It's a soundtrack as varied and exciting as the games' themselves and the youth culture that spawned them.

"The music is aggressive and it gets me all pumped up and ready to go," said Martti Kuoppa, the 22-year-old Finland native and returning Bicycle Stunt Flatland champion. "I listen to a lot of hip hop, like the Visionaries. When the music is good it always helps me and I can perform better."

"The music is very important to the games," said Eric Jones, aka DJ Whakball, ESPN musical director and resident disc jockey. "A lot of the guys are really serious about their music and it really drives them."

According to Jones, X Games athletes can be very particular about their music.

"Some guys honestly don't care what's playing when they're doing their thing," Jones said. "But then there are a lot of guys feel like the music has to be right and, if it isn't, then it throws them all off. Some guys who do it [the vertical jump] will just stand on the platform with their arms crossed and not go until their song comes on or I play something that they like. That's why I always ask them what they want to hear or they bring me stuff they want me to play."

Jones has been supplying the soundtrack for X Trials and X Games athletes since 1999 and said he has come to realize the importance of music to the games.

"I've seen the music that's playing effect people's performances," Jones said. "I've personally apologized to some of the guys for playing music that threw them or like sapped the energy from it. It can be very, very important to them."

Marcel Trembley, 20, a flatland biker from New London, said the music is important to his performance.

"The way I ride does depend on what I'm listening to, I think," Trembley said. "I listen to music that inspires me and something deep and heavy I can get into, likePink Floyd or something like that."

Sometimes, Jones said he can figure out what an athlete wants to hear by the type of activity they are doing. "I mean, you can't pigeonhole them really, cause a lot of different people listen to a lot of different things, but you can make some generalizations just cause of what they're doing out there, and what it involves.

"The flatlanders, the guys doing the bike tricks, they like things to be more mellow and loungey," Jones said. "There's a lot of hip hop and trip hop with them, and drum and bass, sometimes techno. What they're doing is like so concentrated that they like that groove, something they can get deep into.

"[Vertical stunt] guys listen to a lot of metal and punk, too. Skaters are mostly into like old punk rock and new hardcore stuff. It's fast and hard and gets them all pumped up and moving."

Jones emphasized that it's impossible to tell what any given athlete is going to want.

"You can't really say every skater's going to want it hard and fast and every flatlander's going to want it slow and bass heavy," Jones said. "I've played everything from Chemical Brothers to Metallica to Eminem all in one set.

"They like a little bit of everything, as long as it's good and they can get into it. I like that you can never tell what some guy's going to do. They like to mix it up."