Today we’d like to introduce you to Bobby Caine.
Bobby, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I’ve always been curious and drawn to adventure. My dad has been a professional fisherman my entire life, so being outside was introduced to me before I can even remember. My mom actually went into labor with me while they were out on the boat, so we joke that the outdoors was pretty much hardwired into me from the beginning.
As a kid, I skateboarded and loved action sports. I remember watching Fuel TV and seeing Selema Masekela on television. Seeing a Black man represented in that world stuck with me because I didn’t see many people who looked like me in action sports. I also remember watching the snowboard events for the X Games, backcountry riding, huge jumps and people weaving through forests. To me, it looked like they were surfing through nature, and I wanted to do it.
Snowboarding was expensive, though, and it didn’t feel accessible to me. Eventually I got one of those cheap plastic snowboards. I even took the trucks off my skateboard and rode it through the snow, basically snowskating before I knew that was a thing. Then I got older, life got busy, and that dream faded into the background.
That adventurous side of me never went anywhere. I always wanted to ride motorcycles, so eventually I did, and I even got into racing cars. Motorcycles ultimately led me into content creation through MotorCityMoto313, where I began sharing my experiences, exploring Detroit and building a community around the things I genuinely loved doing.
Years later, my friend Elliot invited me to a ski resort. It was my first time at an actual resort, and I fell in love with snowboarding. But I also remember thinking, “I’ve missed out on so much time I could have been doing this.”
That feeling changed my perspective. I realized there were probably a lot of people who would love the outdoors but simply hadn’t been introduced to it, didn’t know where to start, or assumed it wasn’t for them. That realization helped inspire MotorCitySnow and eventually changed the direction of my content.
Today, I’m a full-time creator and community builder focused on outdoor adventure, action sports, travel and experiences. In a way, everything has come full circle. I was once the kid watching someone else on television thinking, I want to do that. Now I get to be the person showing someone else that they can.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It definitely hasn’t been a smooth road, and ironically, one of my earliest obstacles is now a huge part of my purpose: access.
I wanted to snowboard as a kid, but between the cost, equipment, transportation and simply not having someone around me who could introduce me to a ski resort, it felt out of reach. I found ways to imitate it with a plastic snowboard and even my skateboard, but it would be years before I actually made it onto a mountain.
When I finally did, I realized how much opportunity can be lost simply because nobody showed you the door.
I’ve experienced something similar in my career. I originally built my platform around motorcycles, and as my interests and life evolved, I had to make the difficult decision to let my content evolve too. That meant losing followers and essentially rebuilding parts of my audience around outdoor adventure, snowboarding and the person I had become rather than staying with what was familiar simply because it worked.
I’ve also had to learn how to turn creativity into a sustainable career. There isn’t necessarily a blueprint for combining content creation, community building, action sports, fashion, travel and the outdoors. For a while I probably thought I needed to fit neatly into one category. Eventually I realized that the combination of those things is exactly what makes my perspective mine.
Those challenges have heavily influenced how I create today. I don’t want people to lose years thinking something isn’t for them because of cost, lack of information, representation or simply not knowing where to begin. If I learn something the hard way, I want to make it easier for the next person.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m a graphic designer, outdoor storyteller, content creator and community builder. My work sits at the intersection of outdoor adventure, action sports, Detroit culture, travel, fashion and lifestyle.
My background in graphic design plays a huge role in how I approach content. Design taught me to understand how people digest what they see, how composition, color, movement, hierarchy and even small visual details can determine what catches someone’s attention and what message they walk away with. I carry that same thinking into everything from how I frame a shot to how I edit a video, style an outfit or tell a story.
At the same time, I don’t want something to just look good. What I specialize in is making experiences feel attainable. I don’t want someone to watch me snowboard, hike or travel somewhere and only think, “That looks cool.” I want them to understand enough to think, “I could actually do that.”
I like to say that my work is about turning inspiration into information, and information into participation.
MotorCitySnow is one of the things I’m most proud of because it takes that philosophy beyond content. We’re creating community around winter sports, helping newcomers understand gear, connecting people with lessons and other riders, and making the mountain feel less intimidating to someone experiencing it for the first time.
I’m also proud that I’ve never forced myself to fit into one creative box. MotorCityMoto313 may have started on a sport bike, but I’ve realized the bigger story was always about movement, curiosity and experiencing life. Graphic design, fashion, Detroit culture and the outdoors might seem like separate worlds, but creatively, I see the connections between all of them.
Ultimately, I think that’s what sets my work apart. I’m not just thinking about what I want people to see. I’m thinking about how they’ll experience it, what they’ll take from it, and hopefully, what it inspires them to go do for themselves.
Who else deserves credit in your story?
My family deserves a lot of credit, especially my dad. He’s been a professional fisherman my entire life and was the person who first introduced me to the outdoors. Fishing, being on the water and spending time outside were simply normal parts of life growing up.
My mom actually went into labor with me while they were out on the boat, which is one of my favorite parts of the story because it makes my love for the outdoors feel almost inevitable.
As I grew up, that same curiosity just took different forms as well. Things like skateboarding, cars, racing, motorcycles, snowboarding, hiking, camping and travel. Looking back now, the activities changed, but that foundation my parents gave me never really did.
I also have to give my friend Elliot credit. He invited me to the ski resort for the first time, and that invitation ended up changing the trajectory of my life. He probably couldn’t have known how significant saying, “Come snowboarding” would eventually become. That experience reconnected me with something I had wanted to do since childhood and eventually helped inspire what became MotorCitySnow.
Beyond them, I credit the friends, instructors, riders and outdoor communities that have shared knowledge, supported my ideas and helped me grow, as well as the people who have trusted me enough to show up and try something new.
And finally, my audience deserves credit. Every time someone tells me they went somewhere, bought their first piece of gear, tried snowboarding or got outside because they saw something I shared, it reminds me why this work matters to me.
Someone once introduced me to these experiences. Now I get the opportunity to introduce them to someone else.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: Motorcitymoto313
