Photo: Mike Headford
Coming up with this intro is a little tricky… Chris Silva is a Canandian BMX legend regardless if he wants to believe it or not. Over the years, Chris has destroyed A LOT of rails all over with and without the help of his pegs. Although grinding without pegs seems damn near impossible, he does it.
Some of you older riders out there will remember the classic Primo “Jewel” axle nuts that were essentially axle nuts that were rounded off to work more like pegs back in the day. Thanks to this little invention, it helped and inspired Chris to push the limits of his grinding abilities and helped make him into that legend we were talking about above that he is today.
A few months back when I was talking with Chris, he had mentioned that he was working on something with Animal Bikes that he was really psyched on. After bugging him a bit, he let the cat out of the bag that they were developing a newer, better, Chris Silva signature version of the Jewel axle nuts that would be coming out this summer.
There was no way we couldn’t find out more, so we got Chris to talk about these axle nuts (don’t call them a peg!) and the history of what lead to today. Let’s see what he had to say!
Name: Chris Silva
Location: Toronto, ON Canada
Sponsors: Animal & MacNeil Bikes
Years riding: 18
Not sure what the Primo Jewel was? Here’s a look at some history for you. A prototype of Chris’ version is on the right end.
When was the first time you did a real grind? Any memories come to mind?
When I was about 12, my friends and I made a 1 foot tall grind box and some kickers. We would bring them to the park and jump the ramps and try to grind the box. I was seriously the worst at grinding, my buddy Kyle was for sure killing the box with double pegs and feebles. I think I was only able to double peg it at that time, haha.
How about your first rail? I feel like that would be something that you would remember after all these years.
I was a late bloomer with rails, the first legit one down stairs I ever did was when I was 17. Bitch ran it for a half hour and then after the first hit I think I must have just kept running back up the stairs after every hit and kept doing the rail for a while, I was hooked. RIP U of T 11 stair square rail, that thing was amazing!
Chris’ interview in Ride UK from 2006. No pegs.
How long did you run pegs for? Did you ever step it up to the 4-peg game?
When I started riding I was into ramps and a lot of flatland, so I always had 4 pegs along with a front and back brake. As time went on I got more into ramps, dirt and street riding so the 2 pegs came off and so did the front brake. It wasn’t till the end of 2004 that I really started to think of where I could take grinding rails and it became my main interest. From that point on I just tried everything; pegless, 3 peg and on the rare occasion I’d throw on a 4th peg.
I know you ran the original Jewel’s back in the day. What lead you to going with the axle nut versus an actual peg? Was it just more of a challenge or what’s the story there?
I think it was just the direction I wanted to take my own progression. During 2005 I had done and filmed a lot of stuff with pegs down rails; crooks, hangs, backwards, x-up grinds, gap to rails, etc… After all that I just started thinking where I was going with rails, I was either going to keep doing the same stuff with pegs or I had to try something new. I can’t remember exactly but I know at the end of 2005 after finishing filming for one of our ICC DVD’s, I just needed a change and took my pegs off to just chill for the last couple months of the year. I started to hit a few flat rails and quickly started trying to hang tooth pegless. I could never get my axle nut or dropout to grab on this flat round rail I was trying it on, My friend Patrick gave me some Jewels he had and I put them on and things started to work a lot better from there.
Samples. Male and female versions.
So you ran those for a long time, then didn’t you actually get your own ones made that you ran for a long time?
I actually only ran the Jewels through 2006 and in 2007 I took them off but remained pegless throughout that year filming for another ICC DVD, that DVD was filmed through 2006 & 2007 but all the pegless rail stuff was from 2006 when I had Jewels on. From 2008 to 2011 I went back to pegs but was always switching it up. It wasn’t till early 2012, a few weeks before the MacNeil Cali trip that I got my friend Jake to machine me a few for the trip. I was actually very motivated to get back into the pegless game because of some good words Ben Lewis said about me in a DIG interview. It lit a fire under me that has been burning ever since.
I feel like you’re pretty well known for the crazy grinds you have fired out with just the axle nuts. Care to share a few of the crazier things you have done with them? Anything that really scared the shit out of you?
