Wheeled Migration

You gotta know straight away, the WM is not just a bike tour and Wheeled Migration is not your typical “bicycle touring company.” To us, the bicycle is a means for discovery and connection. Riding in the WM is an outrageous social event, filled with personal achievement, metaphor, new learning, indulgence, and of course- great times on bikes.

These are rides designed for anyone who has just wanted to keep going.

We begin with great routes, provide options to ride and learn, then offer you space. Ride as hard or as casually as you like. The WM is your opportunity to tour with featured speakers and headlining musical acts. It’s your time for leisurely meals and stillness. It’s a place to enjoy site tours and gain insight to the lands we visit.

And the WM is for action. Hands on experience, reflection, service, and skill sharing enrich our journey and give back to the places we visit. All this, and it’s a great day on the bike! It’s that feeling of being incredibly alive.

A Day on tour

Your day on the Wheeled Migration begins with a song. We’ll have a spread of coffee and teas out welcoming you to a great day of cycling. Over breakfast we offer brief talks of cycling tips to prep you for the days ride. New riders have found these especially cool.

Our lead guide heads out first thing to mark your route and to be out front. You’re welcome to chase them if you like a challenge. After every rider has broke camp and is on the road, our back SAG bicycle starts following up the back. This is how we bookend the tour.

The back SAG moves like a party. This end of the tour rolls with on-bike mechanics, snacks, and water. Back here we ride at singing speed. This is a great place touch in with everyone, take in the scenery, then take off again.

When we use our SAG vehicle, it cruises through the route checking up on everyone and is never far from sight. If you ever need extra water, a quick snack, or a helping hand with a flat tire- the SAG vehicle is there. Don’t see ‘em anywhere? Don’t worry. Take a nap and the ride mechanic will be along shortly.

Maybe you have a ride day where you want the experience of a solo tour. Yes! The great peace of life as a lone cyclist. Perhaps there comes a time when you decide to spin though the route as quick as you can to get to the hot springs or to that winemaker. Maybe you’re determined to catch that front SAG rider. GO!

While we encourage everyone to ride in their own style and pace, we ask you be mindful when pulling ahead of the WM. We provide services within a bubble created by our SAG riders. If you get out ahead of everyone and need help, don’t worry- everyone is on their way.

Along your days ride you may find a roadshow from our headlining musicians. Keep on the lookout for the happenings noted on your route sheet, watch for the WM markers on the road, take loads pictures, and eventually you will come upon our lunch stop.

Your day will likely end in a small community or somewhere with water and grass. We’ll be there to greet you in camp as we prep our evening’s meal. Occasionally we’ll be met by a caterer, other times we’ll create a potluck from the road.

As you get clean and comfortable riders will trickle in and the evening begins.Depending on all manners of surprises and unknowns, we will offer up any number of activities for the evenings camp. People make their own antics pretty often too. Never a dull moment in camp.

Some nights in camp we may host guest speakers or musicians from the area, other times may throw a night ride (Pack your lights).

We formally close our day by discussing the next day’s route at the end of dinner. Then we open fire council. Fire council is a WM tradition. This is a place to reflect on the lessons of the day and give voice to your experiences. Often people will share stories, songs, or just hang out around a fire before turning in.

The night ends beneath a sheet of stars and a dimming firelight. Stow away in your tent or keep up ’til dawn, tomorrow is on the way.

We’ll see you on a bike!

About Wheeled Migration

Two years ago Wheeled Migration began as a pack of college students, community members and two intrepid professors from CSU Chico. The WM ‘08 was billed as a “rolling summit of student leaders and educators in the environmental justice movement” on tour down the coast of California.

The goal was to create a bicycle tour that mingled adventure and personal growth with environmental issues, and “migrate” to special events along the way.

The route became a dream ride for first timers!

