Spinning the wheels of environmentalism

Alex Coolman

Brian Lawler feels pretty good about riding 10 miles on his red Schwinn

Le Tour bicycle. Fifty miles is OK, too -- even though it takes him a

couple hours.

So how about 480 miles?

That’s how far it is from San Francisco to Newport Beach along Pacific

Coast Highway. And for an 11-year-old kid, that’s mucho mileage.

But Brian and his dad, Newport Beach resident Michael Lawler, will

attempt the ride, driving up to the other Bay city today and heading back

home Sunday on their touring bikes. They plan to take eight days for the

journey, averaging around 60 miles each day.

In an informal way, the elder Lawler said, the trip is in celebration of

Earth Day.

“We celebrated Earth Day last year by picking up trash in the Back Bay,”

he said. “This is just a whole lot more adventurous.”

But there’s also an ulterior motive lurking beneath the environmentalism:

His father has promised Brian that if he completes the ride, he’ll be

rewarded with a motorcycle.

Brian wants a Yamaha 80 -- a small-sized motorbike -- so he can go

zooming around with his similarly equipped friends and leave the world of

pedal power behind.

Brian is rather focused on this ultimate goal.

His main purpose for undertaking the trip, he said, is to “get a

motorcycle.”

When he’s tired out on a long training ride, he said he rejuvenates

himself by considering the fact that “I’ll get a motorcycle.”

Father and son have been training for about four months in preparation

for the big ride. The longest trip they’ve taken is about 50 miles, and

Brian seemed to handle the distance quite well, his father said.

“He had plenty of gas left,” he said. “I’m sure we can do 60 miles at

least once. Whether we can do it eight days in a row is another factor.”

On a historical note, Lawler pointed out that the bicycle trip from San

Francisco to Newport duplicates one that James Irvine, the 19th century

patriarch, once undertook on a precarious, big-wheeled bike of his

period.

However, Irvine, who was fortunate in many other respects, did not

receive a motorcycle upon completion of the journey.