I had rented a moped a few days earlier in the trip and quickly proceeded to slide it off a severely curved road such as this one. 

Luckily, I escaped with only minor injuries to my equipment (despite some nasty cuts, my body was not as important to me at the time).

So, arriving in Montalcino a couple days later and deathly afraid of mopeds, I smartly decided to rent a bicycle to ride down the tallest hill in all of Tuscany (with most of my pretty heavy equipment). 

The ride down was fantastically fun, speeding without ever having to pedal and stopping frequently to photograph the freakishly sized grapes and old wineries.  This is where I saw this old couple taking a leisurely stroll along a side road.

After a significant amount of time going downhill however, I realized that I would eventually have to return the way I came.  But I ignored this thought and continued to the bottom, photographing for the rest of the day.

I returned to this gigantic hill exhausted at the end of the day, but psyched myself up to make it to the top.  I balanced myself on the bike with my lenses and tripod on my back and proceeded to pedal hard and fast and sped up the hill confidently.

A minute of this confident pedaling later and my muscles froze.  I stopped, rolled off the bike, and proceeded to gingerly walk up the hill.

The next 2 hours were a miserable pattern of 5 minutes of walking and 30 seconds of riding.  I finally arrived at the town late at night, exhausted and numb but euphorically relieved.

Unfortunately, I would soon realize that all of the restaurants had closed for the night and food was nowhere to be found.