Tyler Mitic is an endurance cyclist and mental health advocate who spent 27 days riding a tandem bike the length of California. Along the way, he convinced more than 40 strangers to hop on the back of his bike, creating opportunities for connection, conversation, and shared adventure. What began as a cycling challenge became an exploration of rejection, friendship, and the power of showing up for people. The project ultimately raised more than $20,000 for Bring Change to Mind, a nonprofit focused on mental health awareness and support.
Tyler Mitic is an endurance cyclist and mental health advocate who spent 27 days riding a tandem bike the length of California. Along the way, he convinced more than 40 strangers to hop on the back of his bike, creating opportunities for connection, conversation, and shared adventure. What began as a cycling challenge became an exploration of rejection, friendship, and the power of showing up for people. The project ultimately raised more than $20,000 for Bring Change to Mind, a nonprofit focused on mental health awareness and support.
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Shelby Stanger:
Tyler Mitic, welcome to Wild Ideas Worth Living. You're our first guest who literally just completed their wild idea less than 24 hours ago.
Tyler Mitic:
Almost 18 hours ago now. It's a wild feeling. I'm really, really happy to be here.
Shelby Stanger:
So Tyler's in my living room. He arrived in Solana Beach, sweaty with grease stains on his legs. Tell me what you did.
Tyler Mitic:
Well, I rode from the top of California, so the Oregon-California border. I had a friend drop me off at the Welcome to California Sign all the way to the bottom of California where I arrived last night at the California-Mexico border. I did the entire trip on a tandem bike, so a bike with two seats. And throughout the entire trip, I invited people to join me on the back with the only premise being that I was not allowed to know who they were before. They had to be a stranger.
Shelby Stanger:
I've always loved talking to strangers. It's kind of my jam. Sure, not everyone feels comfortable striking up a conversation with someone they don't know, but I think we miss out when we stop making those spontaneous in-person connections. So when I found out about Tyler Mitic, I fell in love with his wild idea. Over the course of 27 days, Tyler convinced over 40 strangers to hop on the back of his tandem bike as he cycled down the length of California. Even I got a chance to ride through my neighborhood with him before this interview. Some people rode with Tyler for just an hour or two, while one person joined him for a full two days. Tyler's goal was to make genuine connections with the people he met, hear their stories, and encourage conversations about mental health.
Along the way, he learned a lot about rejection. I mean, not everyone wants to drop what they're doing and jump on a tandem bike with a stranger for an hour, but Tyler also made some unforgettable friendships. He used this adventure to raise $20,000 for the mental health nonprofit Bring Change to Mind. I'm Shelby Stanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living, an REI Co-Op Studios production presented by Capital One and the REI Co-Op MasterCard.
So you're 20. Are you a freshman or a sophomore?
Tyler Mitic:
I just finished my sophomore year of college, so I've definitely built up an identity for myself in college that is based around being the kid who's always kind of up to something a little bit crazy. And so this was semi on brand for me.
Shelby Stanger:
What do you mean? So have you always done these wild, crazy ideas?
Tyler Mitic:
At some level. I first built traction as an outdoor creator in a sense about two years ago when I went sailing for a month with zero sailing knowledge. And I've done a bunch of other crazy... I've ridden mopeds down Highway 1 and gone up some crazy peaks. I tend to find extremes, for better or for worse, and pursue them.
Shelby Stanger:
It sounds like you like wild ideas.
Tyler Mitic:
I do like wild ideas. Very much so.
Shelby Stanger:
Wait, okay. So with the sailing, where did you sail and how old were you?
Tyler Mitic:
So I got the boat when I was 19. It was a really good deal on Facebook Marketplace. I lowballed somebody. They said yes, and I was like, "Okay, I guess I have to go now." And so I phoned up my best friend and I said, "Hey, do you want to go sailing for a month with me in January if I buy a sailboat?" And he was like, "Do you know how to sail?" And I said, "No. I've been sailing once in my life and I was not captaining the ship or anywhere near it." And I was like, "Do you know how to sail?" And he was like, "Nope." And he was like, "Okay, I'm in."
So we spent a little bit of time watching YouTube videos, and then we showed up and the previous owner showed us how to raise the sails of the boat the day before we departed on our trip. And then, the next day we sailed from Marina del Rey to Catalina, which is about a 12-hour sail with truly zero sailing knowledge.
Shelby Stanger:
And you made it.
