Welcome to our live blog to chart the progress of the #TeamTrhas project in London (England), on which we are working with the West London Welcome refugee center, and many of our friends and contacts in the cycling industry:

20 July: Trhas raced again tonight at the ‘Trash Mile – Summer Slam’, billed in the UK as “The Biggest Cycling Event of the Summer”, offering a day of fast and furious crit racing at Lea Valley Velopark, the home of the 2012 London Olympic cycling events. Racing at her new Cat 2 level will be a challenge for Trhas, and she excelled, taking #10 spot in a field of over 30 top UK female athletes.

Her next big race will be the British Cycling Women’s National Road Series National Series Lancaster GP on 28 July, another race at the highest level of UK racing. The race will start at 14:15 from Williamson Park and be 6 laps of a 14.5Km circuit, making a total distance of 94Km including neutralised roll out.  There will be a total of 1700m of climbing during the race. Our good friends at the DAS-Hutchinson-Brother UK team will be kindly looking after her for the weekend – #TeamTrhas in full effect. More on this one soon…

16 July: Following the UK’s recent election result and change of government, Trhas’ story features (again) in The Guardian, on a piece entitled: “The asylum seekers who dream of sporting glory.”

“Girls are not encouraged to ride bicycles in Ethiopia, but I have a rebellious spirit and that made me determined to continue. My family are supporting me with my cycling here and so are the people from my area. I am determined to succeed and reach my ultimate dream of competing in the Tour de France.” 

You can read the full story HERE.

10 July: Exciting news from the amazing people at West London Welcome, one of their amazing supporters has offered to house Trhas for the foreseeable future, allowing her to leave the shared room in the refugee hostel she is in, access to a proper kitchen and a true home. She is over the moon about this, and will move in later in July. With the recent election result being seen as much more favourable to asylum seekers’ claims, its been an exciting couple of weeks for Trhas and the team around her!

4 July: On hearing the news that Trhas has moved up to British Cycling’s Category 2 level, ex-World Tour rider Tsgabu Grmay – who is an active member of her support team, and a pro coach now with the UCI’s World Cycling Centre team – sent her a video message to congratulate her – see it on our Instagram.

2 July: Trhas races round 12 of 15 of the Miche West Thames League and scores another podium, taking third in a sprint finish! Amazingly, she is now running second overall in this league: see table below:

1 July: Huge day for African cycling with Biniam Girmay wins Stage 3 of the Tour de France, the first black African to win a stage at the Tour, and the only African to win a stage at both the TdF and the Giro d’Italia. Trhas knows Biniam well so is hugely pleased about this, and even more determined to succeed herself!

25 June: Trhas returns to the Hillingdon-based Miche West Thames League racing tonight, and fresh from her win at the VIA-Criterium festival and her huge training ride and she is clearly in good shape, taking another podium at this event series, coming in second place, again in stunning summer evening weather.

23 June: After the racing excitement of yesterday, when many folk would take a day to relax, Trhas is back in the saddle and goes on a 200km training ride with the Rough Rider Velo (RRV) affinity group, hitting 10 categorised climbs, and leaving the mainly male group in her wake on them! The founder of RRV, Chude Egbuniwe, reported that his Garmin recommended a 38 hour rest after his efforts to keep up with her!

22 June: Big day today, its the massive London Cycle Festival, run by the very cool VIA-Atelier bike store in Kings Cross (Central London). This is a 3-day crit racing festival, with many other events and activities taking place. Lots of information HERE. Trhas was entered in the Women’s Category 3/4 race, at 17:45 on the Saturday evening. Race start time approaches, its hot! 22 women are lined up on the start-line, and all look focused and dialled. The race starts… Its a short 1’28” lap and a group of five leaders came round together after the end of lap one. At end of lap two, they have a gap. This continued with the five riders switching around every lap, until a one rider break around mid-race. She pushed hard but maybe too hard and was reeled back in by the chasing group. At this point somewhere on the tight course, there was a coming together which Trhas skillfully avoids, and comes through for the penultimate lap with a 10m lead on a chaser. She looks confident and her crowd of supporters hold their breath for 90seconds and then see her exit the ramp onto the start-finish sprint and cruise to her FIRST EVER RACE WIN ON BRITISH SOIL! Cue cheering crowds and a very happy Trhas! A prize-giving takes places later in the evening and she wins a par of beautiful Black Inc. carbon wheels, some special edition Tour de France Oakley sunglasses and some goodies from bike insurer Laka. Everyone is so proud of Trhas and she is beaming!

