<table> </table> When Dennis McCoy rode a bike for the first time, he should have gotten a good idea of where his life was headed.</p><p>&#8220;We lived on a hill, and my mom gave me a little push and I just took off,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I picked up speed, and I couldn&#8217;t stop.</p><p>&#8220;I ended up crashing into this bush. At first, I was a little scared. But when I found out it wasn&#8217;t so bad, I just thought, &#8216;Hey, that was fun.&#8217; And I got back on my bike and went for more.&#8221;</p><p>McCoy has been repeating that routine ever since.</p><p>As one of the nation&#8217;s top BMX competitors, he has endured his share of thrills and spills. He said he&#8217;s had anterior cruciate ligaments in both knees replaced, has strained ligaments in his wrists, has been treated for a collapsed lung and has suffered &#8220;a bunch of concussions.&#8221;</p><p>So what&#8217;s he doing still competing on the national level at the age of 41?</p><p>Well, the thrills are still enough to override the spills.</p><p>&#8220;People will tell me, &#8216;You&#8217;re going to pay for this when you get old,&#8217;&#8194;&#8221; said McCoy, who lives in Kansas City. &#8220;And I&#8217;ll tell them: &#8216;I&#8217;m already old.&#8217;</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;m competing against kids who are half my age. I&#8217;m the oldest rider on the BMX Dew Tour.</p><p>&#8220;But I&#8217;m not ready to give it up. As long as I am still able to compete and I&#8217;m still having fun, I&#8217;m going to be out there.&#8221;</p><p>McCoy is a legend in the sport of aerial acrobatics on a bike.</p><p>He is the only BMX rider to compete in every X Games. He won the overall BMX title every year from 1986 to 1995, and he currently tours the country, competing in everything from the AST Dew Tour, which he helped form, to Tony Hawk&#8217;s Boom Boom HuckJam.</p><p>Over the hill?</p><p>About the only way that applies to McCoy is when he jumps that hill on his BMX bike.</p><p>&#8220;Some of the guys I&#8217;m competing against, their dads were fans of mine years ago,&#8221; McCoy said. &#8220;I&#8217;ve been in this for a long time. It&#8217;s the only job I&#8217;ve ever had.</p><p>&#8220;But I don&#8217;t get tired of it. I might be feeling some aches and pains, but when I get on that bike, I&#8217;m fine again.</p><p>&#8220;I still feel the adrenaline. And that&#8217;s what counts.&#8221;</p><p>Indeed, McCoy still enjoys flying up and down the half-pipe on his BMX bike, getting air, performing tricks on the rail, doing flips and spins.</p><p>His signature move? The barspin 540, in which he does one and one-half rotations in the air on his bike while spinning the handlebars.</p><p>&#8220;We&#8217;re constantly practicing, trying to come up with new tricks,&#8221; he said. &#8220;For as long as I&#8217;ve been in this, I&#8217;m still learning.&#8221;</p><p>And the more he learns, the more his reputation grows.</p><p>&#8220;Dennis McCoy is truly a legend in BMX,&#8221; said Wade Martin, president of the AST (Action Sports Tour). &#8220;Not only is he still a competitor at the age of 41, he is a terrific ambassador for the sport.&#8221;</p><p>McCoy&#8217;s love of the sport started during his Kansas City childhood, when he and others in the neighborhood would set up ramps and courses where they could perform jumps and tricks on their bikes.</p><p>&#8220;We even set up a ramp at the edge of a lake where we could do back flips and land in the water,&#8221; McCoy said in a telephone interview.</p><p>But it wasn&#8217;t until the early 1980s that McCoy&#8217;s life took a turn that led him toward a professional career. When he and his friends learned that there would be a BMX exhibition at Metro North Shopping Mall, they rode their bikes from Independence to get a look.