Shortly over one week after being visited by Make-A-Wish volunteers, we have received the news that Gareth’s wish is being granted!

I’m absolutely floored by this news, and Gareth is incredibly excited. Rob @ RBR sent me home with a book of color swatches so Gareth could pick the exact green he wants. He chose “yellow green”, color 6018 on the European RAL color system. I’ve changed the header here to reflect Gareth’s chosen preference.

It will be 6-8 weeks before the bike is in central PA. The bike will be assembled in Germany and then shipped to RBR where it will undergo some final fitting (especially figuring out a harness system) before Gareth takes the stoker’s seat.

An amazing THANK YOU is due the Make-A-Wish foundation for giving Gareth the gift of bicycling.

Since we reached our goal about, uh, six months faster than I anticipated, this blog will now kick over into a journal of our rides around central PA. The first ride might very well be in snow!

As a result of no longer requiring fundraising, I have removed the donor and donation links.  At some point here in the future, I’ll add some info on donating money to Make-A-Wish and other organizations that help put kids on bikes.

If you have stumbled across this site, you may have noticed that we have yet to officially kick things off. There’s a reason for that. Just as we were ready to ramp up the effort, somebody submitted Gareth’s name to the Make-A-Wish foundation.

Last Sunday, we met with members of the Wish team and Gareth officially asked for a bike that he can ride with daddy.

The Wish team has now taken all of the information about the Pino, RBR, Gareth’s desired bike color (he chose green), and some completed forms back to Make-A-Wish so that they can get started on deciding whether or not this wish can be fulfilled.

If it can, and it is, we’ll be converting this site over to a trip log to chronicle all of the riding Gareth does. If this falls through, however, we’ll continue along the path we originally planned.

Hang in there! We’ll let everyone know what’s happening as soon as we get word.