Ultrafine-grained (UFG) pure Cu processed by equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) was subjected to cyclic deformation and subsequent ageing treatment at room temperature (RT) in order to investigate the stability of defects and grain size. Cyclic deformation for 1000 cycles at RT leads to a large decrease of internal stress. X-ray diffraction (XRD) shows that the stability of defects and grain size at RT in as-cyclic deformed sample is lower than that in as-processed sample and that a reduction of internal stress takes place prior to grain growth. TEM observations show that the microstructural evolution during ageing is characterized by normal grain growth accompanied with recovery within grain interior.