Don’t fear the damper on Manitou forks. Embrace the (incorrectly coloured) knobs!
- Brand: Manitou
- Product: Mattoc Pro
- Price: £1,149
- From: Ison Distribution
- Tested by: Benji for 6 months
Pros
- Easily the best sub-36mm fork out there
- Looks fabulous
- Hugely, and easily, adjustable
Cons
- Just as expensive as rival premium forks
- You need to RTFM to set it up
- Will turn you into a Manitou Nerd
Where a lot of fork brands place an emphasis – in terms of marketing as well as actual design – on the air spring of their forks, Manitou first and foremost are about damping. Crudely speaking, the Mattoc behaves and supports primarily via its damping circuitry as opposed to riding the air spring. If you’re currently struggling to get your fork to make sense on the trail, you perhaps should try Manitou’s method of running a relatively soft spring with significantly more damping. A lot of riders have become fearful of dialling in damping, mainly because it frequently makes forks ‘feel worse’ and chokey. Either that, or there’s no discernible difference between one click and the next.
Don’t fear the damper on Manitou forks. Embrace the (incorrectly coloured) knobs! They actually offer a real range of adjustment too.
The most obvious incarnation of this suspension philosophy is how the Mattoc deals with the end part of the travel. Unlike with most other forks which rely on adding/removing volume spacers to the positive chamber, the Mattoc features adjustable hydraulic bottom out control. The MC2 damper ups the level of compression damping for the last 30mm of travel. On the trail this simply means a much more predictable and consistent fork behaviour with no ‘missing’ zones or crazy ramp-up wall.
The Mattoc is a 34mm stanchion fork that comes in a relatively modest travel window (120–150mm). In my opinion, the Mattoc easily outperforms rival trail forks such as the Fox 34 and 35mm stanchion RockShox Pike. As well as just being stiffer – and less prone to binding and attendant notchiness – the Mattoc simply feels more capable. And, for those who care, it does so whilst being genuinely under 1,800g.
The Mattoc is also unique in that it spans an impressively wide range of riding applications. You can set this fork up for an XC bike just as well as you can set it up as an excellent trail bike fork. This is due to both being able to relatively easily change the fork’s travel as well as the genuinely broad range of damping and spring adjustment on offer.
Other forks may arguably be more easy-moving off-the-top (i.e. in the car park test) but are rather gutless in the middle when it comes to actually riding trails on them. The Mattoc has buckets of support. This is not code for harshness; it still oscillates up and down at any point in its stroke super freely. It just has way more control, predictability and traction when riding in the mid-part of the travel.
Air spring then. Manitou’s air spring may not be new in its catalogue pages. But that’s doesn’t mean it’s old fashioned or basic. Far from it. Manitou have been fine tuning the three chambered IRT (Infinite Rate Tune) system for years. Yep, it’s the same sort of air spring found on the iconic Manitou Dorado upside down downhill fork.
What else? It looks rad. The reverse arch, the silver crown, the blackness. The supplied bolt-on mud guard is decent. The two-option hose routing (ziptie on arch or pass-through a clip thingy) is very neat. There are bleed ports (albeit ones that require an Allen key). The Hexlock thru-axle is initially perplexing but then becomes second nature and feels like a much more refined way of doing things.
Do I have any niggles about this fork? I have two. Firstly, it costs over a thousand quid (and the more affordable Mattoc models lack key features of this Pro). Secondly, you will have to read the manual before riding this fork. It is not intuitive. It is a Manitou after all.
As well as the rebound know being blue(!), the compression knob being red(!!) and the thru-axle unscrewing from the ‘wrong’ end, you will need assistance in inflating the chambers and turning the knobs in accordance to the manual.
Thankfully, the recommendations in Manitou’s manual are pretty much bang on. So it is not a case of spending the first handful of rides faffing and cursing with a shock pump. But it is a case of reading the information supplied, doing it, and then… you’re all set. You very probably won’t touch it again.
Overall
As you may already know from its appearance in our Editor’s Choice roundup at the end of last year, the Manitou Mattoc Pro is a superb suspension fork. And it’s fairly unique in that it offers a level of stiffness and sophisticated super capable damping control that you only get paired to longer travel forks with bigger (36mm+) stanchions. If, indeed, you get this level of damping sophistication at all.All in all, a very welcome return from one of the classic marques in mountain biking. Recommended.