18 June: Trhas returned tonight to the Miche West Thames League crit series at Hillingdon in West London and took another great result in these competitive races, coming in 5th and looking strong! Great imagery of Trhas pushing the pace in the evening sunshine from pro photographer Nate Rawsthorne:

16 June: Trhas travelled east of London to the Lea Valley Cycling Club’s annual Women’s Road Race today. A tough field of around 20 Category 2 and 3 women were present and Trhas was in the mix from the start. The race was 9 laps of a 10km route and racing was very competitive. Happy to share that Trhas came in #8 overall, and 2nd of the Category 3 women present. 8 more points on her British Cycling record!

13 June: Away from bike racing for a minute, Trhas and the Africa Rising Cycling team attend the UK Premiere of the stunning new film – This is My Moment – about the rise of Eritrean sprinter Biniam Girmay, from street racing to the Tour de France debut in 2023. The film is beautifully made by director Lieven Corthouts and much of the dialogue is in Tigrinya, with english subtitles. Trhas watches the film on the edge of her seat, loving seeing many of her male and female friends from Eritrea and Ethiopia on screen! She shares at the end that she has a pair of Biniam’s bib shorts from his time on the Delko team which she was given by Biniam a few years ago. Despite challenges in that region, we are always so happy to see the cyclists maintain their friendships and helpand support each other at all times.

10 June: We have had a lull in activities in the last week or so as Trhas has been unwell. She is on the mend though, and has been training with her mentor Alice. The weather in the UK is also not great (unusual for this time of year) so Trhas will be concentrating on some Zwift sessions this week. She has a pretty busy race calendar coming up for the rest of June/early July, we will share this in due course once 100% finalised.

26 May: Ford Ride London day: Trhas set off in the lead wave of riders and was flying along, completing the first 40km in under an hour, a strong pace. Disaster struck in the wet forest of Epping, with a puncture taking her out for a good while. Reports of many riders getting punctures there, and rumours of thumb-tacks again being put on the road by locals upset at road closures. She got going again, and completed the 160km in a solid five hours and 22 minutes. A sub-5hr would have been achieved without the puncture so a great result, and testament to her growing fitness and endurance.

After she received her finisher’s medal, she was interviewed for ITV News London’s lead story on the event (you can see the TV piece HERE, the Trhas segment starts at 03’10”), and then met Dr. Will Norman, the Mayor of London’s Walking & Cycling Commissioner, who described Trhas as “inspiring”.

23 May: Another solid but mid-pace outdoor training ride in the build-up to Sunday’s Ford RideLondon, just getting 72km in the legs. The big one is three days away…

20 May: As the race was missed, Trhas decides to go for a long training ride: 150km later, she returns home. Her long distance training and riding ability really is starting to return strongly, she completed the ride in just 5hrs06minutes, at an average speed of 30km/h! Checking Strava, she also just got second on the all-time women’s leaderboard for the best time for 10 laps of Richmond Park! The only lady ahead of her is listed as an Elite ex-pro cyclist.

19 May: Our first ‘learning’ moment with Trhas: She was due to catch a train to Banbury (Oxfordshire) for a road race there this morning, and we took a chance that she could manage this on her own, and then meet a friend at the station to get to the race. Not thinking through the complexities of British rail ticket machines, this did not go well, and Trhas missed the race. Very important lesson learnt for all on #TeamTrhas – don’t make assumptions… We move on!

17 May: Cycling Weekly have published their big piece on Trhas on their website today (written by Adam Becket) and you can re-read the story HERE if you’d like to see it again!

