Lera fell in love with handcycling shortly after her recovery from her amputation surgery. She was introduced to hand cycling while she was at physical therapy by Ryan Pinney (who has since become a paralympian in Tokyo 2020). Growing up, she had never been able to ride a bicycle and trying handcycling showed her what it’s like to be ‘super fast’.

Lera attended cycling clinic at CAF in San Diego in Spring 2018 and met legendary Ironman, Carlos Moleda. Carlos formed CAF Women’s hand cycling team that year and Lera was invited to join and train with the team. Since then, Lera has been training and racing in the H5 classification.