Bike Air: Nigel Sylvester Brings His Journey to the Air Jordan 4 RM
From the quiet importance of his grandmother’s driveway to transatlantic bike rides, the BMX superstar traces the arc of his incredible journey.
Nigel Sylvester is not like us. Dave Mirra took him under his wing at 17 years old. Jay-Z name-dropped him on Frank Ocean’s 2017 track “Biking.” In 2018, he became the first-ever BMX athlete to rework the Air Jordan 1, before officially signing with the brand in 2021. Just a few weeks ago, he appeared on The Shop with LeBron James, André 3000 and Jerry Lorenzo. Impossibly, he did it all without racking up gold medals at competitions like the X-Games the way every other household BMX rider has before him. Instead, Sylvester leveraged his singular blend of creativity, innovation and perseverance that Mirra picked up on nearly 20 years ago to reinvent the sport, simultaneously altering the perception of bike riding in the wider cultural consciousness.
Although his journey to stardom began as a child in Queens, 2015 stands out as a turning point in Sylvester’s career with the launch of GO. Shot in a breakneck first-person perspective, the YouTube series provides a glimpse at life behind his handlebars both literally and metaphorically, offering a playful, free-flowing view from city streets and sidewalks as he skydives in Dubai, sumo wrestles in Tokyo and goes all in at blackjack tables in Las Vegas. Since the debut video—now at 20 million views—GO has circled the globe and expanded to include a new type of physical achievement, uniting people together across NYC and London in less than 18 hours on July 13, 2024. Taken together, the works that comprise GO aren’t just extensions of Sylvester’s life and artistic energy, they’re totems for how he’s rethinking what BMX looks like in the 21st century.
It’s this kinetic vision across so many mediums and disciplines that has made him the flagbearer for what Sylvester himself described in a previous GREATEST interview as a “new-age athlete,” someone that pushes their body every day while working with ideas that aren’t necessarily connected to their athletic side. This ethos comes through in every project he’s a part of, from videos with Mercedes-Benz to 1-of-1 travel cases with Rimowa. His latest collaboration, however, may be his most personal yet, as he brings the origins of his story to the Air Jordan 4 RM.
Below, Sylvester talks about the quiet importance of his grandmother’s driveway, transatlantic BMX rides and the future of Bike Air.
Let’s get right into your latest work. Tell me about your collaboration with Jordan on the AJ4 RM.
For sure. I chose the name ‘Grandma's Driveway’ because I fell in love with bicycle riding in my grandmother's driveway. It's such an intimate place for me when I think about my journey. Approaching this project, I wanted to tell that story. I wanted to give people insight into my origins and pay tribute to my grandmother and the Black women who helped raise me. That’s what this shoe and this story does.
The green we pulled from the fence that lines my grandma’s driveway. The grey we pulled from the actual concrete. We carried on that storytelling through the packaging. We flipped the classic AJ4 box, using a photographic replica of the concrete on the bottom half. The tissue paper inside the box features a photo that was our main reference point for this project. We used a photo of me on my tricycle at four years old. That was the beginning of this journey I’m currently on.
We’re seeing the Bike Air motif return for this collaboration. Do you remember when you first came up with that and what you wanted to say with that flip?
The first time we unveiled the Bike Air concept was on my Nike Air Ship last year. After all the buzz and energy around that shoe, it was a no-brainer to try the concept again. That's what you see on the AJ4 RM: Jordan and myself diving deeper into the concept of Bike Air.
When you think about my career, especially over the last 10 years, we’ve seen me on my bike and in the air in some of the dopest Jordans ever produced. Since people have watched me on my bike in the air for so long, it’s a no-brainer, it’s automatic. You have some type of visual that connects you to that and it makes so much sense. Without dumbing it down, it just felt like it was meant to be.
Are we going to get a Nigel Jumpman logo next?
[Laughs] You never know, man. You never know what the future holds.
I wanted to give people insight into my origins and pay tribute to my grandmother and the Black women who helped raise me. That’s what this shoe and this story does.
Let’s talk about your latest GO Ride. What made you want to do two cities in less than 24 hours?
I mean, why not? It’s the challenge of it all, right? It’s fun. At the core of it, I have this desire to galvanize bicycle communities around the world. And the idea of doing an international bike ride, it’s one of those things that you don't hear about every day. It’s one of those really big ideas, and those big ideas are usually the ones that get me excited and keep me up at night.
You’re bringing all these people out for a positive cause; it’s exercise and ultimately there’s so many conversations that come from GO Ride. This exchange of ideas happens. People meet new friends or you see people you haven’t seen in a while and everyone’s just mobbing through the streets together in unison. Everyone has smiles on their faces and everyone’s radiating. That’s beautiful to me.
