Archie Edwards: Motorcross rider, seven, to tour around England

Barrow Hedges School pupil Archie Edwards only started 14 months ago after watching YouTube videos of the sport but now has more than 1,400 Instagram followers and his footage has been viewed across the world.

With a balanced diet, an exercise plan in place, and even his own mechanic, he will be at the East Anglia SSC’s summer club championship event on in Mildenhall, Suffolk, on April 8.

Archie Edwards in action. Photo provided by: Lauren Edwards

Proud mum-of-two Lauren Edwards, of near Grennell Road, said: “We didn’t really know about motorcross until about 14 months ago.

“Archie first got onto a motorbike 14 months ago, so we’ve gone from not even being able to ride a motorbike to being in the top 10 – we’d like to think, at the minute – for the 50cc. He got on a bike 14 months ago, a small little kiwi [type of bike], really enjoyed it.

“This year we’re going to be travelling with him across the country from Kent, all the way up to Norwich, Birmingham, we're pretty much every weekend racing.

“He trains on the motorbike but also he’s so passionate about it and improving himself that he also follows a fitness regime. We’ll take him running round the park, he exercises once a week, he’s changed his diet – as much as we have to support him because he’s seven years old, he’s taken off his own back that he really wants to do this.

“I think it’s quite rare for a child of that age to be that passionate.”

Archie Edwards in action. Photo provided by: Laurent Edwards

Little Archie, who got into the sport through former motocross rider Roy Emberson after meeting him in Banstead, finished first overall in the 7 Auto category of the the East Kent SSC Summer Championship, in Bexleyheath, last September.

He will also be preparing for the MX Master Kids 2018 competition, which will be held from May 5 to May 7, while kicking is training up a gear when he travels abroad to Belgium, France, and Spain.

While Mrs Edwards, 32, is aware of the sport’s dangers the former school counsellor believes her son is safe while remaining ‘extremely proud’ of his achievements.

She added: “To some people it would be, ‘Oh my goodness you’re putting them on a motorbike and sending them out to race, that’s really dangerous’. But it’s the same with karting like Lewis Hamilton, he started when he was young.

“Everything can be dangerous to some extent but, as a mum, I wouldn’t send him out if he wasn’t protected and he wasn’t safe.

“For me, he is so determined to do well and to prove to himself that he can do the best that he possibly can and I think it’s given him so much more than just the sport. He’s learning so much from it."

Mrs Edwards said everything both her and her husband, Michael, do is for their children’s sports and she ‘wouldn’t change it for the world’ because they ‘all get something out of it’.

To see Archie's Instagram page, click here.

To see the YouTube channel, click here.