Some people search for years, decades even, for the thing that makes them feel alive. Some may never find it. But 36-year-old Nigel Sylvester – the BMX savant, luxury fashion favourite and visual creative titan – is one of the lucky ones. He knew that he wanted to ride a bike before he could write his own name. He took his unique interest and strove to be its epitome. It’s fair to say he succeeded.

It’s been a busy year full of bucket-list check points and sentiment-inducing happenings for the Queens native. He tells me of Bike Month (yes, it’s a thing) concluding as May did, a month-long celebration of his beloved machine that he aggrandised through incentives with his eponymous charity foundation, formed in 2021 with the intention of giving back to the community and spotlighting those in the shadows. As part of the month’s activities he did “everything from a backpack and sneaker giveaway to a bike giveaway.” He continues, “We launched a recovery room in conjunction with Hyperice in my high school. That was super cool to go back there all these years later and be able to donate something that the kids are definitely going to use and be excited about.”

Aside from ongoing philanthropic ventures, later in the summer Nigel will be diving deeper into the fashion world with the unveiling of two Air Jordan 4RM sneakers, which he can be seen sporting in his Wonderland shoot. The signature “Bike Air” tag found on the back of the heel tab was an idea that Nigel first had years before, and one that he was “a bit surprised the Brand let [him] do,” he says playfully. The forthcoming footwear drop is perhaps the most intimate and personal moment of Nigel’s decorated professional life, given the inspiration behind the July release – his inaugural memory of falling in love with riding a bike, at just four-year-old.

“I was playing outside one day and there was a tricycle in the driveway,” he recounts fondly. “Me being a young, hyper, curious kid, I jumped on it. I’m riding around the driveway, and tried to lock up the front wheel and the back of the tricycle span around. My older cousin saw it happen, said it was cool, and to do it again around some cones. I started to do these drifts, and excitement and joy rushed through me. I instantly fell in love with bike riding. It was such an important, special moment for me, especially looking back at my life now that the bicycle has been such a powerful tool throughout my life. So we decided to use the story as inspiration for both of the shoes. The green colour-way is inspired by the fence that lined my grandmother’s driveway, and then the grey colour-way is inspired by the driveway itself.”

It’s a warming memory that feels deeply rooted in the disposition of Nigel. He’s driven and focused, light-hearted and nostalgic. He talks earnestly of a family-centric childhood in Laurelton, Queens in a “predominantly Black neighbourhood, mostly [of ] Caribbean descent, first generation immigrants.” He continues, “The neighbourhood came with some good, some not so good. The summers were interesting, right? I was exposed to a lot of different things, man. And I think having that exposure helped me really identify the things that were important to me and the direction I wanted to take in my life. Bike riding was always one of the most important things for me. It was a place where I found joy and found peace. I was able to channel my creativity and my curiosities through bike riding.”

From a tender age, the mechanical companion was at the crux of Nigel’s purpose, something that his family welcomed but didn’t fully understand.“Both of my parents were immigrants from Grenada,” he says. “[They wanted me to] ‘go to school, get a good education, go to college, graduate, and get a traditional job’ because that’s what they knew as success. They let me ride a bike as long as I was doing good in school, but they didn’t know how serious I was taking it.” When he reached his later teen years, the zeal that biking induced became so encompassing that he dropped out of college, setting out to pursue it as a career. His parents weren’t happy at the time, but Nigel has proved them wrong on this occasion, much to the delight of all parties.

“At the age of 17-years-old, right before I turned pro, I started to put an unfathomable amount of energy into riding and my parents were a bit sceptical,” he explains. “They didn’t know anything about the world of BMX at this point in time and there was definitely some tension in the household. My mom who worked nights would come home in the morning and she’d catch me sleeping or something, and be so mad. She’d be like, ‘You dropped out of school, you’re here just sleeping, riding this bike all day. What is it going to do for you?’ She didn’t know where it could potentially take me. But once I started to achieve success through riding and started to develop my career, the conversation became different. Nowadays, she loves it. Just a few days ago, when we donated the Hyperice recovery room, she was able to come to the ribbon-cutting and ABC News did a piece on it and interviewed her. She was on TV for the first time, and her friends are calling her, like, ‘I see you on TV.’ She was a little hyped. That’s just one of the examples of [how] she’s been able to participate in the things that I’m doing. She understands it way more.”

To read the full interview, pre-order the Summer 2024 issue.