Meesh and I have known each other a long time. Mutual friends, overlapping rides, the kind of friendship that started by crossing paths in the same places and got real once we both landed in Portland. We come at this work from the same spot too. 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.

There's a tension we both keep circling. We love the outdoors, and we're also being pulled deeper into the digital tools that make our work possible. Knowing where to stand in the middle of that is harder than it sounds.

We get into building community through bikes, the burnout that comes with organizing and learning to share the load, teaching yourself to code as a bike courier, the pull toward tangible things in a digital world, and why she's been chasing the feeling of being bad at something new.

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. Outside of work she's an organizer at heart, the person who builds the rides and races that pull a whole community together.

outside Is Magic is a podcast about the intersection of creativity and the outdoors, hosted by Christopher San Agustin, founder of Broken and Coastal.

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#outsideIsMagic #CreativeLife #Cycling #CommunityBuilding #DesignPodcast

outside is Magic is hosted by Christopher San Agustin.
Produced by Broken and Coastal.
Follow us on Instagram @brokenandcoastal
Help spread the magic. Hit follow, drop a review, or share the episode with someone who gets it. You never know who it might inspire.

Max Young and I came to this conversation from the exact same spot. Two senior creatives, a decade-plus in, standing at the same crossroads and asking ourselves the same questions. What kind of work do we actually want to be doing now? What should we be focusing on? And is the path we're on still the right one?

That crossroads can feel isolating. You build something up, get excited about it, and then there's this voice that quietly tries to pull it back down. Turns out Max deals with it too.

We get into self-doubt, the leap from designer to creative strategist, coming up through punk and DIY culture, the pull toward physical objects in a digital world, and the slow work of untangling your identity from your job title.

Max is a designer and art director who spent years in the sports world, most recently at the Seattle Mariners. He runs Love Machine, a gravel cycling project rooted in Vancouver.

Follow Max:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dmaxyoung/
Website: https://www.dmaxyoung.com/
Love Machine: https://www.lovemachinecycling.ca/
Love Machine Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lovemachinecycling/

outside is Magic is hosted by Christopher San Agustin.
Produced by Broken and Coastal.
Follow us on Instagram @brokenandcoastal
Help spread the magic. Hit follow, drop a review, or share the episode with someone who gets it. You never know who it might inspire.

Laura Kinman spent 25+ years in the outdoor industry, and she didn't plan to start a brand. Then, in October 2024, she was laid off from Patagonia while flying home from Vietnam. She calls it the day she "won the lottery."

In this episode, Laura traces a winding path. Growing up hunting for sharks' teeth near Myrtle Beach. Meeting her husband on a 1990s bulletin board system talking about 90210. Living the "Rachel from Friends" life as a young buyer in New York. And finally landing a job at Patagonia she felt completely underqualified for, where she "went in a climber and became a surfer."

We talk about imposter syndrome, the quiet grief of a layoff, learning a sport as an adult, and the decision to build Coastal Range Collective: a women's swim and surf brand made for the "other 90 percent," the women still paddling out at 50, 60, 70, not just the elite 1 percent.

Honest, funny, and a little tender. A conversation about second acts and what you do with the time you're given.

outside is Magic is hosted by Christopher San Agustin.
Produced by Broken and Coastal.
Follow us on Instagram @brokenandcoastal
Help spread the magic. Hit follow, drop a review, or share the episode with someone who gets it. You never know who it might inspire.