~P~ Let's start with the basics… Your name, your age, and where are you from?

My name is Dennis McCoy, 32, and from Kansas City, Missouri.

~P~ You've been riding forever… How long exactly? Where are your roots?

It's hard to answer that question. I'd say like 20 years. 1980 is when I started BMX racing, but I was riding for years before that on my K-Mart bike so who knows.

~P~ Who do you ride with?

There's a bunch of locals in Kansas City that I ride with. This guy named Brian Rose, Woody, Blackman, Mike Crane, a whole bunch of locals out there. Then of course, you know, other pros are my friends, so whenever they come in to town.

~P~ You're riding and competing all the time. What do you do when riding just gets you down?

It really doesn't ever get me down. I mean, what gets me down is not having enough time to ride. Sometimes when your on the road you're to busy travelling, doing other things, to ride like you would at home. I like to have as much time at home as possible so I can have some time to really ride.

~P~ You've been riding street and vert a lot lately. You've had surgery on your hand so you aren't really doing flatland anymore. But what is your favorite riding right now?

My favorite type of riding really is just going out street riding with my friends. Just cause it's so laid back. You can just screw around or go for burly stuff or get chased by people or whatever. But, I love a good skatepark session too. It's always a blast where there's a good park with a vert ramp and a street course and mini ramps and tons of stuff where you can play all night with the music cranking.

~P~ You're going to all the X-Trials this year, X-Games… Are you going to do any other contests this year?

Pretty much all the major ones. The Gravity Games, I'm not sure if I'm going to Fox Sports Soul Bowl thingy or not. It's right in the middle of some other stuff I have to do this year.

~P~ You going to the Burning Bike Festival?

I might, I'll just have to play it by ear. I don't know though.

~P~ Where do you think street and vert riding is heading?

It depends on how you look at it and the person. For me it's just constantly progressing. A lot of doing the same trick but pushing it to the next level. For vert, the ramps are getting a lot wider so that's kind of changing our riding style. I mean, you can do a 90 mile an hour grind into a seven foot air and that's kind of cool to be able to mix things up like that.

~P~ What do you think ESPN has been treating the riders?

Personally I think they are doing a good job. If you look at them from year to year, they improve each year. I'm like the athlete rep for the other athletes. You know, elected to go represent them at these meetings. It may take a couple of years sometimes for some of the ideas to sink in. But, it seems like they always come through. I think they are doing their best to look out for the riders. Obviously there's going to be some negative things about it- BUT, if you look at this street course right now… and even go back just a few years when we were holding comps at skateparks. There's never been anything like this as far as this much stuff. We show up on site it's done, it's covered with tarps, everyone else has to fix it. You know, it's like were kind of spoiled really.

~P~ Injuries. You've been plagued. How is the age factor in to all your injuries and how are the injuries in general?

I'm not really feeling my age at all. I don't know if I'm supposed to be at this age or not. I've been pretty well off with injuries lately. Of course yesterday I slammed and knocked myself silly in vert- pretty bad concussion. Really, since my wrist surgery in 1996 I haven't had anything that has stopped me from entering a contest.

~P~ What do you think your worst injury ever has been?

I guess the wrist. As far as having the most affect. It's still barely even flexible at all. See how much I can move it there (moves wrist about 20 degrees from side to side). I don't know if that comes off on the tape recorder. But you know for 14 weeks I couldn't even tie my shoes. So that was probably it. I collapsed my lung once. That sounds pretty burly but that really hasn't had an effect on anything.

~P~ What would you have to say to anyone just getting into the sport?

Try to ride everything! Don't get caught up in all that current shit like TRAILS are cooler than this, or TRUE street is the way to go, or this is the way to go. Just ride everything and don't get caught up in all the bullshit. The more stuff you ride the less likely you are to get burned out.

~P~ Music you listen to? Fugazi, Suicidal Tendencies I know from the old school what about newer stuff?

Oh, I listen to all sorts of things. Drop Kick Murphy, I don't know, just a bunch of old school or whatever when I am riding, driving, or just chilling out at home.

~P~ K2… I know riding is your only job in life. What else is going on with K2 and everything else?

I've got a lot of stuff going on right now. This stuff keeps you busy. I try to spend as much time as I can riding. I just built a new vert ramp. Right now it's 32 feet wide, it's going to be 40. We didn't have time to finish the whole thing. That was six weeks of my life right there. Designing my bike for K2. Designing a show with Airwalk. Now I'm organizing a Gravity Games bike event.

~P~ What's the deal with that?

It's essentially NBC's version of the X-Games. You know, their not hiding the fact that ESPN has done it already and they are coming in and doing their version of it. I guess the plus for the riders is that they are going to have a bigger street course for the riders so we can do even more. They are also going to have a larger pro purse than the X-Games. So hopefully that will have a sort of trickle down effect and the X-Games will raise their's next year. Before you know it 20^th place will be earning his trip.

~P~ Who are your favorite riders?

Oh man, I haven't been asked that for a long time. There are a few riders that have influenced me over the years like Matt (Hoffman) without question, Dave (Mirra) lately with the way he is just flowing all over the place and just riding so dialed you can't leave him out. There are do many up and coming riders right now that I have respect for. I wouldn't call Ryan Nyquist up and coming anymore. I mean, he's just dialed. He is going to be a major contender in this sport for years and years in this sport in just everything. Chad Kagy- he's got an awesome style, awesome attitude. I'm still a big Dave Osato fan with just all the super tech lip tricks and Fremouth. Dude, this list could go on forever. Soooo… OH! I can't leave Jay (Miron) out. I still love Jay's style- just super fast, just gnarly, burly.

~P~ He won vert yesterday right?

Umm, yeah. I can't comment on his run… I don't remember any of it after knocking myself out.

~P~ Over the years you see a lot of riders getting talked up and talked crap about… People like Nyquist, and a little bit of Miron and Mirra all the time. You've never really been hit with that I don't think. What do you attribute that to?

I don't know man. Maybe they just feel sorry for me cause I’m the older guy and they just leave me alone or what. (laughs) I don't know. Maybe it IS because I have been around forever. I saw the sport through it's glam phase. I didn't get caught up in the whole phase of buying Porches (probably in reference to Mike Dominguez). I didn't quit when the money fell out of the sport. I stayed into it. So maybe that's got something to do with it. Or maybe it's cause I'm such a big shit talker that nobody wants to talk crap about me because they are afraid of what might come back. Who knows.

~P~ You're touring at all this year with K2 or is it all contests?

Mostly comps. Every year I do these shows in Santa Rosa. That's Charles Schultze shows that I do every year. It's not really for K2. I'm taking a trip overseas to do some shows in France. I want to focus mostly on riding at home and riding at comps. There will always be time to go back and do a lot of shows if I want to go that route. We're so busy right now as it is. I'm trying to do less shows.

~P~ Any last words, thanks, props to family or friends?

I always want to thank my wife, Parity, because she is totally supportive of this. She is my harshest critic. She won't be afraid to tell me "That trick looks pretty stupid- why the hell are you doing that?". I'll be like "Damn! I invented that! But, I guess your right it does look kind of lame." But, all the same people all my old past sponsors. I want to thank McGoo because he hooked me up with a Mongoose deal at the right time so I could make a living during the lean years of freestyle. Everybody at K2 now, just totally good to work with. Glenn and Chad that were at Airwalk that helped me get my shoe, my signature shoe design. Of course just all my friends that I ride with all the time and all the other pros- Matt and Jay and Dave and everybody that keep me on my toes and push me to progress.