I put on clean, dry cycling clothes (thank you, Centerpoint Horsecamp), downed some coffee and leftover pasta and zoomed back down the hill through Ponca, rejoining the course at Boxley Valley. The road is flat and the scenery beautiful for a few miles.  It had stopped raining and the entire day was forecasted to be rain-free. I was not exactly doing cartwheels with happiness, though, because I knew a fearsome climb awaited me where the gravel road departed the southern end of the valley. The hill there is so steep I walked down it when I came from the other direction in June of 2020. My friend, Kate Geisen, wrote in her race report in 2019 that riding down that hill was the most afraid she had ever been on a bike. The hill showcases a climb of over 1,000 feet in three miles of slick gravel, and I didn’t even attempt to ride it. Just pushing the bike was enough of a chore, and the task tempted me with another opportunity to demoralize myself with “misery algebra.” One doesn’t have ...

  Richland Creek was up and running fast After a few hours of hearing rain steadily drumming on the roof of the community center, I woke, made coffee and tentatively started packing up my gear. I was very uncertain about what high water adventures awaited me. Rain was forecast for much of the day, contributing to my dread. Did it make any sense to get out there and ride ten miles down the road and have to turn around and ride back? I recalled an exploratory road bike ride I did a few years ago in  Tuscany   where I stopped near a home next to a road under construction. The most Italian-looking man in  Italy stood near the road like a sentinel. He   asked me if something was wrong. I responded that I didn't know if I could ride down that road. He gestured with a thick hand and said, "Prova, prova" (Try, try). That "prova, prova" phrase was on my mind as I rolled out from Witts Springs. Was I thinking a carrier pigeon would come drop me a note about the creek cr...