Bump And Grind
Pro BMX riders spend almost every waking hour perfecting their tricks. We gave our guy less than a week. Welcome to a world of skinned elbows, hard knocks and badly frayed nerves
vidently my coach thinks I’m a wimp. This becomes clear over the morning’s eggs and coffee, when I try to explain to him that he is pushing me too hard. “We should take it easy today so I can rest up and rebuild my strength,” I say. A moment passes before he pulls back from the table. “Do whatever you want,” he shrugs. Suddenly my eggs, like my courage, seem cold and rubbery.
I’ve been riding a BMX bike for three days. My coach has been riding for a couple of decades. He’s actually something of a legend: Nigel Sylvester, a US professional street rider whose web series, GO, has logged millions of views. His Instagram following is roughly the population of Wolverhampton and Jay-z recently dropped his name on a Frank Ocean track.
When he is hitting jumps and grinding rails at the park, Sylvester appears to adhere to the principles of fluid dynamics. I’ve watched him whip 180s and 360s off handrails with the ease of autumn leaves in a tidy wind vortex. So Sylvester’s approval carries weight. His sudden slip into unconcealed apathy can be interpreted in only one way. He’s telling me that if I’m giving up, so is he.
Our goal is ambitious. In just five days, I am attempting to learn the foundational manoeuvres of BMX street riding. Sylvester has plotted out a course for me at the skate park at Coleman Playground, which stretches out under New York City’s Manhattan Bridge. He is teaching me how to drop in on the quarter pipe, hit some jumps and execute a clean footplant. My final trick will be a double-peg grind that ends with a huge drop back to the ground. (In reality, the drop is a little less than a metre, but everything feels bigger when you imagine face-planting onto concrete.)
I picture my training being punctuated by bloody elbows and embarrassing pratfalls, which turns out to be fairly spot on. “That’s just part of the game,” Sylvester says. With matters of pain, he seems to have the cold indifference of a border control officer explaining that you’ve just spent the past two hours standing in the wrong queue.
It’s not that I’m new to cycling. As a kid, I did the plywood driveway ramp and the downhill bombers. But I was never particularly deft on two wheels. Around the time Sylvester was probably doing his first fakie – riding backwards – I barrelled my bike into the side of a police horse. (I couldn’t find the brake lever.) A year later, I flipped over my handlebars and woke
up in the hospital with half my mouth scabbed shut. The experience persuaded me to focus on grounded cycling styles; as an adult, my rides have mostly been work commutes and Saturday jaunts on broad-shouldered roads.
FLEX APPEAL
On the first day of training, Sylvester explains, “The bunny-hop is the cornerstone of every BMX trick. You can’t do anything until you have it down.” So that’s what I try to do, all day. I bunny-hop again and again – first on flat ground, then off a hump that looks like a concrete pyramid with the top lopped off.
The multi-step manoeuvre is physically demanding, and the seemingly endless repetition turns my muscles into mush. Halfway through the day, I come down at the wrong angle and crash hard. It’s my first skinned elbow.
Over the next couple of training days, Sylvester teaches me the footplant and two types of rail grinds. But there’s no learning without repetition, so I keep going long after my forearm and back muscles tell me to stop. The bike starts to feel heavy, like a plough moving through soil, and my grip strength is so compromised that I have to ask for help opening a packet of mixed nuts.
When Sylvester senses that I’m surrendering to my soreness (my whimpers are a dead giveaway), he flexes his muscles Hulk Hogan-style, as if to say, “Be strong!” When I fail at a trick, he flexes. When I splat like a snot rocket on the concrete, he flexes. When I hide in a shadowy corner of the bike park, hoping to avoid detection, he finds me. And flexes.
Then comes the breakfast before my last day of training. I’m tired, and Sylvester is tired of hearing about it. I’m whipped, bloodied and banged up, but he is unsympathetic. And for the first time, it appears as if he seriously doubts my mettle. “Do whatever you want” is a warning siren. I’m losing the support of my coach.
SILENT TREATMENT
It suddenly dawns on me how much I need him. Sylvester isn’t just showing me tricks – he’s keeping my feet on the pedals. It can be hard to stay motivated when failure feels so imminent, and I’ve been trying to give up on myself all week. But Sylvester hasn’t let me. “Be stronger,” he says. It isn’t the advice I always want, but it works. It keeps me moving.
“I haven’t trained for the handrail. If I fall, I’ll go down hard. But my coach says I can do it, and I trust him”
But now, with a day of training left, my coach won’t even look at me. The silence between us is expanding so fast that I worry it will knock my eggs off the table. Finally, I ask, “What do you think I should work on today?” He thinks for a moment and, by the grace of the BMX gods, he directs his eyes back at mine. “I want you to do two things,” he says. “I want you to jump the gap and grind the big rail.”
So far, I’ve done neither of those things. The gap is the big jump, a concrete hole wide enough to fit my bike inside. If I fail to clear it, I’ll clip the exit ramp and land on my face. The big rail is the one that ends with the huge drop that’s actually less than a metre. I can’t say no. Not now. “Let’s do it,” I say, faking confidence.
Something happens after that. My last day of training is by far my best. I jump the gap; I grind the big rail. Sylvester’s respect is now mysteriously entwined with my sense of self-worth.
Waking up the next morning, just before my final challenge, I find the soreness of my muscles is tempered by raw excitement. I go to the park early, pop in my earphones and spend 20 minutes flowing around obstacles. When Sylvester gives the word, I begin what I’ve been training for.
LEAP OF FAITH
I pedal hard and sail over two gaps. Then I footplant on a rolling hill, change direction, and bunny-hop the pyramid. My headphones are pumping Run the Jewels. I feel like flood water moving through the park. I punch my bike up and onto an elevated runway, bunny-hop down, and then roll fast up the quarter pipe. I drop back down and hit a rail with a double-peg grind, a second rail with a feeble grind. Then I move towards a third – the mammoth grind that always felt impossibly high. But I bunny-hop hard and feel my pegs catch and glide for a moment, before popping off and landing with only the slightest wobble.
“Daaaamn!” Sylvester says, running up to celebrate. “You did it on the first run.” The day could have ended there and I would have died happy. But my coach notices the effect of adrenalin in my dilated pupils. “Keep going,” he says. “Go grind the handrail on the stairs.”
I haven’t trained for the handrail. If I fall, I’ll go down hard on descending concrete. But Sylvester says I can do it, and I trust him. It takes a few runs, but finally I bunny-hop out over the stairs, catch my pegs on the handrail and roll out smoothly. It’s my biggest trick yet.
After the fight-or-flight hormones burn off, Sylvester and I sit. “I thought you were going too hard on me all week,” I say. “Yeah, I was,” he replies. “But I could see you needed to be pushed.”
He’s right. I pulled off the impossible – or what seemed impossible to me – only because he wouldn’t let me take the easy way out. My body aches, but it also feels stronger than it did a few days ago. I think for a moment about everybody who has ever been hard on me: bosses, teachers, parents. I owe them gratitude, and I vow to pay up. So I start with Sylvester. “Thanks for having faith in me,” I say.