The best mountain bike freeriders in the world are gathering this weekend for the annual "Spring Training" at Highland Mountain Bike Park in Northfield, New Hampshire. The pros come from all over the world to train in the one-of-a-kind indoor facility that includes both foam pits and rubber ramps, as well as outside airbags to jump into.

This is the time and the place riders experiment with new tricks before the start of the Freeride Mountain Bike World Tour. The highlight of the weekend will be the "Best Trick" event on Saturday.

Highland Mountain Bike Park was the dream of Mark Hayes, who built a world-class mountain bike park at a ski area that closed in the mid 1990's.

Hayes, a mountain bike enthusiast, tells Edging the Xtreme how he built one of the best know mountain bike parks in the world from the humble beginnings of a run-down ski mountain.

Listen here:

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What's crazy to some is controlled chaos to others. Alex Polli,a wingsuit flyer and base jumper, isn't afraid of the kinds of daredevil stunts most people would be terrified of.

According to Polli, the scariest thing is not jumping because that "would not be living."

He flies all over, including through a 2013 banner to ring in the new year with his friends, and he once jumped out of a helicopter and flew through an arc cave on the side of a mountain – at over 250 miles per hour.

In a recent interview on Edging the Xtreme, Alex Polli talks about his life, his need to fly, and the what it takes to b calm under extreme conditions.

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At just 12 years old, Alana Smith became the youngest X Games medalist in history. Smith won the silver medal in the women's skateboard park contest as the X Games kicked off in Barcelona over the past weekend.

Fellow american Mitchie Brusco, who first competed when he was just 14, landed the first 1080 in X Games history on the "MegaRamp." It was only the third time the trick had ever been landed, ever, in all of skateboarding history.

This weekend also belonged to veterans like as Garrett Reynolds, who won his sixth straight BMX Street title, and Bob Burnquist, who made it to four straight Skateboard Big Air victories. Pedro Barros won his third consecutive Skateboard Park gold and Zack Warden defended his BMX Big Air title from Brazil.

Check out all the video highlights at xgames.espn.go.com. The next stop for the X Games is Munich, Germany June 27 to 30. Then the world tour wraps up in Los Angeles during the first week of August.

Stay tuned here, because we'll be bringing continued coverage of the summer's most extreme global competition.

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Chris Davenport, a New England native who ski raced his early years in the Mount Washington Valley, has gone on to be one of the most regonized skiers and mountaineers in recent times. His ambition and passion has led him to ski from the South Pole to the biggest peaks in Europe and beyond.

His exploits include skiing all 54 mountain peaks over 14,000 feet elevation in Colorado within one year, and skiing the biggest peaks in Europe including the Eger, Mount Blanc, the Matterhorn and the Monte Rosa.

He has skied in countless Warren Miller films, including a segment on Mount Washington, and is a two-time Big Mountain World Freeride Champion. Davenport's business exploits are equally as impressive, as he has his own clothing line with Spider Clothing Company, his own ski line with the Kastle Ski Company and he is a sponsored Red Bull athlete.

As an X Games bronze medalist and television announcer, Davenport spoke to Edging the Xtreme, sharing his insights on the future of the X Games in light of the recent death of an athlete this past winter. Davenport also spoke of pursuing his career as a professional mountaineer, knowing the full reality of lost friends and the pressure of having a family waiting for him back home.

Davenport attended Holderness Prep School in New Hampshire, to which he credits his focus for peak performance and setting and reaching personal goals.

Every summer, Davenport runs a ski camp in Portillo Chile in mid-August. So if you are looking to escape the hot summer sun, you can book a trip with him and his film star friends to one of the most beautiful ski resorts in the world.

Listen to the entire Chris Davenport Interview with Dan Egan on Radio BDC.

The World Ski Championships have started in Austria and after just one day, I have good news and bad news.

The good news first: Julia Mancoso, who won silver in the 2011 World Championships in Garmish Gemany, captured the bronze medal in Austria. Julia always steps it up for big events, and this is her fifth career World Championships Medal.

And Ted Ligety won gold in the Super G.

The bad news: Lindsey Vonn blew her knee out and had to be airlifted off the mountain. This is a devastating blow to the best Women Skier in in US Ski Team history, especially with the Olympics just a year away.

The US Disabled Ski team is also off to the World Championships in Spain and Tyler Walker is ranked number one in the world,

You can read and listen to the entire Tyler Walker interview here.

This is the spot from RadioBDC on this week's news:

Tyler Walker had his legs amputated when he was four years old. He was born with lumbar sacral agenesis, a birth defect that meant he was born without most of his spine.

