Anyone up for a century ride?
Meet Eva Beaulieu. A graduate of Georgia College & State University, Eva is a Certified Athletic Trainer with Children's Healthcare of Atlanta (CHOA) who provides outreach coverage to McEachern High School. When she's not working with her athletes, she can be found taking the corners on two wheels - literally.
Eva started out riding a mountain bike in the fall of 2019. She needed a buddy to ride with and knew that (Jeff) Hopp was big into cycling. She talked him into getting back into mountain biking in the spring of 2020 and he finally convinced her to do a road bike ride with him one day. And so that became the trade off….. Jeff would do a mountain bike ride with Eva, and in return she would do a road ride with him. It was then that another friend (Ira who owns Cycology Bike Shop in Hiram) joined the group and it just took off from there. It was this combination of camaraderie and encouragement that pushed Eva to complete a Century Ride. That's 100 miles. At one time. On a bicycle. Wow Eva! Of her training partners/coaches, Eva says "they were very patient with me and taught me a lot about cycling. Seriously couldn’t have asked for 2 better coaches. Their encouragement is what got me through."
Why do a century ride? At the time, everything was shut down because of COVID so it was an activity I could do outdoors, socially distanced, and still get my exercise in. And there were no sports to provide AT coverage for so I had a lot of free time on my hands. - Eva Beaulieu
For those of you who think that cycling is simply sitting on the bike with a foot on each pedal and making circles with your feet... there's a little more to it than that. Eva says riding a bike is essentially easy but once she got into the ins and outs of cycling, she learned there is definitely a science behind it. Ira and Jeff taught her how to change gears appropriately during the ride for whatever the situation. For instance, when you’re going up a hill, you want to drop your bike down into the lowest gear (easy gear) so that you’re using the least amount of resistance to climb, essentially allowing you to climb longer without burning out so fast. They also taught her about cadence on a bike, which is the rate at which you pedal. Think of it as your sweet spot for peak efficiency on a bike. For an average cyclist, 70-80 revolutions per minute (rpms) is a good goal. So how Eva compute all this information while she's on her bike? Thanks to technology (a wonderful thing) she doesn’t have to do the math! With Ira's help, Eva got her bike outfitted with a Garmin computer that calculates literally everything!
When asked what she enjoys most about cycling, Eva states that it's the sense of accomplishment when she gets done with a ride. Where 12 miles used to be a long ride for her, she's now just getting warmed up around mile 8. She never thought I would ever ride 50 miles - let alone 100 - in one ride. She also values the camaraderie that comes along with the sport, having met some awesome people that she might not have crossed paths with otherwise. They complete group rides throughout the spring and summer and everybody is super supportive of each other. Being new to the sport, Eva worried about riding with more seasoned cyclists because she thought she’d get left behind but instead they made her so much better. Cycling really is for anybody!
Eva (and friends) completed her first century ride at the end of July 2020, just 2 months after beginning her training. So what do you do after you’ve completed a century? Eva's answer? “Uhhhh …. go ride another century I guess!” And after that she plans to continue working on her cycling skills and get better at climbing (she hate hills!) so that she can ride the gaps in North Ga with Ira.
Color us impressed, Eva. Ride on!
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