14 May: After the highly positive experience of the Rapha Lincoln GP at the weekend, Trhas returned to racing at the Miche West Thames Racing league, in Hillingdon (West London). We are very happy to share that her fitness is clearly improving and after another hard race, she took her first ever podium – taking second in the race: Her smile really sums up her happiness! The large box of cherry & almond CNP Protein Flapjacks she won will be put to good use for sure…

12 May: Well wow. Just wow. At 0900 the women’s race started. For whatever reason, Trhas started the race from the very back of a c.120 rider start. This did not bode well, with many of our contacts saying positioning ahead of the gruelling iconic ‘Michaelgate’ climb. However, our source on the course called us to say that by the end of lap one, Trhas had moved up 60-70 places and was travelling very well. What followed was beyond our wildest hopes and dreams. Trhas joined the lead group and stayed with them comfortably for 6 or so laps, at a gruelling pace. At this point her lack of racing fitness started to kick in and she dropped back, with several others, to a chase group with which she stayed for several laps. As the DNF count hit over 40 of the original field, we were overjoyed when Trhas came over the finish line with a group of some top female riders, coming in #57 overall. Talking to Trhas after the event, she said:

“I like longer races like the Rapha Lincoln Grand Prix, but it was very hard because I didn’t recently do any long intervals, and I have been out of big races for a long time, but hopefully I will be back to my real performance step by step!”

This achievement cannot be under-stated with the lack of preparation she has truly had. This shows her potential and many involved in the #TeamTrhas project have received calls and messages praising her performance and asking about her. Well done TT! A full race report is available on The British Continental website HERE and thanks to Dave Dodge Photography for the great images of Trhas racing.

11 May: Trhas travelled today from London to Lincoln by the team mechanic of the DAS-Hutchinson-Brother race team, to get prepared for Sunday’s Rapha Lincoln Grand Prix. This race is probably one of the most high profile races in the UK, and the majority of female riders will be on professional teams, and Elite/1/2 category riders. Trhas is looking forward to the race, and understands it will probably be the toughest race of her career to date. She went on a course recon with Charlotte Hodgkins Byrne to get to know this iconic street circuit. Good luck tomorrow Trhas!

9 May: Very exciting day today on the PR side of the #TeamTrhas project! We have been working closely with the brilliant editorial team at Cycling Weekly, the world’s oldest cycling publication, to share Trhas’ story and latest updates, and we are incredibly proud to see her have her own double-page spread in the magazine today! The piece features quotes from Trhas, her mentor/coach Alice Lethbridge, our CEO Kimberly Coats and a picture of Trhas recently meeting the President of The Pedal Club (see 24 April below). She is so happy that our friends at Zwift, Vittoria, the UCI World Cycling Centre, the DAS-Hutchinson-Brother race team, Personal Bike Fit, Kingston Wheelers CC and many more are helping her! Great to see Kingston Wheelers CC (KWCC) also get some extra kudos today from none other than British Cycling, in their Member Newsletter, for their support of Trhas as well (and a shout out to our blog!)

7 May: Trhas was out racing again at the Hillingon Circuit tonight. At 50kg, this is not really her sweet-spot when it comes to bike racing, but the skills, fitness, experience and being part of the UK women’s racing scene are all hugely adding to her abilities and motivation. Photographer Nate Rawsthorne took some great images in the evening sunshine as the ladies set a relentless pace, here are some good ones:

4 May: Today was a special day emotionally for Trhas, when she went to collect her UCI WCC Scott bike from the secure location where it lives, there was a package waiting for her from British Cycling. She opened it with happiness, to find inside all the details of her membership and her official race licence! These moments of being part of something, being accepted, for a young woman still seeking asylum and without the ability to plan any kind of future, are golden. We hope you can see the true joy in her smile!

30 April: Well what a difference proper training, riding, and nutrition can make. Trhas took part in her second outing in the Miche West Thames League Series at the Hillingdon Circuit in West London, and raced hard, attacking several times, tried to enthuse the peloton to chase a lone breakaway, and ended up sprinting with three others off the front and took 4th place! From last to fourth in a week. Her motivation and energy levels are truly much much higher than before, and she is enjoying the challenges that the shorter circuit races bring: “I have long power so this race is hard for me, I need short power! Next week, maybe podium.” We truly love her resolve and focus. We move onto her first appearance in the Hub Velo and 6AM Cycling Spring Crit Series, this Saturday at Redbridge Cycling Centre, East London.

29 April: Trhas has been down to Zwift HQ in London today for an absolutely monster training session, bashing out 107km in just shy of 4 hours on the machine, with over 1600m of climbing – the ‘Mega Pretzel’ as it is called. We are so impressed with her dedication to getting back to form…

27 April: So here we are, the big unveil! We are happy to share that the UCI have agreed Trhas can train in their World Cycling Centre Team colours across 2024 again, after her time with the team back in 2020. They have gone one step further and kindly supplied Trhas with a beautiful Scott Addict race bike, fully loaded with Shimano-Road#Di2, LOOK Cycle pedals, Vittoria tyres (and our long-term friends at Vittoria also upgraded them to the new Corsa Pro Graphene tyres!) as well as full WCC Team kit, helmet, glasses, shoes and spare wheels!