Over grinds have got to be the scariest shit ever without pegs, that’s the trick I’m most picky with in terms of finding the right rail to do them on. Besides that, hang tooth bails are horrible but always expected, I think anyone with pegs would say it would suck to miss a hang tooth down a rail… anytime I go for a hang tooth I’m expecting a couple misses before I ride away, it’s a horrible thought when you’re at the top of a rail, haha.
“I’m expecting a couple misses before I ride away.”
When did the idea of doing these axle nuts with Animal come about? Was it something they brought up to you or did you kind of bounce the idea off them?
I was actually in the middle of getting a bunch of these Jewel style axle nuts made so I could sell to friends myself. There was a lot of demand for them from people I knew. Right before I was going to launch this small axle nut product Animal hit me up and had the idea to do them up for me as a signature part.
Samples on samples.
How has the whole process of actually getting these developed to go? I feel like even though these are pretty small and “simple”, there was probably a fair amount of work that went into them.
I had the ones I got made and got them into the hands of close friends. So, that first run I got made were being used as the prototypes for the current Animal ones that will be out soon. In saying that, there was a lot of people who ran early stage versions of these Animal ones but didn’t know it and helped test them out, still till this day, over a year later I haven’t had one person tell me they’ve bent, broke or grinded through one of them. The guys at Animal and myself have been figuring out all the small details for the past while and I got the first legit Animal ones a couple months ago, been riding them all the time and basically trying to destroy them but haven’t succeeded, which is a great thing. These Animal axle nuts will be bomb proof!
When will these be hitting shops, distributors and mail-orders? Any idea on the price?
There’s still a bit more testing to be done before they will hit the market but we plan to hopefully have them out around the summer months. I’m not too sure what the pricing will be but I’m sure they will be really affordable.
It all starts out in a design…
Have you guys played around with anodized colors or anything or are you sticking with the classic black?
It would be cool for them to come out in a few colors, I guess if they are a hit there might be a chance of colors. For now I think the idea is to just do them black.
What else do you have going on these days? Any other signature parts in the works with Macneil or anything?
Yeah, I’m working with MacNeil to design a couple things that will hopefully be out this year as well. I’m not one to let the cat out of the bag too early, so we’ll just wait and see what happens. I’m really stoked on the stuff we’re doing with MacNeil as well, should be a good year overall.
What are your plans for 2014 looking like? Are you going to be putting in some miles for trips at all?
Not too sure what the plan is for the year to be honest. I’ve got to get down to NY/NJ this spring and I hope to make my way to Calgary AB Canada sometime during the summer, I’ve never been there and I’m dying to go.
I’d imagine you have been filming when the weather has cooperated this past winter. Any chance we will see a new video from you soon?
The weather has been really rough in Toronto for riding outdoors. I’ve kept myself busy with hitting the local indoor park. I’ve got a few edits stashed away, so I’ll always have stuff to drop throughout the year. The MacNeil DVD is dropping really soon, I’m really hyped for that. Put more work into that than any other video project I’ve ever filmed.
Expect these available this summer in male and female versions. Black only.
What have you been doing when you aren’t riding these days? Are you working or picking up any new hobbies?
I’m a pretty lazy dude in the winters. I’ve been looking for a new job like mad. Indoor sessions with the BMX and spring is finally here so riding outdoors is a good change. Besides that I’ve just been lazing out and resting after a long year of beating myself up physically and mentally filming for the MacNeil DVD. Been doing a lot of video editing as well and working on a new ICC (Inner City Circle) DVD that should be dropping this spring as well.
Anything else you want to say? Shout outs or thanks?
Thanks to Ralph, Jay, Nick, Frank, everyone at Animal for hooking up these axle nuts, seriously been dreaming of this day for almost a decade. Darcy and all the guys at MacNeil. The ICC crew, been 10 years and finally doing up our 5th DVD. Thanks to Jake and Dennis for machining up the first jewel style axle nuts for me and all the guys riding them right now.
MacNeil Cali trip early 2012 when I got back on the jewels.
ICC DVD part 2006-07, all my first pegless moves:
Animal 2013 pegless edit.
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