Five year old Lara Ebrey is aiming to ride all 55 miles of the Taff Trail, from Brecon to Cardiff, in a single day at some point this summer.

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The Taff Trail is 55 mile almost entirely off-road so it’s no small undertaking for anyone, let alone a five year old.

If the surname Ebrey sounds familiar you may have seen news stories of a lad called Lewis Ebrey (then aged 6) riding Snowdon, accompanied by his Dad Paul, last year. Here’s the video of Lewis’ attempt…

Anyway, Lewis’ little sister wants in on the action now. Lara did accompany Lewis during the training rides for his Snowdon adventure but her bike didn’t have the ground clearance to go on the Snowdon ride itself. Her bike is still a tad too small to attempt something along the lines of Snowdon. Hence this distance-based challenge of the Taff Trail.

Training days

Lara’s first proper Taff Trail training days showed an average speed of around 7.5mph. Whilst impressively nippy for such a young age, at that speed it would take 7.5hrs of riding time to complete the Taff Trail. Oof!

The Family Ebrey’s training initially consisted of laps of their nearby Phoenix Trail, which runs between Princes Risborough and Thame in Buckinghamshire. Within a couple of weeks of Phoenix sessioning, Lara was kicking out 25 mile rides. The only downside was that Lara and Lewis stopped cycling to school because they were both a bit cycled-out.

As is often the way, Easter holidays derailed training and riding for a while but now the family are back at it. In actual fact it appears that Dad Paul may be the weak link in the squad; he keep s pulling various muscles in his legs with the effort!

Training has resumed in earnest recently however and the Ebreys have found somewhere else other than the Phoenix Trail to ride. They’re now also riding a regular 15 mile loop based in and around Maidenhead.

You can follow Lara and co.’s progress via the Littlepro blog.

Lara and Lewis are back into cycling to school and back during the week. And rather than the direct 1 mile route home, they’re diverting their rides into 5 mile long loops.

Dad’s cunning tip: “[I] bought cycle computers for both of the kid’s bikes. It’s going to be important that they can see progress and can see how they are getting on. This will hopefully prevent a barrage of “Are we nearly there yet” conversations.”