In the third episode of Nigel’s “Get Sylvester” series he talks about Animal and its ties to East Coast BMX. Its pretty cool to get a glimpse of the inside of the Animal warehouse, he also talks about working on a limited edition version 2 of the popular Nigel Seat. There is some riding in the end and some street clips of Ralph Sinisi which are always worth checking out.

(Photo by Mark Losey via Vital)

2012 is the year of BMX reality shows. Mike Spinner, Corey Bohan and Nigel Sylvester have all gotten their own shows on Youtube. Not quite as cool as having a reality show on TV, but as the barrier between conventional TV and online TV slowly fades away, this stuff is sure to become more and more common. I’ve been super busy lately and today I realized that I haven’t seen the new episodes for any of these so I decided to sit down, watch them all and review them. Let’s do this.

Corey Bohan’s Wizard Of Aus Episode 1.

Who: Corey Bohan. You know, the guy who won Nora for dirt 18 years in a row.

What: A Red Bull backed reality show about the most marketable Australian since Steve Irwin.

Motivation: Corey’s already a minor reality star thanks to his famous girlfriend. As Red Bull expands their original online video content, why not throw Corey in the mix? He’s had a few bad PR moments over the past year but anyone who’s spent a couple minutes with him usually agrees he’s a class act so he’s an obvious candidate for a this kind of thing.

Views: 17,000 in 1 day.

Likes: Multiple references to Corey’s punk rock past in the form of a Descendents shirt and Sam I Am playing his birthday party. Corey’s off his bike but he still managed to get his sponsor, The Set some shine and there’s actually a lot of really good riding from all of his teammates in here, which I didn’t expect.

Dislikes: Wasn’t there an FBM video of the same name? And I’ll just say it so you guys don’t have to: not enough Audrina.

Comments: 8. Almost all positive. Even the guy who called Corey irrelevant and the show, “dreadful” acknowledges that he “likes” Corey. Much better ratio than the 11 comments that the trailer got, which caused Corey to let the haters know what he thinks of them.

Best Moment: B Salad, no doubt the most influential BMXer to come from Australia since Bohan himself, feebles a massive rail.

Overall: Solid. Corey’s not the most over-the-top personality so he enlisted his good friend, Robbo to keep things zany and he’s off his bike so he had his teammates cover the riding. I’ll be watching the next one.

Click here to read the next review, featuring Nigel Sylvester and the second episode of “Get Sylvester”.

I have no idea if this is actually authorized by Nike (if it isn’t, I’m sure it’ll be offline soon) but it’s got an animated Dennis Enarson and Nigel talking about the shoes they ride. The animation is pretty hilarious and worth watching.

“In the second episode of his new series, “Get Sylvester,” Nigel Sylvester provides a guided tour and snapshot of the city where he was born, raised, and built his career in BMX: New York City. Between hitting classic spots like Union Square and hood spots where cops are crawling, ticket books in hand, Nigel and his crew cover hundreds of blocks and still have time for a pickup game at Nike’s private Tribeca gym. Just another day in the life.”- Network A

Are you familiar with video game Skate (1,2, or 3)? What do you think it would take for a BMX rendition of this be created? Surely there is a big enough market for this. BMX is growing quickly, perhaps you could shed some insight in terms of how many page views TCU gets or perhaps any other BMX related sites. There is big money at play now behind the scenes of BMX. EA should cash in on that market with a more realistic BMX themed video game.

Good Question.

It’s been a long time since there was a BMX video game and it’s a shame. I don’t play video games. I was obsessed with them as a kid though. I got started with Nintendo and always had a system and bought/rented games up until the Playstation 1 era. I think the last game I spent a lot of time with was Tony Hawk 2. Luckily I was already an aspiring bad ass high school BMXer by the time I started playing Tony Hawk so it’s hypnotic skateboard spell didn’t affect me too much. I never got into Dave Mirra or Mat Hoffman. The controls just felt clumsy to me after already getting used to Tony Hawk. I had plenty of friends who

I don’t have the time or the desire to play video games anymore but they are undeniably a great way to get young kids into BMX. And more kids in BMX means more bikes being sold, more pro riders, more brands and I hope we can agree that overall, that’s a good thing.

As with everything, it comes down to money. Video games are incredibly expensive to make. Like 20 million dollars or more. The kind of money that is on a level BMX companies can’t even consider putting up. And video game developers are unlikely to take a risk on a market that isn’t necessarily large enough to support a game. They have to sell a ton of fucking video games to break even. From their perspective, why not just stick to skateboarding? Any kind of market research would obviously lead them to the conclusion “oh, there are way more skaters than BMX kids, this market isn’t worth pursuing”.

