Through his talks with Vice Sports and now with Jeff Staple in the latest edition of 1-2-1, Nigel Sylvester is genuinely intent on living his dream as a professional BMX rider. What makes the 27 year-old Jamaica Queens rider so unique is the unorthodoxy to his career: you will not find Sylvester in any competitions and you will not find a blueprint to map out his success, he simply loves what he does. Sylvester and his friends use their creative entity, Pyradice as a platform to express themselves. Sylvester says of the brand, "When I'm in the streets riding my bike, that's my Pyradice. Whatever place makes you happy or you want to create from or see yourself in, that's Pyradice." You can consistently find Sylvester with his bike on the road less travelled having carved out a niche full of opportunities that includes work with Nike, Gatorade, and ESPN The Body Issue. You make your own success ladies and gentleman; watch 1-2-1 w/Jeff Staple featuring Nigel Sylvester below.
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Vice Sports: Nigel Sylvester on Breaking the Mold and Taking on BMX (Part 2) /
Vice Sports returns with Part 2 of "Nigel Sylvester Taking On BMX" after last week's Part 1 took us around Sylvester's native Jamaica Queens, New York City stomping grounds. This time around the BMX rider opens up about his brand and how he uses his bike to express himself differently than other riders. Most intriguingly, Nigel Sylvester comments on the current outlook of the BMX industry alluding to a lot of comments he received for doing ESPN's 2014 Body Issue. He says, "I already knew going into it. I was like ok, this is gonna shake it up a little bit. I think the BMX industry had more to say about it than anyone else... They look at it like, 'Oh he's gay for doing that.' I'm doing things my way." But, the doubt and hate seems to only fuel Sylvester as he continues to find success from the seat of his bike and even in other creative avenues which he mentions in the video below.
Vice Sports Meets: Nigel Sylvester Taking on BMX (Part 1) /
Here Vice Sports unleashes "Nigel Sylvester Taking on BMX", a multiple part series exploring the life and career of BMX rider Nigel Sylvester. Hailing from Jamaica Queens, New York City, Sylvester is not your prototypical BMX rider, evident from his darker skin color and how he is taking his brand beyond the bike. Nigel speaks on how the people and places of Jamaica Queens shaped him, coming up in the ranks of professional BMX, and the strength his mother showed him when she was diagnosed with cancer while he was just 16 or 17 years old saying from his mother's situation, "How can I not work as hard as I possibly can every single day?" Through all of this the New York rider has garnered much success tallying heavyweight sponsorships from Nike 6.0 and Gatorade without entering traditional competition arenas. Let Nigel tell you his story himself below.