On Wednesday morning, 70-year-old Warren Wiebe set out on a 24-hour journey on his bike through the Great Allegheny Passage to raise funds for research of a rare disease his granddaughter, 2-year-old Elouise DeLibero, has.

Wiebe completed his journey at 10:15 a.m. on Thursday. He said he slept from about noon on Thursday to 6 p.m., had a typical night’s rest later that night and is back to normal now.

“I have punished my body rather severely for a little while and I am feeling inexplicably great,” Wiebe said in a Friday interview with the Butler Eagle, following a day of rest and recovery. He added, “(The bike ride) was great. It was fantastic.”

“The day was just absolutely perfect,” Wiebe said. “I could not have asked for better weather.”

Wiebe had checked the weather for two weeks leading up to the ride. From steady rain to occasional showers, Wiebe said he’d seen a few different predictions that could have hampered his plans. Ultimately, he did not come across a single rain drop.

“It’s almost miraculous the way the forecast changed,” said Wiebe.

The first six hours, as per recommendations from expert sources, Wiebe said he went slow enough that he was bored.

What helped was some company: Wiebe’s wife, Sandy, and his son, Tyler, had shown interest in riding some sections with him. The trio came up with a plan. Sandy and Tyler would alternate between driving parallel to Wiebe’s route and riding along with him for the first third of the ride.

“That just turned out to be a tremendous psychological assist,” said Wiebe. “It was good to have my wife and my son going alongside me to remind me when to drink, when to eat, that sort of thing.”

The first half of the ride was uphill and slow, Wiebe said. At about the eight-hour mark, Wiebe said he started to feel a cramp in his left leg.

“My first thought is, ‘oh no, this is it,’” said Wiebe. “But then the training kicks in.”

A reminder from his wife to consume electrolytes and free up his muscles by shifting on the seat made a difference, he said.

“It took about 20 minutes or so, but (I) gradually worked that out and just kept going,” said Wiebe.

At about 8 p.m. it got dark and Wiebe’s support team withdrew for a night’s rest.

“That’s when the hard work began,” Wiebe said.

But he said that night, he encountered a beautiful night with a full moon overhead and no cloud in sight.

“The moonlight (was) dancing off the river beside me,” Wiebe described. “There was deer jumping across the trail. There’s rabbit scurrying around. It was just magical solitude.”

At the break of dawn, Wiebe said his eyelids started drooping and he started “microsleeping,” losing his balance zigzagging on the trail. With six more hours to go, Wiebe knew going on for 10 more minutes would revitalize him.

“It’s part of a cycle,” he said. “It happened twice more during the morning time where I just was on the verge of passing out and just powered through it for another burst of energy.”

At 10 a.m., Wiebe reached finish line, joined by his family.

“It was great celebration, just a magnificent feeling,” Wiebe said.

Before the start of the ride, Wiebe had said he was back and forth between thinking the ride would be fairly easy or really difficult. After finishing the ride, he said the answer was in the middle.

While the ride was not the most difficult journey of his life, it was an arduous trial, he said.

“That’s what keeps you young is looking for challenges like that,” he said. “You have to reinvent yourself every once in a while and so I keep looking for things like that.”

Wiebe had decided a few days before the ride to commit to an idea for a fundraising boost. He called it the “200 challenge.”

Wiebe put forward a wager online and to his friends: if he could reach 200 miles on the ride — which would be far beyond his personal best — the pledges would have to contribute extra dollars.

If Wiebe was unable to reach the 200 miles, he would contribute that amount himself instead of the pledges.

Wiebe said he brought in $1,300 worth of extra funds through the challenge.

Wiebe, who currently lives in Ontario, Canada, said he and his wife considering moving to Cranberry, where his daughter’s family, including Elouise, lives.

The bike ride experience has only encouraged them to pursue that potential future, he said.

“I definitely want to give a shout out to the community of Cranberry because the support has been … I can’t even find a superlative big enough,” he said.

For example, a park representative saw a Facebook post about the bike ride and reached out to offer her house on the trail for Sandy and Tyler to stay overnight.

“It turned out to be just an absolute godsend,” Wiebe said. “So I call her Trail Angel.”

Elouise DeLibero, Wiebe’s two-year-old granddaughter, was diagnosed with FOXG1 early in 2025.

The beneficiary of Wiebe’s bike ride, FOXG1 Research Foundation, is working on a potential solution for FOXG1 Syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that causes a variety of health problems, including delayed brain development, involuntary motion and seizures.

More information about donating to the initiative can be found on the FOXG1 Research Foundation’s website.