Marzocchi Forks Through the Years
At the Taipei show we took a look at the future of Marzocchi's suspension, and while we were at their headquarters near Bologna a few weeks ago, we took the chance to delve into their past too. Marzocchi's head of their MTB Competence Centre, Sandro Musiani, walked us through some of their landmark models, from the late 1980s, until the early 2000s, to look at some of their innovations and evolutions through the years.
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 This is where it all began - the Marzocchi STAR fork. In 1989, Marzocchi already had forty years of experience making suspension for everything from motorcycles to the Ferrari Formula One cars, but this was the first time they turned their attention to mountain bikes. It had 50mm of travel and you might be surprised to know that although Marzocchi are best known for pioneering oil and coil suspension, this first fork was air-sprung. At that time Marzocchi worked with an aftermarket company called LARM. One of their agents, Peter Eversdjeke, was in the USA and saw the very first RockShox forks in the market. At the 1989 EICMA Show he showed Andrea Pierantoni the fork. That year the motorcycle business was very slow, so he started to design this fork. Both legs had an independent airspring and there was no external adjustment. For our younger readers, that thread on the steerer tube was how stems were attached before the modern aheadset-style system was introduced. |
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| In 1991 the STAR fork was replaced by this, the XC51. Much like the STAR fork it had air spring and sported 50mm of travel, however it was beefed up to meet the needs of the evolving mountain bikes. The bigger, burlier arch meant your brakes wouldn't pull the legs of the fork inwards with them when you used them as much. It also had a proper 1 1/8" unthreaded steerer tube. You can see with the lowers that disc brakes were not on anyone's radar at this point and the tapered legs (the internals were simple and didn't need much space) wouldn't have stood up to the forces a disc brake would have put through it. |
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| The Bomber Z1 BAM. For some of you reading this, we're sure that is all you need to read about this fork. Getting a little nostalgic means it's easy to get carried away sometimes, but we don't think anyone will argue when we say that this fork changed mountain bike suspension. Released in 1997 into a world where 30-40mm of crudely-sprung travel was the norm, the Z1 waded in with a full 100mm of open-bath, coil-sprung plushness. It was the first mountain bike fork to use trickle-down technology from motorbikes and while the chassis may now feel heavy and dated, we reckon its plush, active action out on the trail could still hold its own today. |
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| In 2000, Marzocchi acknowledged that the Bomber platform was too heavy for XC racing. Their current fork at the the time, the Z2, shared the same buttery damping as its bigger brother, the Z1, but dropped the travel down to 80mm and tried to shave some weight. It wasn't enough though, it was still heavier than most XC riders could live with. This fork the RAC was the result of the research into whether they could take that proven damping and package it for riders who cared how much their bikes weighed. To do this they turned to a material that is common today, but was in the highest realms of exotica at the time - carbon. They inverted the fork and created the body from a carbon monococque. We may be wrong, but we are pretty sure this was the first carbon suspension fork mountain biking had ever seen. Sadly, the project never quite worked, the pricetag for these was well beyond the reach of mere mortals and in the end Marzocchi abandoned this approach in favour of conventionally-constructed forks with air dampers. |
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| After moving away from air for the Bomber forks and the unsuccessful RAC fork, Marzocchi made their return to the XC market with this, the Marathon Olympic. It took a far more conventional approach, with a lighter, refined chassis and an air spring to get the weight down. Travel was adjustable from 80 to 120mm through spacers and offered riders five positions of adjustment with the ECC5 system. Released to their pro team in 2002 (for the Olympics, surprisingly), Alison Sydor piloted hers to the silver medal. |
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| Admit it, how many of you who saw the article title just wanted to see photos of this beast of a fork? Without a doubt, the Super Monster T is one of the biggest, heaviest, wildest mountain bike fork ever put into production. Weighing in with a full 300mm (12 inches, one foot) of travel, along with the cockroaches this would be the only thing to survive a nuclear holocaust. Modern downhill forks weigh about 3kg, this weighs six. Produced from 2002 to 2004, it was the high water mark for the "more is better" push in mountain biking, before people realised Jan Karpiel was nuts and everything settled down to a more manageable eight inches as the norm for downhill bikes. |
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| On the downhill side, Marzocchi's work research into upside down forks was more successful and slightly longer-lived. The Shiver was in production from 2000 to 2005 and is still thought of fondly by certain corners of the downhill/freeride world. Whether that attachment is simply down to how it looks, or how it worked is hard to say, because at nearly 4kg it was always heavy, but that weight didn't translate into stiffness. But practicalities aside, yeah it does still look cool. |
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All the development into long-travel forks culminated in this, the 888. Taking everything they learned from the Bomber range and the Shiver, they distilled it into this simple bombproof package (ok, maybe not bombproof if you bought a set in 200 . Released in 2003, its open bath damping has stood the test of time and although they have added adjustments since, the heart of the fork has remained unchanged in that time. We know more than one person who bought an early set of these and had the anodising on the legs give out before the internals. In fact, 2013 is the tenth birthday of the 888! |
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| Sandro Musiani has been with Marzocchi for 29 years. Today he is head of their MTB competence centre and in his time with the company he worked on developing every one of these forks here. |
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I know several people who have done similar.
