You do know that grass resists electric and you have access to Geodude and Onix before Surge's gym, right.
Obviously. I wasn't being that serious, but being 10 at the time it was still pretty overpowered for a 3rd gym battle. Anyway, that was what made the first games special in my opinion; you really had to think about how to progress instead of just steamrolling through the game. If you picked Charmander or Squirtle you really had a hard time.