Welcome to Starter Pack, a gear-obsessed series that gives WIRED readers a peek into how notable personalities live, shop, and tinker.
When he was 27, snow cross racer Mike Schultz (who got the nickname “Monster Mike” because of his renowned fearlessness) drifted off course in a race, flew off his snowmobile, and obliterated his knee. It required multiple surgeries and multiple days in a coma to save his life. Ultimately, his medical team had to amputate his leg.
Rather than give up his love of action sports, Schultz engineered his own prosthetic knee and founded his own high-performance prosthetic company, BioDapt. His prostheses use a patented proprietary linkage system and mountain bike shocks to dial in such precise performance, enabling him to return to compete at the highest levels of the sport. Since 2008, he has won multiple Winter Paralympics and World Championships for adaptive snowboard cross and banked slalom.
More importantly, however, extreme athletes, amputees, and veterans all use his prosthetics. That includes many of his competitors, whose gear he sometimes ends up repairing right before an event. “You never get the temptation to, you know, ‘fix’ a competitor’s Moto Knee?” I asked him over Zoom when WIRED caught up with him for a few minutes at training camp for the 2026 Paralympic Games. (I also made a little wrenching gesture.)
“I just tell them, ‘Yeah, I’m sorry, there’s actually a recall on this one. I’ll get it back to you in April,’” Schultz says. “Make sure you put the ‘just kidding’ part in when you write that!” Here’s what Schultz is bringing to Cortina.
His Prothesis
Ordinary prostheses are fine for walking around and going to the grocery store. But for snowboard cross—a sport where you fly over jumps and take hairpin turns at high speeds—you need a rugged, durable tool that can withstand low temperatures, endure physical abuse, and absorb precise levels of pressure quickly. Schultz’s Moto Knee 2 and Versa Foot 2 are both tuned precisely for the event. “The alignment is crucial, otherwise you’re not going to be able to roll over to your toe edge or heel edge to make a turn,” Schultz says. “Changes in an angle by half or a quarter turn on a set screw are noticeable. Having those alignment options on my snowboard leg is crucial for that ultimate performance.”
The Helmet
Giro
Owen Spherical MIPS Helmet
After his board, the number one piece of safety gear that Schultz always has is his helmet. He doesn’t know the brand; I looked at it in the Zoom when he held it up. It is a Giro-brand snow-sports-specific spherical helmet with Mips (an acronym for Multi-directional Impact Protection System) that reduces rotational impact and brain trauma in the event of a crash.
A Good Multi-Tool
“As an amputee athlete, my toolkit is extremely important,” Schultz says. He always carries both a complete tool kit with a complete spare kit for both prostheses, along with spare nuts and bolts in case he has to rebuild the entire thing from scratch in five minutes. “It’s all ready to go in case I have an issue, like a crash or a break or something,” he says. In addition to Allen wrenches, a crescent wrench, and pliers, he also keeps his Gerber multi-tool in his kit. This one is light, pocketable, and has tools that you need to adjust snowboard bindings, like screwdrivers.
The Board
Schultz has worked with Donek Snowboards for his entire racing career; he’ll probably bring six Donek B-1s to Cortina. His prostheses work so well that right now, he’s riding a standard racing board built to his dimensions. “Earlier on, we tried doing custom work with torsional resistance to accommodate, you know, me as an amputee and having less control with my ankle pedaling or my ankle pressure,” Schultz says. “But right now, I’m running all the standard flex patterns.”
His Lucky Bear
Schultz never goes anywhere without his Lucky Bear. His daughter, Lauren, was 4 or 5 (she’s 12 now) and she snuck Lucky Bear into his bag behind his back for his first snowboard cross competition. “I was like, man, he’s this big!” Schultz says, gesturing. “I don’t have room for Lucky Bear! I gotta bring spare legs and stuff!” It turns out that Lauren was right, and Schultz has been a world champion in multiple adaptive sports—snow bike, snow cross, snowboard cross, and motocross—ever since.
“The coolest part about Lucky Bear is now Lauren is competing in gymnastics, so she has her own mini Lucky Bear that goes into her backpack every time she competes,” Schultz says. And of course, they match. He has a big one, and she has a small one.
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