And about weight: my shiver weights about 3,8-3,9kg, almost the same as 888 rc3 2008, not as heavy as most people think
www.pinkbike.com/u/zalgrath/album/NW-Cup-2013
Had a 1997 red Z2 and a Z1 dropoff from 1999 110 or 130mm of travel. Super easy to service and super smooth travel!
Actually saw a super monster twice once in a bike shop (picked it up and it weighed a ton) and also on this SICK bike www.pinkbike.com/photo/7053260
Unfortunately only managed to have a ride on the road as the guy was packing up to leave! Wished I'd seen him before so I could have tested the bike at the top of Deux Alpes bikepark!
i love my fork, just changed my oil today. but it keeps leaking from the top. anyone knows where i can find o-rings for this ?
Got the history screwed up RIGHT from the beginning... way to go Matt. Yes the first fork was the STAR, and it sucked.... terrible reviews by every magazine that got to test one. That effort was followed by the XC-100, XC-200 and XC-300 models for the 1992 model year. The "XC-51" was a discount model that didn't appear until the 1994 model year having replaced the XC-50 which came in 1993 which itself replaced the XC-100. The XC-200 was followed by the XC-150 in 1993 and the XC-300 by the XC-400 in 1993. In 1994 came the XC-51 and the XC-500 and a version in between them made for Giant bicycles was called the EGS. In 1995 we got the XC-600, the XCR and the 3" travel DH3 model as well as the EGS and a new elastomer-only model called the Zokes. 1996 brought us the XC-700, the DH3 again, the Zokes 2, and IF you were a lucky racer to be sponsored at the time by Marzocchi, the summer 1996 debut of the Bomber Z1. The first one in Canada went to quebec DH racer Sebastien Guite, who still owns it. Among other things it introduced was dual-disc mounts on the lower legs, for the rare Formula hydraulic double-disc front brake.
Specialized built there carbon fibre future shock FSX fork (based on a rockshox mag 21) 7years earlier. then in 96 they built there second carbon fibre fork, the Judy FSX (based on the rockshox judy)
I stopped reading much past that, but I had the 2002 Shiver as shown above, and it was the most flexy (torsionally) fork ever, but it was the fantastic plushness rather than the looks that appealed to most people.
If you don't believe me check it out on the decals on the fork, aswell on Marzocchi's website: www.marzocchi.com/template/detailProdotti.asp?idC=1592&IdFolder=113&idMY=2456&IdOggetto=7706
So how come, after all these years and 'advancements', my Fox 32s get stanchion rub in fewer than 30 hours? And now Fox tells me I have to service them every 20 hours?
Those Z1s were so advanced for their time, when they first came out many riders at the Australian DH Nationals had ditched their 'DH' forks for them.
crooked....realll crooked.
A thousand dollar plus fork shouldn't need a strip down and after market parts to make it work properly from new, it just shouldn't, but Fox spend a lot on advertising and too many believe in it.
.
Rockshox and Manitou are much better, mainly because they have a good attitude when customers get a bad/oil free fork, but they still have this same problem of shipping forks with not enough oil in the lowers (and RS wipers are naff next to Enduros too). If they specced proper separate wiper and oil seals a lot of these problems would go away.
Reducing the life-blood of a fork to save weight is surely counterproductive. I think it has become a war of one-upmanship by the big companies "Our forks weighs 40gms less than their fork.", though I guess we, the consumers, are to blame - weight is much easier to measure than performance. I mean, just check that Giant Glory thread where dudes are getting their bike's weight down by running rotors that are so skeletal there is hardly any metal at all. Who in their right mind would sacrifice stopping power for a few grams? Not Steve Peat (who ran the cable version of the Avid rotor as it had more metal) and certainly not Count Rumford.
My Risse Champs took 400ml of 5wt... in EACH LEG!
It is as plush as smooth as it ever was. All I can say is on this fork, they got it right, to bad they broke
The mode. Amazing fork.
Marz is making there comeback and has been for a few years.
And then my next fork was a Z1. Wow, what a difference.
cully claimed he had to time between the chair lifts to do the jump as well , for fear of hitting his head on the chairlift, I personally cant remember if it was that low been a long time, but the table top was over the railing on the bridge I had done some runs and was splitting Manitou 2 bumpers all day, from the G out on the bridge and had a bad set up to be jumping, so it was sick no matter what, .
as well rocky mountain riders andy tout and bruce spicer were sponsored by a for company from Italy called "poali " not sure of the exact spelling but they had carbon fiber legs in about 93-94' not sure if that was before they used the scott unishocks that had the carbon legs or after.
Wasn't there an ironhorse poster with dave cullinan tabletop at bromont?
Or was it at mbaction issue? Can't recall it. Great dawning days for dh. Nothing was cooler than riding your backyard trail pretending it was that insane cap da il!!
oh yeah the frame was called the A frame , and had these 17" chain stays as well,
oh shit that bike also had a suspension seat post from a company in uk , it is a 3 letter name I think but cant remember, they marketed it as a full suspension, because it has the the USE post , with a shim stock
Great article though, more like this please.