We are so happy for her! She then headed to our friend Spencer at Personal Bikefit for a fitting to get her position and shoes dialled-in, ahead of training and racing over the coming weeks. Many thanks indeed to everyone involved in this project so far, the cycling world has been simply fantastic. Lots more to come as she gets her legs and lungs back up to race pace!

24 April: Today was another ground-breaking moment in Trhas’ story. She was invited as a special guest to attend the members’ lunch of The Pedal Club. The Pedal Club was founded in 1941 in the UK by a group of cycling journalists and officials, wishing to meet and exchange diverse views. This wish resulted in the creation of a lively member monthly lunch. The objective, which still remains, is to meet informally to discuss cycling topics and for prominent public people and others to address The Club. The members were truly welcoming and moved by Trhas’ story. The other special guest for the lunch was none other than Jon Dutton, CEO of British Cycling, who was celebrating his one year anniversary in his role. Trhas was in esteemed company indeed. The members kindly held a collection to go towards Trhas’ fund and over £800 was raised! Trhas also received a Pedal Club race jersey, a rare and to be treasured gift, and a bag of high quality racing clothing was also donated to be given to a suitable Africa Rising project by one of the members. We truly thank all members of this group for their kindness, support and interest in her story. Trhas’ mentor Alice Lethbridge has also been a honourable guest at their members’ lunch, cycling truly is a small but hugely inclusive community.

23 April: Today was a big day: Tonight Trhas will take part in her first race here on British soil, a round of the Miche West Thames League circuit racing, organised by West Drayton MBC. She will be attending with her mentor Alice and we wish her safe passage and success as she gets back into competitive cycling. Our good friend Keith McRae (see below) will be attending the event also, and is kindly supplying her with some gels, bars and energy mix. Thank you Keith! Trhas was comfortable in the race and stayed with the group well until the last lap, when a big attack went and she didn’t have the energy to go again but finished the race. After seven months with no races, poor nutrition and not much competitive training, she has a way to go but was extremely happy and motivated to be back at a race!

22 April: We are most excited to hear from the leadership team at the Kingston Wheelers CC (KWCC) club (London, England), who have kindly agreed to grant Trhas membership of their illustrious club! KWCC are celebrating their 100th anniversary in 2024, one of the UK’s most well-known club groups, with many members. Trhas will race some of her forthcoming races on the KWCC club team.

21 April: Trhas attended the ‘Dave Peck Women’s Road Race’ in Virginia Water today, to watch and understand the type of racing available here in the UK, ahead of her debut racing there this week. This race is run by Twickenham CC, in memory of their former club chairman. At the race, Trhas met Simon Howes, the Team Principal of the DAS-hutchinson-Brother UK women’s continental cycling team, who recently kindly helped secure Trhas’ current road bike and equipment earlier in the year.

Trhas also met Alice Lethbridge who has now agreed to mentor her and they will begin racing together from this week. We are most excited to have Alice as part of Trhas’ support team in the UK. Alice is a hardcore cyclist with many records and achievements, including breaking – and subsequently extending – the 12-hour time trial record, formerly held by the legendary Beryl Burton and a record that had stood for 50 years! We hope she will help Trhas become the top cyclist of which she dreams of becoming.

20 April: After a great discussion with our long-term friend Keith McRae, the Head Sports Director of Team Global 6 United, last night, he introduces us to a very experienced UK female rider who is based near to Trhas’s hostel, and agrees to train with her, and take her to several races over the coming months. Trhas truly is now looking like having the support structure around her to train and develop properly! We cannot overstate how amazing the cycling community is being! More soon…

18 April: Our European representative heads to Switzerland for the day to meet with senior UCI officials at the World Cycling Centre to discuss Trhas’ situation, possible opportunities and help with equipment. All goes very well and significant plans are discussed and agreed. All to be revealed soon….

18 April: British Cycling contact us to confirm that Trhas’ race license has been approved. Due to her race history and results, she has been upgraded to a Category 3 license, allowing her to race any level in the UK. Plans are immediately put in place to identify and enter her in forthcoming races.

