BMX freestyle champion
Ryan Nyquist
flies into Wilmington
BY SIMON GONZALEZ
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALLISON POTTER
Drop by the Ogden Skatepark on any random weekday
morning, and you just might notice a guy riding a bike.
Oh sure, there are lots of people who ride bikes in and
around the park, but this guy stands out. He rides a small bike
— kid’s size, really, with 20-inch wheels. He doesn’t just ride
around the skatepark. He rides in it. And flies above it.
While in the bowl or on the snake run, he’s doing tricks —
flips, spins, whips.
Clearly, this is no ordinary guy.
The man on the bike is Ryan Nyquist, a BMX freestyle cham-pion
and Olympic hopeful.
BMX freestyle is in the extreme sports category. Elite riders
like Nyquist perform tricks that defy physics and gravity.
“Basically, it’s jumping little kids’ BMX bikes in the air, and
spinning around and landing on your tires and riding away suc-cessfully,”
BMX freestyle champion Ryan Nyquist at the Ogden Skatepark.
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he says. “That’s the best-case scenario. You can come
up with any kind of moves you really want to do. That’s the free
in freestyle. You put your own flavor, your own spin, your own
style on riding.”
Nyquist, who moved to Wilmington with his wife, Ali, and
their three young sons last summer, makes it sound easy. Then
again, he makes it look easy. So much so that he’s a legend in
the sport.
He’s won 16 X Games medals, and three world champion-ships.
He’s won a couple of ESPYs. He’s been featured in docu-mentaries,
and nominated for a Teen Choice award. He wears
cool-looking logo clothing and hats not as a fashion statement,
but because those are his sponsors. He has a signature shoe
with Adidas, trading cards, action figures, and is a video game
character in Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX 2. He rides for Haro Bikes,
and the one he usually takes to the skatepark is his own 20th-year
anniversary signature model.
DEFYIN
GRAVITY