Tyler Mitic:
We made it, and then we ended up sailing for the next month through all the Channel Islands.
Shelby Stanger:
A few years before, Tyler had started making videos about his surf sessions, camping trips, and other outdoor adventures he was taking near his home in Silicon Valley. When he shared videos from the sailing escapade, a couple of the posts went viral, picking up hundreds of thousands of likes. The response was exciting, but for Tyler, the best part wasn't the attention, it was trying something new and sharing the experience with his friends. After this sailing trip, Tyler kept an eye out on Facebook Marketplace for any other outdoor gear that might take him off the beaten path.
So you've done some wild ideas before, but tell me a little bit about why you did this one.
Tyler Mitic:
Well, maybe I should start with the story of my tandem bike, which starts about two years ago, also on Facebook Marketplace. I was actually inspired by an influencer that I saw online who was riding a tandem bike around his college campus. And I was like, "Oh, when I get to college, I also want to get a tandem bike." And so I was on Facebook Marketplace, found a beautiful tandem bike for 200 bucks that was about 30 miles down the road. And I asked my friend if he wanted to go pick it up with me and we Ubered over and we tandem-biked it back to campus. And then, that weekend I was like, "Okay, now I have a tandem bike. What do I do with this?"
Shelby Stanger:
You're going to pick up girls.
Tyler Mitic:
That's definitely one option. But we decided to take to Big Sur and try to bikepack on it, which I had never seen anyone bikepack on a tandem bike before. So I was like, "This is either going to be my best idea yet or a complete failure." And it ended up being a pretty wild adventure. I was able to handle most of the hills, shockingly. And it was such a success that three months later I went back and I did it again through Big Sur, and then three months later I went and rode from Marin to Santa Cruz. And then, last summer I took it through Norway. I actually shipped the bike out to Norway. And so the broader premise of this trip is the tandem bike that I just rode down the California coast is actually the same tandem bike that I ride around campus all the time.
And when people see me riding solo, they very often laugh, but I've always thought that it's an invitation to whoever's around me to join me on an adventure that I'm on. If I'm riding to class, they can join me to class or I can lift them to class or take them wherever they want. And I kind of built up this reputation as being the kid who rides around college and people can shout me down if they want to lift somewhere, assuming I'm not trying to go there - to wherever I'm trying to go too quick. So when I was thinking about what adventure I wanted to take on this summer, I really wanted to take the tandem bike somewhere new and exciting, and I wasn't really sure who I wanted to go with. And I think the idea just one afternoon popped into my head, what would it look like to try to find strangers to go on my tandem bike with me?
This is also simultaneously around a time, almost like a year ago, I went through a really rough breakup and kind of triggered a lot of these questions in life of I all of a sudden was getting meals with friends and I would be the guy who would always be asking the really deep questions like, "Okay." We'd sit down and they'd be like, "Oh, how's your day?" And I'd be like, "Oh, good. What drives you in life?" They'd be like, "What?" Or I'd be like, "Do you love yourself?" And they'd be like, "Uh..." And I was kind of navigating my own mental health troubles and trying to figure out who I want to be and how I wanted to operate in the world, which is obviously the longest string of questions and it's never-ending. And I thought, "Why not try to take that to the tandem bike and why not try to ask strangers the same questions that I had been asking myself?"
And I've always wanted to create media online for a cause to benefit something greater than who I am. So yeah, the whole trip was in support of Bring Change to Mind, which is a nonprofit based in San Francisco that works to destigmatize mental health in today's youth.
Shelby Stanger:
Tyler's idea was simple. He would approach strangers on his bike and ask if they wanted to ride with him. Once someone was in the saddle, he would ask them some personal questions, hoping to get a little deeper than the usual small talk. As he rode, Tyler would film all of his interactions and post a video at the end of each day. He knew he couldn't do all of this work alone. He needed to focus on cycling and talking to people. So Tyler called up a friend who was also a video editor to see if he could join the adventure.
Tyler Mitic:
I called up a friend about five months ago, my friend Q, and I said, "Hey Q, I have this idea." And within five minutes of me pitching the idea - I have the coolest friends in the world - Q was like, "Yeah, I'm in. I'll be there. I'll support you." He didn't even want to get paid. He was like, "I will be on site." So school ended. We popped in Q's truck, went up to the top of California. I filmed a little video saying, "This is a tandem bike. This is what I'm doing. I believe everyone has a story and we're all so much more similar than we are different, and I'm going to ride it down the California coast." And I think the thing that I really can't exaggerate enough is the lack of plan that we had and the lack of idea of what we knew we were getting into.
