Terra Ludis: Play Ground | Meet Brian Sain
Brian Sain is an avid cyclist and along with his wife Allison, owner of Rhoddie's Bicycle Shop in Blowing Rock, NC. Brian has been cycling at a high level for most of his life and he expressed how his love of cycling has fostered a unique connection to the land.
"I really fell in love with cycling in the mountains, my folks would bring my brother and I up to Fleetwood and we’d ride Todd Railroad Grade Road to Todd to the general store, have a snack and ride back. I can remember doing that from – I don’t think I had training wheels, but it was pretty soon after.
You typically ride places that you wouldn’t go to otherwise. Growing up in Hickory, I rode a lot from my grandparents in Lenoir, so I rode a lot between Hickory and Lenoir – if you were to just blindfold me and put me in some random road anywhere between Blowing Rock and Hickory, I can probably tell you where I’m at, or pretty quickly figure it out. So that kind of spatial understanding of where you’re at is really important to me. For instance, we have a pretty good view from our house looking back toward Hickory and I can pretty much name every Knob, and “Oh those lights got to be in this little community,” or “That’s Hibriten Mountain,” or you name it. Off the bike, that’s super satisfying to me, like “Oh yeah, I know that road,” or “You can get water at that stop.” And I’ve lived up here full time five years, I knew the popular routes up here, but I’m still learning some of those back roads.
I tell my wife sometimes when I’m looking for something in one of our kitchen cabinets “Allison, I can tell you where a root is or a rock on some particular trail I ride twice a year, but I have no idea where our knives are.” For whatever reason, just the way I’m wired, I think about these little things out in the woods, but I can’t for the life of me, commit to memory where the Saran Wrap is, or something like that."
Photo by Collin Jewell
Read their full interview at blowingrockmuseum.org/play
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