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Today I knew we were going to ride about 60K, but I wanted to get in some slightly longer miles, so I took off in the morning for 50K on my own. I climbed up into Castagneto Carducci. The road goes into switchbacks as you climb up into the hillside, and pretty soon, you can see the sun reflecting on the Mediterranean offshore. The land below is perfectly-manicured in tiered gardens and landscaped groves, olives and vines as far as the eye can see. And the empty eye of a castle stares at you from an adjacent hillside.

Past Castagneto, I rode up to Sassetta, another town that looks like it was cut into the hillside some thousands of years ago. Tiny cobbled streets wind between the buildings, old women in house dresses stroll the roadways carrying water from the town spring, and old men stare from their seats at the cafes, like they’ve never seen a woman ride by alone on a bike before.

After Sassetta is my favorite road in the world to ride. I kid you not. If I had twenty minutes to live, I’d want a bike that handles well around turns and a chance to ride from Sassetta to Suvereto without another human being in sight.

The road is so perfect, I can only explain it by saying that you literally float through the turns. There’s just enough of a descent that you hardly need to pedal (except to pull yourself out of the turns quickly) and the turns are all just tight enough to lay the bike to the side underneath you but you never even have to tap your brakes. And this morning, I never saw a single car. Not one. Just floated that road like gravity didn’t exist for a moment in time.

I was giddy. Laughing to myself as I rolled down the steeper section into Suvereto.

I came back around the back roads and climbed up into Sasseta just as I knew the others would be leaving the hotel. I was starting to get hungry. Forgot to pack anything with me to eat and had just had a bowl of cereal in the morning. I was descending back down into Castagneto when I saw Riccardo’s van coming by filled with the women who didn’t want to do the initial climb. I shouted to him in my usual garbled Italian: Devo mangiare qualcosa! I need to eat something! Hai cibo? You have food?

Riccardo pulled to the side of the road, jumped out, got me a couple packets of cookies from the back and sent me on my way to find my ride group stopped at the vista above Castagneto taking pictures.

We did a nice ride. I got to do my favorite road on earth twice in one day. We stopped in Suvereto and went into the church. And then went on. Our group did some extra miles and ended up arriving last to the organic farm where we were to have lunch. And we were hungry when we arrived.

Luckily, the guy who owns the farm (and who, incidentally, looks a bit like Keith Richards in the 90’s) has a staff that makes the most unbelievable pasta I’ve ever put anywhere near my face with a fork. We all sat down to the long table and the plates of food just started coming and coming.

I sat at the end of the table with a couple women from the south who had been best friends for 40 years. They were wonderful women to talk to. We all had wine and laughed through lunch. One of the two from the south had just gone through a divorce and was pretty broken up about it. The woman across from us said she was just going through a divorce also and they talked about how good it is to get away and do something like this Italy trip to take your mind off it. The woman who was farther along in the divorce process gave the other woman encouragement. It was nice to see the power of a group to raise the consciousness and happiness of all of its members.

That night we went to Fonte di Foiano, the frantoio (olive oil press) just below Castagneto Carducci. It’s rumored to be the producer of the best olive oil in Tuscany and Tuscan olive oil is prized all over the rest of Italy. We learned about how they press their oil and then we sampled all their oils over a dinner they’d made for us.

The first load of people was taken back to the hotel while Debbie and I were still purchasing our olive oil. Cheri was still there, too, and Colleen. So the four of us walked down the dark driveway to meet Howard’s van before he turned into the driveway. It’s a hard turnaround and it’s steep, so we wanted to head him off at the bottom.

Colleen rounded the turn past the driveway gates first and I came around last. By the time I came around the corner, there was a hubbub and I couldn’t figure out what had happened. It was nearly pitch black except for the fireflies flashing their little Christmas tree lights out there on the road. I could hear everyone in hysterics and when my eyes adjusted I couldn’t see Debbie. I just heard her voice below me.

“Where’s Debbie?” I asked.

“I fell in the ditch!” She called from somewhere near my kneecaps.

I looked down in time to see her rolling further into a pile of grass in a hole along the side of the road.

And everyone was laughing so hard, no one could even help pull her out. I reached for her hand.

“Oh my God, are you OK?” I asked. I pulled her back up to the roadway. She was doubled over laughing so hard and so were the rest of us, Howard staring from the driver’s seat of the van, like: stop it, you guys, your friend could be hurt, stop laughing. His eyes were like daggers. But we couldn’t stop. We were screaming. We couldn’t even get into the van we were laughing so hard.

“Debbie,” I choked out. “Are you OK?”

I was screaming, my words barely audible.

“I’m fine,” she could barely eke out over her own squealing. “Just fine.”

We all piled into Howard’s van. He was finally laughing by this point also. And we drove down the road like a laugh track on wheels.

“Want to see the fireflies?” Howard asked.

“Yeah,” we all sang in chorus.

We stopped on the dirt road and Howard turned off the lights in the dark. The whole place lit up. Like fairy dust sprinkled all over. A thousand pinpricks of light flashing and disappearing. It was so cool, we forgot about Debbie and the ditch for a minute. But then the headlights went back on, the car rumbled down the road and the laugh track started all over again.

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For more information about the Women’s Quest Athleta Tuscany Tour, visit WomensQuest.com »