Under-Promise and Over-Deliver!

I have been is sales for almost 20 years and when I first got started, one of the old timers told me about the phrase.."under-promise and over-deliver" and it has stuck with me all these years and I still practice it to this day.

This week I had the opportunity to finally meet and ride with @roadchickie. We have been talking about doing a ride for sometime, but with my LA Marathon training, it just didn't happen until yesterday. She had mentioned on her blog that she did a 50 mile ride to the Rose Bowl and back and that peeked my interest. I told her this would be my longest ride yet and that I wasn't all that fast and a poor climber as well. Mind you, this was coming off of last weeks ride where I felt a bit overwhelmed at 35 miles. I have followed her on twitter for some time and have read her blog regularly, so I know she is the "real deal" when it comes to cycling. She agreed to take me on this trip with only one condition...that no pictures could be taken of her (remember this for later), but she could take pictures of us  and we made plans for Saturday. We took off from her place in the Valley and cruised along at a nice pace on into Burbank where we met up with a couple of her other riding friends, Randy and William.

William, Randy and I

Once we met up with William and Randy, we headed up into the hills of Glendale. The climbing wasn't bad and I was feeling pretty good. Winding through the neighborhoods of Glendale was nice and we were all chatting as we rode. M.E. would ask if I had ever done "such and such" a ride and when I said nope...I could here the wheels turning in her head, she was eventually get me on those rides. When we got to Verdugo, which would be our biggest climb, William and I started out at a nice pace. We were talking about beer and just kept cruising right along. All of the sudden, his cell phone rings and he answers it...it was M.E. and Randy, we had missed the turn off and need to go back to them...it was about 1/2 mile, no big deal...who couldn't use a bit of extra climbing? We got back to them and headed down a side street that led us to Verdugo about 1 block north of where William and I turned around. WTF? I guess it was payback for my smart ass comment to M.E. as we were riding to meet the guys. She asked me what I did for a living and I told her I was a stunt double on adult films...for 1 second she took me seriously and didn't know what to say...then she just laughed. I guess I deserved the extra climbing.

We started descending into Pasadena and M.E. warned us that we needed to stop at any stop sign as the police were giving tickets. Sure enough, there was one sitting at an intersection just waiting for cyclist to blow through the stop signs. Fortunately, none of us got tickets as we all stopped. When we arrived at the Rose Bowl, there was an event going on but we were able to make it to the bathrooms for a quick break. While we were getting ready to leave, a women cyclist approached and M.E. and Randy knew her. Her name is Dorothy Wong and she does/has done a lot for women's cycling. I must admit I didn't know who she was until I got home and googled her. We chatted for a few minutes and then we stopped over to take a few pictures with her and her cycling group. While M.E. was taking pictures with them (remember that "no picture" clause) Randy, William and I were making jokes about her "no pictures of me" clause and how it didn't seem to apply now. Dorothy decided to ride out of the Rose Bowl with us and head home.

Dorothy, William and Me

We started back up the hill to Verdugo and it really wasn't that bad of a climb back out. We headed in Montrose and M.E. and I decided to eat lunch, while William and Randy decided to keep going. I was glad we stopped as it broke up the ride a bit, but it was fun chatting and getting to know M.E. After lunch it was either downhill or flat (my kind of ride) as promised and we made our way through Glendale, and Burbank. We hopped on the Chandler bike path and then on down Chandler. I thought we were keeping a pretty good, but comfortable pace, it turns out that maybe it was a bit fast???  Sorry!

We were cruising along and my Garmin dinged and we had just hit 50 miles...woo hoo! We made it back to M.E.'s place and she introduced me to Boo...her dragon. What a cool creature...I have never seen, nor been able to touch one in person.

Boo

 When it was all said and done, we did 50.63 miles, moving time: 3:54:01 with 2,086 feet of climbing. Drove home thinking about my accomplishment and my new friends, unloaded my car and had a well deserved beer or 3.

I had a great time and can't wait to get together and ride again, although I get the feeling that M.E. wont be going so easy on me the next time! So in the end, I under-promised my riding ability, but by the end of the day...I definitely over-delivered! Thanks again!!!!

"Sandbagger Bob"  :)

Check out M.E.'s account of our day, she is a much better story teller and has all of the pictures she took from the day. Here's the link http://mydogparty.blogspot.com/2011/04/game-on.html