“My parents had my legs amputated, which was a good decision, because my legs were just flopping around underneath me," Walker said in an interview from his home in Aspen, where he now lives and trains with the US Disabled Ski Team. "Since I can get out and walk around on my hands so easily, I’m glad they did.”

Originally from Franconia, NH Walker is a two-time Paralympian and a multi-time X-Games Gold Medalist. He has a lot to be proud of; this year at the International Paralympic Skiing NorAm Cup, he won five out of six events.

The first time I met Tyler was back in the late 1990’s when I was hiking over to ski the backside of Cannon Mountain. There he was, with a friend who was pushing and pulling him in his mono ski up and over the top of the mountain to ski some new snow on the backside of Cannon. I’ve been a fan ever since.

Chris Devlin-Young, whom Walker met at the Disabled Ski Programs at both Loon and Waterville Valley ski areas, is known as a fearless athlete who recently skied the famed Corbet's Coulior in Jackson Hole.

Devlin-Young, who is also from New Hampshire, a World Champion and four-time Paralympian, has become a coach, mentor and friend to Walker. Together they are aiming for the 2014 Games in Sochi, Russia.

“I like to ski the most challenging part of any mountain," said the 26-year-old Walker. A 10-year veteran of the US Disabled Ski Team, he's is heading over to Spain to the World Championships next week.

Listen to my entire interview with Tyler, and follow his progress at the “Worlds” and on the road to the Paralympics in Sochi Russia in 2014, here at Edging the Xtreme on Radio BDC.

Dominance in sports is an amazing accomplishment, and Shawn White winning his sixth gold medal in the Men’s Super Pipe is monumental.

Sliver went to Japanese Ayumu Hirano, who at just 14 years old, came within just seven points of beating White, who is almost twice his age.

Hirano, when asked why he's so good at a press conference, answered simply, “I don’t know.” For ESPN, it was a perfect ending to another X Games full of non-stop action, high-flying stunts, acrobatics, and crashes.

And ESPN knows why the X Games are so good; it's because people are watching.

In 2012 total attendance in Aspen reached 108,000 and this year, the number is expected to be higher. On Saturday night alone ESPN was reporting 47,000-plus sports enthusiasts in the stands. This year the event hosted over 200 athletes competing in 16 disciplines.

Between ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC, action sports have a huge platform and with a record number of people watching, advertisers are happy, fans are thrilled and the X Games will roll on.

For the athletes competing on the biggest stage in action sports, there is very little room for error. They're gambling it all, and, let's face it: these events are dangerous.

In the Men’s Ski SuperPipe, the announcer said noted that every athlete competing in the event has had a major surgery in the last 14 months. In the Women’s Snowboard SuperPipe, two of the television announcers were athletes with injuries: Kevin Pierce has a permanent brain injury and, the other, Gretchen Bleiler, is suffering from a fractured eye socket from a crash during training on a trampoline.

In Snowmobile X, two brothers were injured in different races but on the same jump. Celeb Moore has brain complications and his brother Colten separated his pelvis.

Also, in Snowmobiling, an Australian competitor attempted a backflip Sunday night in the best trick competition and his sled took off into the viewing area. A Colorado man was injured, but not before throwing his 11-year-old son out of the way of the unmanned sled. That's just the tip of the iceberg for injuries, further down on the list are spines, knees and concussions.

However, with a world-wide television audience the X Games have changed the culture of sports forever. There are X Game events this year in Spain, France, Brazil, Germany along with the two in this country (taking place in Aspen and LA).They have transformed sports, changed the direction of the Olympics and produced some of best know athletes in the world today.

Shawn White’s sixth gold medal will make him one of the most sought-after athletes leading up to and during the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia next year. Meanwhile, coming up behind him is an entirely new generation of skiers, snowboarders, snowmobilers and others, led by young talented athletes like Ayumu Hirano, who have better training, coaching and who are willing to risk it all for the fame and fortune of the likes of Shawn White and others.

The Men’s Ski Superpipe has always been my favorite X Games event. Think of it ... the pipe is rock-hard ice with walls 17-plus feet high. The athletes are flying above the walls while flipping, twisting and grabbing their skis. If you have never been in a superpipe, visit Loon or Okemo and take a look. It's very wild just to ski down the middle of it and look up the walls ... nevermind ski up to the lip, or jump up and out of the pipe.

