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Why Being a Beginner Again Matters with Michelle Wilcox

Michelle Willcox

Meesh and I have known each other a long time — mutual friends, overlapping rides, the kind of friendship that got real once we both landed in Portland. We come at this work from the same spot: two people who spend most of the day alone behind a screen, then go looking for the exact opposite. A trail, a group ride, something printed you can actually hold.

Michelle Wilcox is a web engineer who taught herself to code while working as a bike messenger in San Francisco. That path took her to Strava, and these days she builds the tools that help public transit agencies keep cities moving.

  • Building community through bikes
  • The burnout of organizing, and learning to share the load
  • Teaching yourself to code as a bike messenger
  • The pull toward tangible things in a digital world
  • Chasing the feeling of being bad at something new

“If you build it, they will come. If you put in the time and energy, people are also so there and so down.”

“Creating something tangible that you really want to create, that doesn't exist how you want it to exist, and to take it outdoors, is so cool.”

“I just started making flyers and loitering on these group rides. Hey guys, I brought some mallets and some traffic cones, come play this dumb sport with me.”

“It just takes one person that you trust to be like, this is so terrifying, but I trust it. Knowing that they believe in you, that can be so powerful.”

“Go be bad at something. Nothing is more exciting than being bad at it and having that sense of progression you get. It's such a personal experience, and quite a rewarding one.”

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