pops you out of the trees for a moment and raises you above everything. The river below is easily 50 feet down. Yet here cleared of the tree walls that usually surround, it always smell even more clearly of fresh pine. It wraps around me so thickly that I often stop thinking completely and just soak in it involuntary. Tree love is just a hazard of living in NH as a USDA study last month announced NH is the most forested state (by percentage, not acres, we’re too small for that) at 88.9% of the state is forested. I know that’s not the bike itself, but it’s what I always think of.
@scaler911
I miss coaster brakes. Mine was metallic pine green. It probably weighed more than my entire current stable of 3 road bikes put together.
@RedRanger
We have a local climb called Pig Farm. Once upon a time there was, yes, a pig farm on top. Must have been diabolical — it’s a climb that just gets steeper and steeper, ending in a 14% wall, with the farm on top. Can only imagine what it must have smelled like up there on a hot day.
After giving the steed a thorough clean the night before a long morning ride, the smell of WD-40 and grease stays on your hands all night. Each time you catch a whiff, the smell reminds you of the joy that is coming the next day of a beautifully smooth ride.
So many memories….
There was a shop in Blackburn ,Victoria, Australia run by a grumpy old man, was early in my cycling that I frequented it. Was full of crap but a wonderful place.
One of the things I loved was that he sold bikes, guns, ammo and darts. What more do you need?
Sadly he is no longer with us and a redevelopment has replaced the old shop.
@minion
We used to ride with a deaf guy in the days before SIS. You forget just how much you need a sense of hearing as well as feel make friction gears work. He was always between gears – never enough to skip but enough to make the world’s most irritating mechanical rattle.
@all
Thanks. I’m back from Australia and have this awesomeness to come back to (my story on this site). I’m just about to go out for the first ever ride with my VMH on the bike I built for her which has been gathering dust for 6 months. I’ll have more time to enjoy the posts and respond later. Hope it’s as beautiful a day where you all are today and that you get to go for a ride.
Out where we ride along the back roads there are large palace compounds and walled private areas.
Several of them have camel herds which are allowed to roam around but there are stables, which tend to be at the back near our cycle routes.
If you have never smelled a camel – let alone a whole bunch of camels and camel shit – I advise you not to seek out the experience.
My first bike was bought from the great Bluebird Cycles in Petone, Wellington, and I got given it for my 7th birthday. I remember the Campagnolo and Dunlop smell of Bluebirds very well indeed…almost as well as I remember the smell of the kowhai trees in Tui Road where I first learned to ride that gleaming machine I dubbed “The Red Baron”…
To forestall the inevitable comments, it was a unisex bike, alright? Not a girls bike. And the carrier was there for dubbing my mates and carrying my delivery copies of the Eastbourne Courier. Note also the stripped rear mudguard and chainguard, yet with the cunning front mudguard stopping any splashing with, er, mud.
@the Engine
A Scottish Cogal. Now that would be a treat.
Nice article Snoov. Got me thinking back too many years to the days of Tom Clarks in the High Street. Odd combination of bikes, fishing and darts but mostly bikes. Now that was a unique shop ‘atmosphere’. His window display of sun faded bike parts and accessories from the past always fascinated. I wish I’d just bought up bucket loads of bits when he retired and it closed down all those years ago.
The lead photo has only gotten more awesome now that I see a second neighbor…sunning in the backyard! Ha.
My first smell of the bike came in the form of vulcanizing patches that my father would take pride in showing us how it was done. Strike the match and watch the sparkling fizzle followed by the smell of sulphurey smoke and rubber. Good times the 70’s!
@JohnB
October – Aberfeldy?
Why don’t we figure out where everyone is and then think of somewhere central for a Scottish Cogal?
I’m in Dundee. Aberfeldy would be fine for me, an hour or so by car which would stop me having more than one beer afterwards (I don’t really drink though so no problem).
Late breaking news….
Mrs Engine has offered the use of our place in Callander and food. If the numbers creep over, say, three – then we’ve got places to send people locally that won’t beak the bank and will allow the consumption of proper recovery beverages in Callander in a bar that sells Belgian beer (sometimes) – and provided we behave – Mrs Engine will still feed us.
She will also take the piss mercilessly….