We patched together a route though the Coast Range, Napa Valley, and down the legendary HWY 1. We laid over at Avalon Hot Springs, the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center, Regenerative Design Institute, and the warm home of eco talk show host Debora Lindsay. We received site tours, ate from local farms on the route, and

were guest to a private lecture from Richard Heinberg.

Some of us had never ridden though the countryside, others would only speak of glorious hills and the sea beyond. The tour kicked off in our hometown of Chico in Northern California, where we held our first send-off concert and hit the road brimming with mid-July excitement.

Every inch of the ride was held together by luck, generosity, and a skillful loving perseverance within the riders.

Students from campuses along the route met up with us and people started networking, falling in and out of love, becoming leaders, and experiencing a collaborative community like we never imagined.

Enjoy a dip in our ‘08 blog to get the full view.

We have adapted this model to host Wheeled Migrations wherever the whim takes us. You can expect new rides with unique intentions and destinations in the WM spirt. We delight in sharing the immense adventure that evolves along the less traveled route.

The Wheeled Migration Team

Michelle Wurlitzer – Visual Wizard

Michelle is a self-proclaimed ’unreasonable woman’ with a penchant for Zero Waste and moonlit bike rides. As Visual Wizard of the WM team, Michelle casts spells of bicycle love upon the heart, lilting fresh riders to the open road. Michelle is an instant friend and wise to things seldom seen- enjoy!

Brad Hauskens - Minister of Utility

Brad is a Leo. In 1983, he learned to ride on marine blue 20” Schwinn. As a teenager, Brad became a commuter and discovered the science of monkey wrenching his bike. What started with necessity became a passion as he took to building and restoring bicycles through college. It was there in San Luis Obispo he received his first road bike (thanks Kelly!), launching him into a new world of riding, one far from town. He lived as a roadie until 2008 when he joined the inaugural (!) Wheeled Migration, immediately fell in love with touring, and joined the WM team. Brad now serves as Minister of Utility on WM events. As a working tradesman, he’s got tricks up each sleeve and time to share them with folks new to the journey. He’s also a freak on the bike polo court.

Lisa Kieran – Adventure Specialist

Lisa was born in a yoga community in Northern California where she learned to ride a bike at age eight. 14 years later, she bought her first road bike from a friend and began cycle-touring. Her life changed with her first tour from Chico to San Luis Obispo, CA with Wheeled Migration’s first event. She came home inspired to sell her car, commit to life on a bike, and help figure out how to make this incredible bike adventure happen for more people! As Wheeled Migration’s Adventure Specialist, Lisa delights in planning tasty meals with local ingredients, communicating with new riders, connecting with hosts, and in tying down loose ends. A Psychology student by nature and flower farmer by occupation, Lisa enjoys entertaining different life perspectives and going for adventurous night rides.

Quinn Comendant - Renaissance Strategist

Quinn has been squinting hard for three decades in search of a truly pure view of what is. Raised amongst the bones of industry, Quinn’s journey began immersed in gears grease and mechanical advantage. A slip into mathematics and biology and a career in software design, he overdosed on the abstract and stole away to adventures around the world, eventually finding reconnection to the earth through cycling.
Quinn divides his time between long-distance cycling and Strangecode, his custom internet solutions company.

Ryan Laine – Director of Dreamtime

Ryan began riding his bicycle at a very early age. “Walking made everything feel far away and running is just too slow.” He began touring after wondering for years if he could do it too. “Riding like that always seemed impossible, like it was only something hardcore thrill seekers could do.” So he left his job as a bicycle guide in Alaska, rode home to Chico and started a bicycle touring company. “The bike puts me in a feeling of being incredibly alive. Touring is my church. And WM is where the love for sharing that experience meet my skill and passion for business, facilitation, art, and culture.” Ryan holds a self-designed degree from Chico State in Outdoor Leadership and Business, rides a Brooks B-17 with over 15,000 miles on it, and occasionally reports on environmental justice issues and the ethnic conflict in Burma. He also teaches sports massage and loves his mother.