Here’s a scene that plays out on trails every weekend: a rider rolls into the parking lot after a three-hour ride, legs cooked, vision a little swimmy, and announces (almost proudly) that they survived on half a bottle of water and a handful of trail mix from who-knows-when. In the running world, this person would be an anomaly. In mountain biking, they’re the norm.

We come from the running world, where the conversation around fueling is constant. How many grams per hour. What to eat during training versus race day. How to train your gut. Mountain biking hasn’t had that conversation yet, at least not widely. The culture has long been “eat whatever’s in the cupboard, or eat nothing at all.” And honestly? That’s costing riders more than they realize.

Who We Are

We’re XACT Nutrition, a small Montréal-based brand founded in 2012 on a windswept Mount Orford feed station where we were fueling trail runners and realized something frustrating: most sports nutrition tasted terrible. So we looked to French pâte de fruits for inspiration and built our first product, the XACT Energy fruit bar. Real fruit. Soft texture. Something you’d actually look forward to eating at kilometre thirty-five of a marathon.

That philosophy hasn’t changed. We’re proud of our ingredients (short lists, real fruit, no artificial junk), but we’ve never tried to be the “cleanest” or most natural-sounding brand on the shelf. Our real obsession is taste. Because taste drives consistency, consistency drives performance. Because we know if your fuel tastes like a chore, you’ll skip it exactly when you need it most.

Science backs this up. Research shows that flavour alone can reduce perceived exertion and boost motivation. When food is enjoyable, athletes stick to their plans. When they stick to their plans, they don’t fall apart in the final hour. It’s that simple.

Why We’re Stoked About Mountain Biking

We’ve spent years building trust in the running community. Now we’re growing into a sport we love just as much, and we’re doing it with the right people beside us. This year we signed Elliot Jamieson, the reigning Canadian Enduro champion, 2025 Enduro World Championship bronze medallist, and one of the most exciting young riders on the planet. Elliot is helping us bring the fueling conversation to the MTB community in a way that’s authentic and rider-first.

Our lineup is growing too. Within the last year we’ve launched the XACT Endurance Bar (almonds, dates, and real fruit for those longer efforts), fruit-based gels with 30g of carbs per sachet, and an immediate recovery post-workout product. Every one of these was developed with cyclists and mountain bikers in mind: easy to carry, easy to open one-handed, easy to digest when your heart rate is through the roof, and (most importantly) something you’ll actually want to eat.

The Bottom Line

The riders who figure out fueling don’t just ride faster. They ride longer, recover better, and actually enjoy the last third of their rides. We think mountain bikers are ready for that shift. And we’re here to make it taste good.