Mike Spinner Knee Surgery Q&A

As you probably remember, Mike Spinner tore his ACL mid-2009 and had to have surgery which, in turn, led to him missing all of the year's of contests. Mike got his knee back in good shape and came back swinging in 2010, taking the park win at the Chicago Dew Tour. Shortly after, however, Spinner's knee started acting up again. After seeing a few doctors, Mike learned that his knee was in bad shape and would need another surgery. Not wanting to spend another six months off his bike, Mike took matters into his own hands and got an experimental surgery in Canada last week. We asked him a few questions about it to get some insight.When was your first knee surgery? What exactly happened with that?

I had my surgery done last year, but it failed on me at the Salt Lake City Dew Tour. I rehabbed it for eight months, but it was only healthy for six. Not cool.

Tell us a little bit about this surgery you traveled to Canada to get. What are the differences between this surgery and the normal surgery?

Well, I got an artificial ACL, which is now allowed in America because it's not FDA approved. This sucks, but the reason is that the artificial ACL is guaranteed to fail in three to five years. But, Dennis McCoy has had one in his knee for ten years. Also, I'm only off my bike one fifth as long as I would be with the American surgery.

What sort of research did you do before you jumped into this surgery?

Actually a skateboarder, Pierre-Luc Gagnon, was the one who started telling me about it last year, right after I had my first surgery. I later found out that Dennis McCoy had also had it and everybody is familiar with Mat Hoffman getting this surgery while he was awake. That's an actual option with this surgery - you can either be put to sleep like normal or they can just numb your leg and you can watch the surgery as it's happening. I didn't want to hear all of the drill noises going on, so I opted to be asleep.

How'd it go? How are you feeling now?

I got the surgery five days ago. I feel great. I never used a brace and am walking around at one hundred percent. I was pedaling a stationary bike the day after surgery, which is completely unheard of with the standard ACL operation, so I'm amped.

What's next? When are we going to see you back on your bike?

This is nuts - the doctor wants me riding in one month and he told me I can be riding at full capacity in two months! Hahaha!