Still, it’s an empty niche that could theoretically become popular. BMX needs a Sheckler. Someone young and incredibly famous to use to push a game. I don’t think we have that right now. Nigel is the first person who comes to mind but Nigel’s nowhere near as famous as Sheckler. Still, I’m sure that a video game is on Nigel’s mind. He seems endlessly ambitious and I’m sure he’s discussed the idea of a video game with his people and if anyone is going to make it happen, it’s probably him. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

While episode 1 of Get Sylvester focused on Nigel living the high life out in Barcelona, it seems like episode 2 will be a more down to earth look at what his life is like when he’s at home in NYC riding street.

Pat Parnell checks in with Nigel Sylvester and Adam Banton then reports on some recent BMX happenings. Pat’s a nice guy but when he disses fixed gears at the end of this he truly earned a place in my heart.

This one is actually brought to you by Beats By Dre. Features footage of Nigel in Barcelona (the same trip that he filmed Get Sylvester episode 1 on)

Here’s the first episode of Nigel’s new online reality show, Get Sylvester. While you guys are talking shit about him, he rides his bike, talks about traveling, balls hard at a nightclub in Barcelona, gets exceedingly drunk in his hotel room and then leaves Ralphy Ramos behind to catch a flight… OR DOES HE? To be continued.

What is your take on all the comments regarding Nigel in the Nike San Antonio edit?

I didn’t read the comments til now. The fact that Nigel’s career even needs to be discussed is ridiculous. But hey, I’m here for those of you who might otherwise hold ridiculous opinions without proper guidance.

I have 3 things to say about this topic:

First, Nigel is an amazing rider. He’s not just a decent rider with a great personality for TV like some of those comments try to imply. He’s sick. In his Cuts part he does 180 crook to fakie bar up a handicapped rail. He does a crook to 180 bar at the same spot. Crook 180 over that L rail. Crook to bar over an L. Yes, every trick I just named off involves a barspin and/or a crooked grind but who cares? Nigel does what he’s good at and what he likes to do, and as a fan of his, that’s what I want to see. I don’t watch a Brian Foster section and think “damn I wish this guy did something other than go high, turndown and tabletop”. I didn’t watch Tom Dugan’s new edit and think “fuck, can’t this guy do something besides big gaps and 360s?” Nigel’s got awesome style and he picks really cool things to do. He’s a guy who grew up idolizing the Animal crew until he got good enough to join the team himself and his riding is still clearly influenced by those guys. It’s boring to compare Nigel and Edwin (OMG THEY ARE BLACK AND HAVE 4 PEGS, DID YOU NOTICE THAT?) but it’s easy to see how Nigel’s riding is pretty much a direct continuation of Edwin’s. And since Edwin is my favorite rider of all time and without question one of the greatest street riders of all time, I have a hard time finding anything negative to say about Nigel’s riding. He’s awesome.

Second thing: the only reason this is even being discussed is because Nigel is enormously successful. He made all the right moves in the beginning of his career (getting prolific sponsors like Nike, Gatorade, Animal and Mirraco) and is now making power moves like starting his own bike company. You shouldn’t be criticizing him for making the most of his abilities. Even if Nigel WAS somehow subpar compared to his peers that would mean that what he has accomplished is even MORE impressive. He’s a go-getter. We’ve seen plenty of handsome, stylish, young riders who probably COULD have done what Nigel has done. Could have, but didn’t. Nigel (and whatever badass marketing team he has behind him) got him where he’s at.

And that’s just ridiculous. It says a lot about our culture that we celebrate talented people who toil in mediocrity and then trash talented people who are smart/driven/lucky enough to go out and manage to make a good living off of their skills.

Third thing: Almost every rider would have a hard time looking good in a web video with Garrett Reynolds, Dennis Enarson and Chad Kerley. They’re superheroes. There’s a big difference between a video part rider and a contest rider. Garrett, Dennis and Chad are the a few of the very rare dudes who can be top video part dudes while also doing extremely well at contests (and Dennis is the even more rare example of a guy who can win park, street and dirt contests and film banger video parts) and that shows in the fact that they are able to film so many amazing clips on a 5 day trip. That’s a pretty ridiculous standard to judge Nigel on just because he’s on the same team as those 3 guys.