It was really just the next day I just went out on the tandem bike and it was like, "Okay, I have no clue what happens now. I'm just going to go out here and I'm going to document whatever happens and whatever happens, I'm going to share on social media and hopefully it's a good story." But neither one of us at any point had any clue what we were walking into.
Shelby Stanger:
I think that's kind of awesome, though. Sometimes if you have too much of a plan, it's too much pressure.
Tyler Mitic:
Yeah, absolutely. It's one of those ideas that's almost so absurd. I spent so many months before this trip trying to picture like, "Okay, I'm going to wake up and then I'm going to maybe find someone on the bike or maybe someone will be joining me for a week on the bike." But you can't conceptualize it. No one's done this before.
Shelby Stanger:
I'm curious about the biking. You could have walked, you could have run, you could have surfed, which would have been kind of hard to do down the coast, but fun.
Tyler Mitic:
With strangers. I'm not a biker, actually. I've done a couple of bikepacking trips in the past, but most of them have been pretty light, or compared to this, very light on mileage. But I've always believed bikepacking is a great way to move through the outdoors and see the perfect amount at the perfect speed with the perfect amount of effort. And there's also a really deep love for tandem bikes. And I see tandem bikes as a symbol of connection and a really cool way of bringing people together and being able to leverage something that's been around for so long and that so many people know of and love and that so few people have gotten to ride on a tandem bike and take that into something that can show how easy it is to connect people through their humanity and their experiences and their joys and their struggles.
Shelby Stanger:
Initially, Tyler imagined these strangers might ride with him for a day or two, so he packed for company: two sleeping bags, two sleeping pads, and even two hammocks. In reality, most people only joined him for an hour or so. It wasn't what he expected, but Tyler was thrilled that anyone said yes at all. Imagine a random dude rolling up beside you on a tandem bike and inviting you to hop on the back. Would you say yes?
Tyler Mitic:
On day one, my pitch started when I biked up to people being like, "Hey, do you want to bike a day or two days with me?" And I probably pitched 40 people that in Crescent City, which is at the very top of California, and just caught some of the craziest looks ever, like the reactions I was getting and almost... I went to the surf lineups, I went to cafes, I would walk in and I'd pitch the barista at the cafe. I went to gas stations. I'd pitch the person behind the counter, ask when they got off their shift. I'd go to parking lots and cruise around parks, bridges. I would also go to gas stations and when people were filling up their cars, I would cruise on up, and it was a real experiment in extroversion. Anyway, eventually figured out that it was best to have people on for a short period of time.
Shelby Stanger:
And would you ride them to a location and then they had to figure out how to get home?
Tyler Mitic:
Sometimes. But a lot of times people would have friends pick them up.
Shelby Stanger:
Cool.
Tyler Mitic:
Q was... my editor and co-producer... was following me on the trip and sometimes he could give people rides back if he wasn't too overwhelmed with all of his work of the day. And sometimes people took public transport, too. Anyway, fast-forward 10, 12, 13 days, I arrived in San Luis Obispo, and I was kind of thinking through what the experience of being in San Luis Obispo is going to look like and if I should get somebody on for one day or how I should approach that. And I thought back to my dream a month ago of having someone join for multiple days and I was like, "Okay, this may finally be my opportunity." I'm in one of the most... It's a college town and there's so many kids here that are open to wild adventures. If anyone is going to say yes to joining for multiple days, it's going to happen here.
The next morning I was at a cafe. I hadn't even started pitching people about riding two days with me, but I was at a cafe and I set my bike up outside the cafe, and I made eye contact with this tall, adventurous-looking dude, probably about five years older than me. And one of the things I've gotten really used to as a documentarian who's trying to capture this trip is constantly recording my life. So the second I made eye contact with this kid, I pulled out my phone, I started recording and I put it in the pocket of my vest. And believe it or not, just as my intuition was expecting, he walked up to me and said, "Hey, I like your bike." And I told him about what we were doing and about 60 seconds in I said, "Hey, I'm looking for someone to bike to Santa Barbara with me over the course of two days if you have any interest."
