A cross-country bicycle trip to call attention to a rare incurable childhood disease is making its way across the northern Panhandle.

Ride4Gabe is about 9-year old Gabe Griffin of Birmingham, Ala., who suffers from the genetic disorder Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. DMD strikes almost exclusively young boys and takes their lives by ago 20.

Gabe’s family run a foundation called Hope For Gabe that has a goal of calling attention to the disease and winning Federal Drug Administration approval for production of a drug that appears to dramatically slow the progression of the disease.

Scott Griffin, Gabe’s dad, says the idea of the bike ride from the Pacific Ocean at Astoria, OR, to the Gulf of Mexico at Mobile, AL, was the idea of Michael Staley…the chief of staff for the Griffin’s congressman. Scott says they met Staley while lobbying for FDA action in Washington.

Staley and Indiana University student Wes Bates of Aurora, CO, are doing the riding, averaging about 75 miles a day, with Griffin and a retired Army colonel driving two support vehicles…an RV and an SUV. A videographer is recording the journey, which began June 28 and ends the middle of next month.

Griffin says the trip has made him realize just how caring the people of America really area.

Griffin says donations…both in person and to the foundation online at www.Ride4Gabe.com…have been very good since the ride began.

Griffin says one of the most touching momements of the trip came last night in Crawford when the waitress who served them dinner rushed out of the restaurant when they left and insisted they take back her tip and put it toward their work.

This morning in Chadron, Cleo’s Daily Grind refused to let the team pay for their breakfast while Outprinters owners Matt and Senna Reeves presented Team Ride4Gabe with custom-made “H4G” t-shirts, commemorating their visit in Nebraska.

Scott Griffin says one of the biggest parts of the ride comes next week when his wife, Gabe, and their other 3 children fly to join the mini-caravan as Staley and Bates take part in the world-famous Bike Ride Across Iowa. The plan is to tow Gabe in a trailer behind one of the bikes for part of the trip.

The Ride4Gabe team spent last night in Crawford, the two biker riders in tents and the others in the bus, and will spend tonight in the Merriman area.