from “le détroit” · the strait
Laura Killingbeck is two weeks into a 1,000-mile bicycle ride across Michigan in partnership with orsa credit union to document economic abuse, ending July 20 in Detroit.
By Priya
Contributing Writer · June 4, 2026 · 2 min read
Laura Killingbeck is somewhere in Michigan right now, pedaling toward Detroit.
The solo cyclist and writer set out from the Upper Peninsula on May 20 on a journey she's calling the Choose the Bear Tour: a 1,000-mile ride across both peninsulas that will end in Detroit on July 20. The tour is named for a question that went viral in 2024, asking women whether they'd feel safer encountering a bear in the woods or a man. The answer that came back, overwhelmingly, was the bear. Killingbeck wrote about that debate in an essay that circulated widely, and the tour grew out of what that conversation kept returning to.
The underlying subject is economic abuse, a form of domestic violence built around financial control. Abusive partners sabotage employment, restrict access to money, destroy credit scores, and accumulate debt in their victims' names. The damage outlasts the relationship. Research puts the rate of financial control in intimate partner violence cases at close to 99 percent. It is one of the most common and least visible forms of abuse, and Killingbeck is using the ride to document what it looks like across Michigan, stopping in communities along the route to meet with survivors and the organizations that support them.
She is making the tour in partnership with orsa credit union, a Michigan financial institution whose name is Italian for "she-bear." Through its Choose the Bear initiative, launched in 2024, orsa has distributed more than $200,000 in survivor loans to more than 65 women across the state. The bike tour extends that mission into the road, connecting orsa's financial tools to the human stories behind them.
Killingbeck has spent years cycling solo and writing about it. She documented 2023 on the road in posts that drew a large following, and her writing about what it means for a woman to move through the world alone found an audience that recognized what she was pointing at. The Choose the Bear essay brought that same clarity to a sharper subject.
When she arrives in Detroit on July 20, she plans to donate her expedition bicycle, a Kona Sutra LTD provided by Kona for the tour, to another woman preparing for her own journey. The ride ends with a passing of the wheel.
Follow the tour at @laurakillingbeck on Instagram, at ChooseTheBearTour.org, or with the hashtag #ChooseTheBearTour.
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