Built for the Long Haul: Alexander Schultz Puts Mattoc to the Ultimate Endurance Test

Aug 27, 2026

Hundreds of Miles. Multiple Days. One Very Different Definition of Performance.

For most mountain bike racers, the finish line comes after a few hours. Alexander Schultz measures his races in days.

The Manitou ambassador and ultra-endurance mountain bike athlete has spent 2026 racing some of the toughest self-supported events across the American West. His season began with a solo effort at 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo before moving into a spring and summer packed with ultra-distance racing and bikepacking.

So far, Alex has completed everything he put on paper for 2026, with multiple podium finishes along the way: 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo. Sonoran Ultra Endurance Race. True Grit Epic 100. Stagecoach 400. Pinyons and Pines. San Juan Ultracruise. Oregon Timber Trail Race 700. Those aren’t simply races. They’re extraordinarily demanding tests of athlete, bicycle and equipment.

And when you’re hundreds of miles into the backcountry, reliability becomes more than a performance advantage.

Performance You Can Depend On

Self-supported racing changes the equation. There is no mechanic waiting in the pits. No team truck full of spares. No opportunity to simply swap equipment when something doesn’t feel right. Equipment selection becomes part performance decision, part risk management. That is exactly why Alex’s experience aboard the Manitou Mattoc Pro is so valuable.

“There isn’t anything I can compare the Mattoc to. The IRT is something very special not offered by anyone else.”

For Alex, the Mattoc’s performance isn’t judged by how it feels during the first hour. It’s how it continues to perform after 100, 200 or 400+ miles.

He describes the fork as remaining active and supple all the way to the end of his ultra-distance events, continuing to provide the traction, control and predictability he needs even as his own reserves begin to disappear.

At that point, consistency matters enormously.

IRT: Tuning for the Real World

Ultra-endurance bikepacking also presents an interesting suspension challenge: the bike isn’t always the same bike.

Water, food, sleeping equipment, clothing and race-specific gear can dramatically change total system weight from one event to another. Terrain changes too. A suspension setup optimized for one race might not be ideal for the next. That is where Manitou’s IRT, Infinite Rate Tune, air spring system becomes particularly valuable.

IRT allows Alex to independently tune mid-stroke support and end-stroke progression without simply increasing the initial spring rate. That gives him an unusually broad tuning window to account for different loads, terrain and equipment while preserving the sensitivity he wants from the beginning of the stroke.

For a rider obsessing over every detail before disappearing into the backcountry for several days, that adjustability isn’t theoretical. It’s a tool.

Physics, Not Fashion. Especially 400 Miles From Home.

At Manitou, Physics, Not Fashion means engineering around what makes a suspension product perform rather than what convention says it should look like.

Ultra-endurance racing might be one of the purest validations of that philosophy. Light weight matters when you’re climbing for hour after hour. Chassis precision matters when fatigue sets in and technical terrain doesn’t get any easier. Sensitivity and traction matter when you’re trying to conserve energy. Tunability matters when a bike’s load changes substantially between events.

And reliability matters when stopping isn’t an option. A mechanical problem in a conventional race can cost a result. Far enough into a self-supported backcountry event, equipment problems can become considerably more serious. The best equipment therefore needs to do more than help Alex go fast. It needs to keep doing its job. Hour after hour. Mile after mile. Day after day.

Two Big Ones Remain

Alex’s 2026 story isn’t finished. Next comes the Marji Gesick 100, where Alex will make his remarkable 11th appearance. That’s more than 1,100 miles accumulated at Marji alone, and this year he’ll once again be chasing the coveted buckle. Then comes the big one. On October 1, Alex returns to the Arizona Trail Race 800, AZTR800, for his fourth consecutive attempt. This time, he describes the objective simply: all or nothing. Alex knows the Arizona Trail. He knows what eight days of racing can demand from his body, his mind and his equipment. And after a season spent refining his setup across thousands of brutally demanding miles, he’ll once again put all three to the test. We’ll be watching.

Smooth for the Long Haul

Ultra-endurance racing exposes weaknesses that shorter tests simply cannot. For Alex Schultz, that makes every mile valuable feedback and every finish another validation of the equipment underneath him. The Mattoc Pro isn’t there simply to survive the adventure. Its job is to help Alex thrive within it, maintaining traction, control and suspension performance when both rider and machine are being pushed deep into unknown territory. Because after 400 miles, performance still matters. After 700 miles, reliability matters even more. And when the trail ahead stretches toward 800, the best suspension is the suspension you can stop thinking about and simply keep riding. Follow Alex’s AZTR800 effort live on Trackleaders beginning October 1.

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