I want to give a shout out and a huge THANK YOU to Mariah for the awesome foot brake that she fabricated for my son Nathan. She asked for a few measurements and then built an awesome solution that fits and works perfectly. What a wonderful person to share her stellar machining skills. Smiles all around here tonight as we installed it and took it for a short test run. Cold and windy here in Idaho and this gives us one more reason to be excited about warmer weather.
My boy was born in China and was abandoned by his birth parents when he was just a few days old due to a deformed left arm. He spent six years in a Chinese orphanage and then got adopted by a family in Washington state. What should have been a happy ending was anything but and he got passed around from family to family for a few years. Each time being promised it was the last new home. The longest he was ever with one family was a year. We got a phone call from a friend telling us about a boy who needed a home and he came to us when he was almost 11. The first year with us was hell but then he started to heal. I think getting past that year mark made him realize this was not temporary. He started to feel that he could trust us and that he belonged to a family for the first time. He is now an awesome teenage boy.
He has never known anything but a short left arm so it rarely slows him down. Sometimes, like with this hand brake, it does though. He is super shy about the arm. It is always in a long sleeve shirt so that he can hide it. His letting my wife take these pictures is a huge deal. He will ride a whole lot more now.
So thanks again, Mariah. You made a difference to this young man by showing that you
cared. I wish you the very best and will always be your fan.
