Terra Ludis: Play Ground | Meet Eva Rand

This week's oral history feature is Eva Rand, one of the subjects of our exhibit Terra Ludis: Playground. Eva is a retired chemist and dietician. Her love of cycling brought her to the high country. We had a wonderful discussion around the culture, types, and techniques of road cycling. We asked Eva do describe her approach to cycling.

"I’m a recreational cyclist, I’m not using a bike for practical reasons other than that, I mean it’s my health insurance, if you will, that along with a vegan diet is how I stay super healthy and to see the country from the back of a bike, there’s nothing like it, nothing compares.

When I ride alone, I am timing myself because it’s my way of tracking my performance, especially in the spring I’m going to be slower – I don’t care how many spin classes you do, there’s nothing like being on a real bike and just testing yourself up and down these mountain climbs. I keep a record of it in my car in fact, so I can compare from month to month, hopefully, see some improvement over time in a year, but I’m also comparing my past years since I moved here.

In 2019, I competed in the Senior Games. I did really well in the local and regional games in my age range category – which is the seventy to seventy-four age category – I did really well so I qualified for the state games. I'm happy to report that in my age group amongst women, I did bring home the bronze to the High Country so in all three distances, one mile, 5-K, and 10-K. It was on a fairly flat course, not like here."

#optoutside #cycling #seetheworldontwowheels #roadbike