And he was like, "Oh, I have work tomorrow." And it was kind of a long pause and he was like, "But I did just put in my two weeks and what's a bad reputation?" He truly just agreed to join a completely random stranger that he'd had a five-minute conversation with for two days on a tandem bike. It's ridiculous. It is one of those things where you just... I have to take a step back and recognize how it almost restores my faith in humanity a little bit. I mean, this whole trip has, but the fact that somebody is so open for such a wild adventure at a moment's notice is really special and brought me a lot of joy. He was an amazing human. I really got to know him over the course of two days and he went from being a complete stranger to a friend that I'm probably going to see in a few days when I cruise back up through there.
Shelby Stanger:
What sort of questions did you ask people?
Tyler Mitic:
I really loved being able to ask questions that were truly just based off of my actual curiosity of who they are. My go-to question, someone would hop on the bike and I'd say, "What's your story?" Which is a really ambiguous, wide, open-ended question. And sometimes people would tell me a fun fact. Sometimes people would tell me where they were born. Sometimes people would tell me about their parents, but I just authentically wanted to capture the person for who they were and what their experiences were. And beyond that, so much of this project was making people feel seen and loved for me. So that actually was the number one driving factor.
Shelby Stanger:
Over the course of 27 days, college sophomore Tyler Mitic rode from the California-Oregon border south to Mexico on a tandem bike. Along the way, he convinced more than 40 strangers to hop on his backseat. In addition to the memorable connections he made with his passengers, Tyler also saw a lot of natural beauty, particularly along the coast.
What were some of the most beautiful sights you saw on your ride?
Tyler Mitic:
I don't want to expose a hidden gem here, but if you go up near Fort Bragg, it is some of the most beautiful California coastline with very few people up there. It nearly rivals Big Sur in some areas, and the amount of cars on the road is about 3% of Big Sur.
Shelby Stanger:
Wow.
Tyler Mitic:
And maybe a little bit more foggy at times, but it was just incredible oceanscapes and everything that you could dream of while biking down the highway. I chose the California coast because you're not going wrong anywhere you are. It's like every single day was just like I was biking through redwoods and then I was biking on massive cliffs and then I was biking next to the ocean. I was biking through cities in San Francisco and across the Golden Gate Bridge and by surf lineups and then up the massive hills of Big Sur, and then through LA and Venice. Venice was a really crazy place to ride my tandem bike through and try to convince strangers because there's so many characters. You get everything. It was like the full experience.
Shelby Stanger:
Where did you sleep?
Tyler Mitic:
Well, on day three or so, I was camping and I was not getting the best sleep while camping because I was finding a lot of camp spots that were near highways and I was getting woken up early and staying up late editing, and I got really sick on the third day of the trip. And so when I got sick, I started booking hotels. And then, once I got down, this actually lasted like seven days of the trip, which that's its whole own thing because I cannot describe waking up feeling sick and then having to hop on a tandem bike and go ask strangers if they want to ride with you and then interviewing them. And then, one day I biked like 85 miles in 6500 feet of elevation while actively sick and very congested and coughing. And I probably shouldn't have pushed it that hard. I've learned my lesson now.
But I ended up staying on a lot of friends' couches once I got to more populated areas, occasionally couch surfing websites. When you spend your entire day biking, editing, and talking to strangers, it is an additional social push to then go to a stranger's house and sleep there, or even sometimes a friend's house was just too much for me.
Shelby Stanger:
At the end of each day, Tyler was physically exhausted from biking. It also took a lot of mental energy to convince random strangers to participate in a wild idea on the spot. There were countless people who declined or ignored Tyler, but he tried to keep a positive attitude even in the face of rejection.
Tyler Mitic:
The rejections were really hard to take sometimes. I had to constantly remember not to take things personally and-
Shelby Stanger:
That's hard.
Tyler Mitic:
Yeah. It's really funny because whenever I'd start to feel like what I was doing was not super crazy or maybe this kind of feels a little bit more normal now to have strangers riding on my tandem bike. And then, I would start riding up to people and pitching the idea and they'd be like, "You're doing what? And you want me to do what?" It was just a constant reminder of the absurdity of the activity, and I had to keep remembering the purpose of why I was out there. And, I mean, everyone lives in their own beautiful universe with their own ideas and values and perspectives. And, of course, what I'm doing will totally resonate with some people who are willing to bike two days with me.
And on the other hand, even when people said no, I didn't want to make anyone ever feel uncomfortable for telling me no. That was really important to me because I did know that what I was asking was absurd and I never wanted anyone to feel guilty or bad for not wanting to participate in it.