As somebody that has pushed the sport of biking so far in their lifetime and continues to do so, what does biking mean to you now? Is it a sport? An artistic medium? A culture? A lifestyle?
It’s all of the above. It’s a sport, it’s an artistic medium, it’s a galvanizer, it’s hope, it’s a brighter passage. The bicycle is such a beautiful machine. It’s boundless. When you think about me being this kid from Jamaica, Queens, using the bicycle to take me around the world, that’s a very powerful thing. Especially because I come from an environment that is limited. We didn't have all the resources in the world, but a bicycle was this unlikely thing, the vehicle that helped me achieve so much and see so much and garner lifetime relationships and friendships and work with some of the biggest and best brands in the world. It helped me literally live out my imagination. Just even thinking about it in that way gives me goosebumps.
Is that where the Nigel Sylvester Foundation came from as well? That idea of going from Queens to traveling around the world on a bike?
That idea was definitely one of the motivating forces for me to start the Nigel Sylvester Foundation, knowing how powerful the bicycle is. I was like, “Man, I want to share this perspective and share this vehicle with as many people as possible.” It’s ironic that in New York we’re exposed to so many things, but you’d be surprised how many kids live in New York City—maybe even just three, four miles away from Central Park—and they don’t have a bicycle to ride through that park.
We did a bicycle giveaway in the Bronx at the Madison Square Boys & Girls Club. The majority of these kids didn’t have bicycles. There were parents coming up to me and saying, “Thank you so much. We are living in a challenging environment and a challenging situation, and we wanted to get a bike for our child so bad, but we didn’t have the means.”
That’s what I’m doing this for: to share that joy of bicycle riding with kids and with families. I learned charity at home and I watched my mom change people’s lives with her selflessness and giving back and sacrificing. I’m just doing what I saw as a kid coming up, and it’s pure to me, it’s authentic to me, and it matters to me.
As somebody at the top of their field, where, what or who do you look to for inspiration to keep pushing yourself?
A lot of it comes from within. I’m very motivated to be one of the best to ever ride a bicycle, you know what I mean? And I say that meaning both on and off the bicycle. Beyond that, I feel inspiration all around me—whether it’s my family, whether it’s my friends who are all killing it on their own, whether it’s a song or a movie—these are the places that I’m pulling inspiration from on a daily basis.
Sometimes it’s from an experience in the past, like this AJ4 RM. Right now, we’re telling a story that happened 30 years ago, but that moment inspired me in the present day to design a collaborative shoe in the manner in which we did. It influenced the choice to apply these colorways and to change certain things on the shoe—to add and alter these little details. Inspiration is around me all the time and I pull from it organically. I hope that the things I’m doing now can go on to inspire other people.
You just appeared on The Shop with LeBron, André 3000 and Jerry Lorenzo. What does it mean to you to be included among such an incredibly accomplished group of people?
The Shop is a show that I watch often because they’re always highlighting accomplished individuals; individuals who are exceeding expectations and transcending beyond their respective industries. To be amongst such an accomplished cast, it’s a testament to the work I’ve put in. It’s a testament to what I've done through bicycle riding and beyond, but I also think it’s a glimpse of what’s to come.
I feel like when people think of bicycle riding, it’s very limited, like it’s something you do for fun or for exercise. It’s not one of those things that people look at as a viable career path or something you can go off and do and break barriers. I’ve been doing that for a very long time. I’ve been creating this blueprint, trying to transcend BMX and break those stereotypes and misconceptions people may have around BMX riding.
Inspiration is around me all the time and I pull from it organically. I hope that the things I’m doing now can go on to inspire other people.
In a previous interview, you mentioned that your first job was at McDonald's. Now, you’re recognized around the world and are redesigning some of the most iconic sneakers ever made. How do you stay so humble and driven while also being aware of and enjoying your success?
I think that’s just naturally in me. It’s easier to just be a nice person and I’m very conscious of where I’m from. All of this is very cool and it’s great, but at the end of the day, I’m still just a kid from Queens riding a bicycle. That mindset puts me in a place where I stay motivated, I stay hungry, and it helps me keep my edge.
At this point in my career, a lot of people might just be comfortable and be chilling. I’m the one on the phone with the team every day pushing like, “Yo, what else can we do?” That’s not for the sake of just pushing though. It’s for the sake of wanting to continue to tell this story, wanting to continue to raise the bar, to see how much we can actually accomplish. What can we actually do? How far can we take this thing?
The idea of that, that’s all I need to keep pushing every single day. As long as I’ve got energy in my body and God continues to watch over me, I’m going to continue to ride this bike and do what I do.
We've been talking about all the incredible things you’ve achieved since discovering bike riding all those years ago, but I’m wondering: If you hadn’t ridden that tricycle in your grandma’s driveway all those years ago, what do you think you'd be doing now?
[Laughs] I guess we’ll never know.