Wow… uh… Gareth’s story made the front page of the local paper. An online version of the article is now available. (The article was moved to their archives and can no longer be accessed, but click Read More below to read a local copy.)
Brandy and Gareth read the article together this morning while I slept in a bit, but after a while, Gareth could no longer stand the wait. He and Brandy came into the bedroom to wake me up with a plea to go riding.
So we did.
I started off with a short ride to get used to the feel of the steering and the shifting. Everything went smoothly, didn’t feel too awkward. Once I returned, we put Gareth in the front seat, strapped him in, and took off down the street! Our first ride was no more than five minutes, a proof of concept ride. We didn’t biff, neither of us got scared. Thus emboldened, we took off on a 15 minute ride around the neighborhood and had a great time.
By then, it had started raining again, so we hauled the gear inside and dried everything off. While I was toweling off helmets and frames, Gareth was telling Brandy that he liked going fast and that the ride was “scary in a fun way”. He’s hooked. 
And so am I.
January 14, 2007
Section: CITY
Page: 1
Anne Danahy adanahy@centredaily.com
Gareth, who is 5 and has cerebral palsy, patted his mother’s hand to say “yes” to her question. So, still wearing his new biking helmet, he sat on his bike in the kitchen and en joyed cake with his family.
The semi-recumbent tandem bike came from the Make-A-Wish Foundation. The two-seater was made in Germany and adapted locally to let Gareth push the pedals and enjoy riding, while his father, Travis, sits behind him and steers.
“The bike is awesome,” Gareth said during the party, using his touch-screen communication device. “Thank you.”
Make-A-Wish fills the wishes of children with life-threatening conditions. Gareth’s grandparents and the Make-A-Wish volunteers who had helped the Prebbles with the process were there Saturday, too.
For Gareth, who doesn’t have cognitive delays but does have cerebral palsy and a severe seizure disorder, the choice was a bike. He enjoys riding an adapted tricycle at school, and while his arms are not strong, his legs are, Brandy Prebble said.
“Riding a bike is very freeing for him,” she said.
Once Travis Prebble brought out the bike Saturday, it was a while before Gareth wanted to get off it.
“It’s all yours, buddy,” Travis Prebble said.
“Your eyes are huge,” Brandy Prebble said.
Gareth, who uses a seat with wheels to get around, reached out to hug his mother.
“I like the color. The bike is awesome,” he said with the touch-screen machine.
About a dozen years ago, Travis Prebble was a devoted biker in Oregon, he said. But he had stopped doing it. Then, in the past year, he decided to take it up again. In the meantime, Gareth had become a biking fan too.
“He’d ride it up to an hour a day. He really enjoyed it,” Travis Prebble said of his son’s riding a bike at school.
So, Travis Prebble started looking for bike possibilities for his son that he can use even as he gets older and bigger. Eventually, he discovered a recumbent bike. The problem with one was that Gareth would be in the back seat staring at his father’s back. Then Travis came across a semi-recumbent tandem, which puts the steerer in the back seat and lets the person in the front pedal and look around.
“This was pretty much perfect,” he said.
RBR, a recumbent bike shop in State College, had the bike, but it was expensive. Prebble said he decided to do a fundraiser and ask for $2 donations to save enough to buy it. But, another parent at Gareth’s school submitted his name to Make-A-Wish.
Gareth said yes, and in what Brandy Prebble described as a “whirlwind experience” it wasn’t long before the bike was in. RBR customized it for Gareth, who picked the spring green color, and Saturday he gave it a test drive in the house. Brandy Prebble expected an outside ride to follow.
“They’ve been champing at the bit for this,” Brandy Prebble said. “I think as soon as they can get out there they will.”
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