Shelby Stanger:
While Tyler heard more nos than yeses, he was able to find one willing companion at the most important moment of the trip: the very end.
You finished not even 24 hours ago. What was it like seeing Mexico?
Tyler Mitic:
Well, first off, last night, I biked through Imperial Beach, which is a city about 10 miles away from the Mexican border, and I probably asked about 10 people if they wanted to hop on my bike. And eventually, I rode up to this man on a bench overlooking the ocean and he was reading a book and I said, "Hey, what's the book of choice this evening?" And he was like, "Oh..." He's reading a James Bond book. And I was like, "No way." The second I saw that, I was like, "Okay, this might be the guy." And I introduced myself. I said, "Hey, I'm Tyler." And he was like, "Oh, I'm Ben." And I said, "Ben, I have possibly one of the wildest offers of your life for you right now." And he looked at me in the eye and he said, "You know, I've been known to accept some pretty wild offers." I just got the biggest grin on my face.
I was like, "Oh my God, is this my person?" And he said yes. And we were biking about 10 minutes away from the border, and I asked him what his message was to the world, if he had one thing to say. And Ben started talking about how if you wanted something in life that you should reach out and go after it. And just as he said this, we made this big left turn around this mountain and the Mexican wall was right there glowing in the sunset, like a thousand feet away. And I nearly started tearing up. Here you are talking about reaching out and grabbing things, and I've just spent 27 days pursuing one of the wildest dreams, probably the wildest dream that I've ever had. And so we pulled up and it was just my parents at sunset and a dozen border patrol and U.S. Coast Guard people that were cheering us on.
And it's incredible. I don't even have words for it. And it's not even incredible because of... the physical feat is meaningful to me, but it's so cool having completed something that has pulled in so many people. Maybe a hundred or 200 people signed my bike on the ride down. I would constantly post on my Instagram that I was going to be in certain locations and like two or three dozen people would show up and cheer me on and give me a hug and bring me cookies. And it was like I felt this overwhelming love for all of these people that had really fueled me emotionally on this journey. And because they'd all signed my bike, I felt like they were all there with me. It was just this moment where I was like, "It's all coming together." And so it was so meaningful to me and I was just filled with such an incredible sense of love for just everything that had brought me to that place.
Shelby Stanger:
What advice can you give to people, young or old, struggling with their own mental health?
Tyler Mitic:
So many things. So, so many things. I think it actually starts with the fact that if you are struggling, you're perfect just the way you are and your experiences are perfect just the way you are. When I was really, really down like nine months ago, I was on a call with my dad and my dad told me something that I will never forget. I was in shambles and he saw how much I was struggling and he made me feel really seen. And then, he was like, "I know it may seem like you're in the greatest mess ever right now." And I just had gone broken up with... I didn't really love who I was. The people that I loved were leaving me.
And my dad was like, "Despite all that you may feel, it's perfectly okay to be in pain. I think that this is perfect. I think that you are 20 years old and this is exactly where you need to be. You need to be doubting your life. You need to be crying. You need to be unsure of what's next. You need to be unsure of what you value. You need to be completely overwhelmed by everything happening around you, and the fact that you are here is perfect."
Shelby Stanger:
Aw, that's really cool.
Tyler Mitic:
Yeah. And it made me take a step back and really appreciate where I was at. And I kind of slowly from then on made the choice to love the experience of...there is beauty in struggle and you can't selectively numb emotions. If you're going to feel the joy, if you're going to feel the happiness in life, sometimes you also have to feel the pain. And one of the best ways to do that is by talking to people. The best way to do that is by talking to the people around you.
Shelby Stanger:
If you want to keep up with Tyler, the best place to go is tylerstandem.com. That's T-Y-L-E-R-S-T-A-N-D-E-M.com. There, you can also donate to Bring Change to Mind, which is an organization that Tyler was raising money for with his ride across California. You can also follow Tyler personally on Instagram @tylermitic. That's T-Y-L-E-R-M-I-T-I-C. Wild Ideas Worth Living is part of the REI Podcast Network. It's hosted by me, Shelby Stanger, produced by Annie Fassler, Sylvia Thomas, and Sam Peers Nitzberg of Puddle Creative. Our Senior Producer is Jenny Barber. Our Executive Producers are Paolo Mottola and Joe Crosby. Thank you again to our partner, Capital One and the REI Co-op MasterCard. As always, we love it when you follow the show, take time to rate it and write a review wherever you listen. And remember, some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas.