PEDALING OFF ON A SURFIN' SAFARI.

Byline: Lewis Taylor The Register-Guard

The Beach Boys never wrote a song about a guy with a surfboard and a bicycle trailer, but Creswell's Ed Gunderson thinks there's no reason a bike and a board can't go together like a Woody wagon and a longboard.

`A lot of surfers, they speak the, `Oh, we love the environment' talk, and then they drive these big pickup trucks,' Gunderson says.

"I guess I'm kind of making a statement, showing people that it can be done. You can do things like (this) with a bicycle."

Gunderson, 59, shoved off on Wednesday on a Kettler road bike with a surfboard in tow. He plans to ride as far as Newport and then work his way down the coast, hitting as many surf spots as possible. He estimates that the trip will be about 250 miles, but confesses that he doesn't really know where this surfing safari will take him.

"Whatever happens, it's going to be different," Gunderson says.

Kier Thomas, manager at Ossie's Surf Shop in Newport, could not recall a similar surfing odyssey - at least not on the Oregon Coast. Bikes with surfboard racks are common in California beach towns, he said, but most of them are only meant to be ridden blocks to the beach.

"He's awfully brave to be riding his bike on the highway," Thomas said. "I think it's great to raise awareness, to say that I'll just use my heart and a little bit of chain (grease) to ride all these places."

Gunderson is towing a Blue Sky bike trailer, modified to hold a surfboard instead of a small child. His packing list includes board, tent, cooking gear, sleeping bag, radio, cell phone and lots of wool clothing. He plans to fuel himself with salami, flatbread, dried fruit and granola bars.

"The trailer slows me down to about 8 or 9 mph," Gunderson says. "I keep reminding myself that this sure is a lot faster than the people on the wagon trains (went)."

Gunderson says many of his ideas about what can and can't be done on a bike came from the Europeans. He points to a group of Danish friends who, each year, take a four-week biking vacation with the whole family.

"I started thinking, there's no reason we couldn't do any kind of trip we want to do on bicycles," Gunderson says.

A longtime bicycling advocate, Gunderson's aversion to cars began when he was a teenager growing up in Menlo Park, Calif. At the time, there was a movement by environmentalists to fight the ongoing development around San Francisco Bay and Gunderson saw something that sticks with him to this day.

`This big monster Lincoln Continental drove by with a `Save the Bay' sticker,' he recalls. `It just hit me at that moment, that's the reason we're screwing up the bay, so that these lazy people with their big butts can drive their cars. I decided I was going to ride my bicycle as much as possible.'

CAPTION(S):

Ed Gunderson rides along Clear Lake Road with his surfboard and camping gear in a modified bicycle trailer. He's going surfing at the coast.