Bike-related smells that you like

[Mick Mudd]

The smell of summer rain on a warm road is pretty kool, and incidentally a TT champion (Alf Engers?) said some years ago that he seems to go better if its been raining.
Perhaps each raindrop releases oxygen when it hits the road, i dunno.

 

[youngoldbloke]

The smell of summer rain on a warm road is pretty kool, and incidentally a TT champion (Alf Engers?) said some years ago that he seems to go better if its been raining.
Perhaps each raindrop releases oxygen when it hits the road, i dunno.

Petrichor

 

[rogerzilla]

The smell of summer rain on a warm road is pretty kool, and incidentally a TT champion (Alf Engers?) said some years ago that he seems to go better if its been raining.
Perhaps each raindrop releases oxygen when it hits the road, i dunno.

There's certainly more oxygen per litre in cooler air, as any car tuner knows. Summer rain tends to drop the temperature by several degrees.

 

[Mick Mudd]

Speaking of oxygen, Merckx plumped to go for the hour record in Mexico City because the track was at 7500 feet altitude so there was less air resistance up there, obviously his advisers recommended it but I can't help wondering if the downside was that there was also less oxygen up there which would have impeded his performance?
(A WW1 pilot (Cecil Lewis?) once said in a book something like "Gosh it's hard fighting at 10,000 feet" because of the lack of oxygen.)

Interestingly, Merckx's record has been beaten 10 times after that. (chart below).
(I've googled each track and found that the highest post-Merckx track was the Aguascalientes track in Mexico at 5905 feet where Victor Campanaerts took the record in 2019)
(The two Swiss tracks Grenchen and Aigle despite being in a mountainous country were at 1480 feet and 1329 feet altitudes respectively)

(PS- I wish I could find a chart giving the distances in miles; I'm a dinosaur and never could get used to all this metres and kilometres stuff)

 

[wafter]

I find the smell of tubeless tyre sealant in the wild is yet another thing that triggers my anxiety

 

[rogerzilla]

Speaking of oxygen, Merckx plumped to go for the hour record in Mexico City because the track was at 7500 feet altitude so there was less air resistance up there, obviously his advisers recommended it but I can't help wondering if the downside was that there was also less oxygen up there which would have impeded his performance?
(A WW1 pilot (Cecil Lewis?) once said in a book something like "Gosh it's hard fighting at 10,000 feet" because of the lack of oxygen.)

Interestingly, Merckx's record has been beaten 10 times after that. (chart below).
(I've googled each track and found that the highest post-Merckx track was the Aguascalientes track in Mexico at 5905 feet where Victor Campanaerts took the record in 2019)
(The two Swiss tracks Grenchen and Aigles despite being in a mountainous country were at 1480 feet and 1329 feet altitudes respectively)

View attachment 717903

Eddy would have stayed there for some weeks beforehand to acclimatise (he would grow more red blood cells to compensate). If he'd just hopped on a plane from Belgium and tried, he'd have done a poor distance.

 

[Mick Mudd]

Here's that chart again, I've shopped in a 'Miles' column with the aid of an online 'metres to miles' converter so I can understand it better..

 

[Brandane]

Worst smell: the stench of Lynx Africa from a time triallist who had a Glasgow shower before signing in.

Glasgow shower?
Having used the public transport systems of several UK cities, I would have to say that Glaswegians are positively anal about personal hygiene when compared to a certain city in the SE of England where they use red buses and an extensive underground train system. Soap dodgers doesn't even begin to describe some of them .

 

[Mick Mudd]

Speaking of the hour record, Filippo Ganna is the current holder by achieving a speed of 35.2 mph.
As a matter of interest, what's the top sustained speed of time-triallists nowadays over a similar distance, for example what sort of sustained speed do club time-triallists achieve in 25-mile TT's?
(My personal best speed was 23 mph but that was only in a short flat 10 mile TT)

 

[rogerzilla]

Glasgow shower?
Having used the public transport systems of several UK cities, I would have to say that Glaswegians are positively anal about personal hygiene when compared to a certain city in the SE of England where they use red buses and an extensive underground train system. Soap dodgers doesn't even begin to describe some of them .

Bristol's not great either. BO or weed. I blame the student population.