Here’s another great article on dealing with odor problems – this one geared towards bicycling enthusiasts and written for Bicycling Magazine. They’re absolutely right: You should wash your athletic apparel regularly, shouldn’t use fabric softeners, and a sports wash can help cut down on the odor.

But then it just comes right back again on your next ride, and their sport wash recommendation makes no claims about lasting. How to keep odor from coming back?

OdorBalance is the answer. OdorBalance pre-treats and then protects the surface of sports apparel, equipment, and footwear with a unique odor-fighting technology. Our system attracts and neutralizes unwanted chemicals, detergents, soil, and pollutants and is biodegradable, odorless, and hypoallergenic. Once applied properly, OdorBalance is long-lasting and bonds to the article. Then it keeps on performing again and again.

Our simple cleaning system will provide long-lasting odor protection while extending the life of high perfomance apparel, gear, & footwear. OdorBalance’s new formulated cleaning products restore, protect, and maintain.

Read their article below or check it out on their site.

How to Get Rid of Cycling Clothing Odor

You Smell

By Michael Frank
Close proximity and the peleton go hand in hand. Here’s how to keep your kit feeling (and smelling) fresh.

There is a guy, Ralph, on my ride. You can’t draft him unless there’s a breeze refreshing the gap between his jersey and your nose. When I told Ralph I was writing about smelly packs, he said, “I know what you mean. If I ride behind Mitch, I can’t believe it. The ride’s just started and he reeks.” Then it occurred to me: If everyone thinks the other guy stinks, chances are good that I do too, or at least some of my cycling clothing does.

The nasty truth is that this invisible affront to cycling etiquette is nearly universal—at least some of your riding gear has a stench that just doesn’t go away, even after washing. “We call it ‘permafunk,’” says Sandy Nicholls, marketing director for Giordana clothing and other brands. Here’s what you can do to defeat permafunk—and what to wear so it doesn’t happen in the first place.

MECHANICS OF STINK Technical clothing, especially when it’s synthetically based, has very tightly woven fibers. The tight weave makes the garment relatively rugged and lightweight, and can contribute to the fabric’s stretchiness as well as durability. But a tight weave has a potentially ugly downside: a million tiny spaces that promote bacterial growth. The good news is that it’s not you who smells, it’s your stuff. The better news is that killing the bacteria, or at least inhibiting its growth, even on synthetics, isn’t that difficult.

STOP THE STENCH Some of the solutions are obvious. “Don’t leave your just-worn clothing in a gym bag overnight and don’t wear it for several rides in a row without washing it,” says Castelli’s brand manager, Steve Smith. Instead, do wash it right after riding, “and hang it on a line to dry, because these fabrics do better air drying than being broken down by the heat of a dryer,” Smith says.

It may smell fine dry, but if the stench returns 15 minutes into a ride, you didn’t defunk it enough. To take it to the next level, try using hydrogen peroxide along with your regular laundry detergent, or use a color-safe anti-stink detergent such as No Sweat ($37/2 liters, or 64 washes; nosweatlaundry.com), which contains hydrogen peroxide in a low concentration. As for other so-called eco ways to stifle bacteria, we found no evidence that adding citronella, peppermint, tea tree or other oils to the wash does anything but temporarily mask the smell. And whatever you do, avoid the use of fabric softeners, cautions Castelli’s Smith: “The chemicals in fabric softeners really damage the breathability of high-performance fabrics.”