This summer, solo cyclist and award-winning storyteller Laura Killingbeck will pedal over 1,000 miles across Michigan to advocate for women’s safety and autonomy. Along the way, she’ll meet with frontline organizations that help women recover from abusive relationships and gender-based violence. Killingbeck will document her journey through writing, interviews, and social media.
The Choose The Bear Tour was inspired by Killingbeck’s widely shared 2024 essay, A Woman Who Left Society to Live with Bears Weighs in on Man or Bear, which unpacked the viral social media debate where women said they’d rather encounter a bear in the woods than a man. Killingbeck’s essay explored the emotional and cultural roots of gender-based violence and called for more compassionate, nuanced conversations about safety and agency.
The eight-week tour is supported by Orsa Credit Union, a Michigan-based, for-impact, member-owned financial institution. The partnership is rooted in a hard truth: gender-based violence is often enforced through financial control. Research shows that nearly 99% of intimate partner violence survivors experience some form of economic abuse–undermining their ability to leave the relationship and build a safer future for themselves and their families.
The Choose the Bear Tour is part of Orsa’s broader Choose the Bear initiative, built to strengthen survivor support services across Michigan and to spark the community conversations that lead to lasting change.
The journey begins in the Upper Peninsula on May 20 and ends in Detroit on July 20. Killingbeck will then donate her expedition bicycle—a Kona Sutra LTD provided by Kona—to another woman preparing for her own life-changing journey.