David Wise won the contest on Friday night - and he did it with style - leaving no doubt of why he became the first double gold medalist in this event since Tanner Hall in 2008. It's hard to win one of these contest due to the nature of the judging, and the fact that every year competitors are constantly setting new heights and new tricks. Check out his superpipe performance from last year.

The 21-year-old Wise is a new dad from Lake Tahoe, California. You can see him in the new Warren Miller film "Flow State" or any number of other videos.

His winning run included a back-to back double cork 1260 trick that has never been done before. It was an amazing run. What struck me were the grabs, the height and how smooth he was floating in the air.

Turin Yates-Wallace, at just 17 years old, won the silver while Bethel, Maine native Simon Dumont - a true superpipe warrior - won the bronze. The 26-year-old Dumont had a broken wrist and skied without poles in the competition. (Dumont is pictured to the right competing without poles at the US Grand Prix on Jan. 11, 2013.) It could be argued that poles don’t help much in the superpipe. But if that was true, why do the other competitors use them? The answer is simple: Balance.

He broke his wrist while competing in the Dew Tour earlier in the year, but that didn’t slow him down. He is known for going big in the pipe, and this year was no different. Dumont is also no stranger to injuries. In 2006, he broke his pelvis in three places and ruptured his spleen when he overshot a jump in Utah. Another injury includes a knee injury that caused him to pull out of the X Games in France last winter. If you are looking to see this Simon in person, don’t miss the Dumont Cup held at Sunday River in late March.

The 5th annual Dumont Cup returns this spring as the biggest free ski event in the East, and the biggest pro-am competition in the world. With $20,000 in cash up for grabs, you'll see top X Games pros throwing down against an amateur field that always gives them a run for their money.

So it's bronze for Dumont to add to his medal count. Since 2002 he was won two gold, two silvers and now four bronze medals in Winter X Ski Superpipe, plus a gold in Big Air back in 2009. We have not seen the last of Simon, he has been named to the 2014 US Olympic Ski Team and will compete in Sochi, Russia next year in the superpipe. He is a true ski professional, one I like to watch and one who has not let injury or fame slow him down from his passion for the sport.

Aspen is a great place any time of year, but for the last 11 years in late January Aspen comes alive via the power of the X Games! ESPN moved the X Games to Aspen in 2002, and the resort has the contract through 2014. The action kicks off this Thursday, January 24th, and the action is on ESPN from noon to 11pm.

The biggest events are the ski and snowboard half pipe for sure. And this year marks the return of Tanner Hall ... it’s been three years since he competed. Maine’s Simon Dumont (some You Tube footage below) is his arch rival, and together these two guys set the standard of half-pipe skiing in the world. It will be interesting to see if they can maintain their dominance, because today it’s all about the new comers. So look for the Canadian or the French to step it up.

Gone from the competition this year is Skier X and Board X. With very little explanation, the organizers pulled the plug on these two very popular events. Both of these events are now in the Olympics and have grown in popularity around the world from the youth level to the international FIS World Cup. Maybe this is ESPN saying we don’t want mainstream, or maybe it was too much to organize. Whatever the case, you’ll have to watch the Visa Grand Prix or the Revolution Tour to get your fix, both are televised and more information can be found at www.usfreeskiing.com/freeskiing.

The one man who has become the face of the X Games is Shawn White (check out his perfect 100 score from last year's X Games). And yes ... he is back. The only athlete to compete in both summer and winter X Games, White is an icon and a real life action hero. At the Winter Olympics in 2010 in Vancouver, he was the highest endorsed individual athlete there. He continues to perform at an extremely high level and I would not count him out again this year. However, there are plenty of big names to follow including Olympian Louie Vito and New Hampshire’s own Olympian Scotty Lago.

The women’s snowboard field is filled with the biggest names ... and the three American’s Gretchen Bleiler, Kelly Clark and Hannah Teter (video below of her 2011 silver medal run) could be the best of all time. These three have been on top of their game for a long time and it wouldn’t surprise me to see a USA sweep of this event.

For you “sled heads” out there, will be plenty of action. Back by popular demand is SnoCross. This event is a blast with side by side racing, big air and lots of crashes. There is also SnoCross Adaptive racing, which will prove to create a whole bunch of new hero’s and X Game legend’s. Also included in Snowmobile is best trick, freestyle, and speed and style. So put in your ear plugs and look for some wild action.

For the entire schedule of events log onto www.xgames.espn.go.com. The X Games are viewed in over 200 countries and this year Aspen is embracing for over 110,000 fans over the four day event. I’ll be watching for sure, hope you will be too.