The BBC London piece also appears and is played all day across the BBC’s platforms. Full clip below:

16 April: The BBC London team head to Hammersmith to interview Trhas, as well as interviewing Team Africa Rising’s CEO (Kimberly Coats) for a major piece to be broadcast on 18 April, across their channels.

15 April: Andy Slaughter MP (Hammersmith, Labour) raises a question in the UK’s House of Commons about Trhas’ situation, and the poor food and conditions she is experiencing in the refugee hostel in which she is staying. The UK’s Home Secretary agrees to look into her case. You can watch the full question and answer HERE (go to 14:38:20)

12 April: We have been discussing Trhas’ situation with our long-term contacts at the UCI, in the World Cycling Centre team, with whom Trhas trained and raced successfully in 2020 in South Africa. They are open to discussing ways they can help, and happily supply her UCI race license details and additional information they have on file. We review her ProCyclingStats profile also, and verify this has all her historical race information. We hope to add some more results to this record in 2024…

10 April: Our UK representative opens discussions with British Cycling to discuss organising a race license for Trhas, to enable her to take part in competitions in the UK. Initial feedback is positive. We hope this will work out, as it will be a major step forward for her.

9 April: Zwift invite Trhas to visit their studio and get organised. We arrange her license and account, work with her to get her avatar how she would like it, and she tries a 40 minute FTP test for the first time. After 6 months of poor nutrition, inconsistent training, Trhas still bashes out a 3.8W/Kg session which all there feel is an excellent base level to work from. Getting her to pro level of 4.5-5.5W/Kg feels like it is eminently achievable with good training and, hopefully, racing soon. Kimberly (our CEO) is in touch with Kate Veronneau (Director of Women’s Strategy) on the project, and they are most pleased to be involved! (Update 18 April: Trhas has now completed three Zwift rides, is quickly getting to grips with the platform, and is really enjoying riding virtually.)

7 April: Journalists from various divisions of the BBC, and other media outlets globally, have been getting in touch with us due to the Guardian article. We set up an interview with BBC London, to meet Trhas, film her and talk about what she hopes will happen in the UK.

6 April: We get in touch with our brilliant friends at Zwift and they are keen to help Trhas get training and racing online. We agree that she can visit Zwift’s UK HQ during the week and use their cycling studio. This is hugely generous, and also gives Trhas access to fellow female riders to ride with at Zwift, and outside.

5 April: The public’s reaction to The Guardian piece has been overwhelming, and the crowdfunding account set up by WLW hits £3,500! This funding will be used to ensure Trhas has food, clothing, nutrition and for cycling related expenses. We have received many inbounds from enthusiastic folk offering help, funds and training buddies. Trhas also secures a Legal Aid lawyer from the law firm Wilson’s from the piece, a vital part of her UK asylum process. Things are looking up!

4 April: Trhas has been interviewed in the last couple of days by Diane Taylor of The Guardian about her situation, her hopes and dreams. The interview is then published today. Full article HERE

2 April: After discussions with Trhas about what she needs, we ordered a track pump, a mini-pump, tube repair kits, chain lube and tools, and a pile of inner tubes for her training bike, from our friends Park Tool and Vittoria respectively (via Madison, their UK distributor) to keep her training and riding going well. We start to reach out to our connections in cycling to see how we can help her. The team at the Ford RideLondon event have already kindly offered a free place in the Ford RideLondon-Essex 100, taking place on 26 May. This is one of the UK’s/London’s biggest cycling events, seeing many thousands of riders take on a car-free 100-mile route.

27 March 2024: Our Team Africa Rising (TAR) representative in Europe is contacted by a connection in the cycling industry, with whom the brilliant team at the West London Welcome (WLW) – a refugee centre in the west of London – had been in touch to try and secure some cycling equipment. Trhas had been coming to their centre for a few months and by chance someone who spoke Tigrinya had worked out that she was a cyclist, and on further discussion, found out she was the reigning national women’s road race, and ITT champion of Ethiopia! She has been working and training almost every day.

Previous to this, WLW had recently launched an (ongoing) fundraising campaign on localgiving with multiple donors, allowing them to purchase the Tifosi bicycle (and further equipment) which appears in the pictures above. The brilliant Spencer Wilson (Founder of the Personal Bike Fit store in Kensington) kindly fitted Trhas to this bike for free to enable her to train properly.