I've owned several Marzocchis since my Z1 QR20 that came stock on a Rocky Mountain Reaper. I still have a 66RC2X and a Z2 Bomber in use. Great forks - still going strong with regular maintenance.
I think Marz is blowing it by ignoring the hard core trail rider market. Where is the successor to the Z1?
I wish I could say my next forks were going to be Marzocchi forks, but having just grabbed a Kona Taro, it looks like I'll be converting to Rock Shox. No matter how that goes, I'll always have a special place in my heart for Marzocchi and the many years of great forks they have given me!
I'm buying a new fork again, I was looking at various 55 models, but after checking the weigts I'll just have to buy my third Fox...
(Also, the 55RC3Ti has coils, so you need to compare it to the Vanilla, not the Float/TALAS.)
Btw I had two Fox Vanillas so far (one for a year, another one for a few months) and only thing I ever did to them was that I sprayed the stanchions with TF2 teflon spray once in a week.
After 2007 they started making them in taiwan cost cutting and cheaper labor made for some crappy forks....
www.pinkbike.com/photo/7578043
www.pinkbike.com/photo/5714256
www.pinkbike.com/photo/5714255
Should I consider myself Marz Factory rider - been rocking them since 1995 - first,crappy elastomer Zokes, 1996 - DH 3 tuned with spring, Z3Qr20 in 2000, DJ 3 in 2004, Z1 AllMnt in 2008, and 66RC (NOS from 2007) for 2 years.
I somehow missed the bad times, and been confident with Mraz products, apart from the crappy Zokes.
I soon ditched the Ballistic for the Zokes and they worked super for the day and it was great fun undoing the fork legs and re-arranging the elastomer stack every which way..... I got rid of the fork for an RST Mozo Pro when the elastomers had squished their last. Unfortunately in 1996 spare parts were rare and certainly finding replacement elastomers for Zokes where I live was mission impossible.
In this day and age though you can find almost anything you want on the internet.
Don't you just love elastomers?
the crown cracked and the stanchions come up, so my father bolt both stanchions to the crown xD
Nice though!
Oh and don't forget to release them in 1 1/8th steerer option for all of us with custom bad ass hardcore hard tales.
Many thanks
@ ama86 - yes I've seen them and they do look sweet, though i really don't want air... but... if i cant get a RC3 ti i might
In anycase though, I reckon it should be plenty stiff enough at 35mm - more so than my beloved aging Pike anyway
Now I have some 888's on my DH bike and they are so so so good! Thank you Marzocchi for your lovely forks.
this is only bike part I ever bout and last more then 2 years!!!
Also had the standard version of the monster t's with 8"
soo buttery and stiff if they only where lighter but by far one of the beat forks ever.
Have 2010 888 evo2 now with custom tuned shim stack and a ti spring. Best of both combination with the stiffer stancions and the slippy black coating..
Have to laugh at all this arm pump rubbish, I sail down morzine about 15 times in a day with no arm pump.... sofa style
Honestly I think most people confuse very plush forks with the feeling of flex!
The DVO Emerald fork will be the new replacement for the Shiver. Will it have the same small bump plushness and still be able to handle big hits? Well see.
01 wedge 20mm
07 66 ATA
08 66 rc2
08 Rocco WC
09 888rc2
Still use the 08 66 from time to time, very versitile (in some ways better than my F40)
the z1 and the wedge were the most rebuildable, adaptable, products for cycling I had ever seen.
Sold the Wedge for a chunk of change over 2 years ago and still miss it.
Gonna have an espresso in salute to the "M"
-double shot long, no milk 3 sugars, please.
pinnit
Not like the made in taiwan crap they're putting out nowadays... They don't make' em like they used to...
www.pinkbike.com/photo/6530387
www.pinkbike.com/photo/9549904
www.pinkbike.com/photo/9525600
www.pinkbike.com/photo/9520310
would this void warranty?
many thanks
i'm looking for one, i need one! let me know if willing to sell me one
tried the new Ti 888's they were epic, alot plusher than my Fox 40's.
Yes the first fork was the STAR, and it sucked.... terrible reviews by every magazine that got to test one. That effort was followed by the XC-100, XC-200 and XC-300 models for the 1992 model year. The "XC-51" was a discount model that didn't appear until the 1994 model year having replaced the XC-50 which came in 1993 which itself replaced the XC-100. The XC-200 was followed by the XC-150 in 1993 and the XC-300 by the XC-400 in 1993. In 1994 came the XC-51 and the XC-500 and a version in between them made for Giant bicycles was called the EGS. In 1995 we got the XC-600, the XCR and the 3" travel DH3 model as well as the EGS and a new elastomer-only model called the Zokes. 1996 brought us the XC-700, the DH3 again, the Zokes 2, and IF you were a lucky racer to be sponsored at the time by Marzocchi, the summer 1996 debut of the Bomber Z1. The first one in Canada went to quebec DH racer Sebastien Guite, who still owns it. Among other things it introduced was dual-disc mounts on the lower legs, for the rare Formula hydraulic double-disc front brake.
www.pinkbike.com/photo/5741904
^^*)
P.D: I need a RAC, NOW !!