As we revealed in our exclusive Sea Otter coverage, for 2010 Marzocchi has gone back to its roots and has re-introduced the core values and technologies that made the original Bomber such a revolutionary fork.
44 RC3 Ti
The 44 RC3 Ti is Marzocchi’s flag ship coil sprung fork that uses damping technology developed from the world championship winning 888 downhill fork. The 44 RC3 Ti is the “absolute do it all fork that is light enough for fast climbing and plush and precise for breathtaking downhill, making it the spiritual successor to the original, classic Z1 Bomber.”
The 140mm travel RC3 Ti features adjustable rebound and hi & low speed compression damping, mechanical pre-load with a low pressure air valve for small pre-load adjustments. A Titanium main spring helps to keep the weight down with alternative rate springs available from launch.
Weighing in at 1850g for an open bath, coil sprung fork the 44 RC3 Ti weighs only 52g more than the 2009 44 ATA and 468g less than the 2007 Z1 RC2.
44 Micro Ti
The air models have not been ignored, the 44 Micro Ti uses the proven open bath air design which does away with a traditional sealed cartridge and uses the stanchion as the air chamber. This reduces internal air pressures and working with a Titanium negative spring it improves small bump performance.
The 140mm travel 44 Micro Ti features adjustable compression and rebound damping with lock out. Another feature borrowed from the 888 is the variable air system which mechanically raises or lowers the oil level to alter the spring curve (from progressive to linear) at the twist of an adjuster. The travel is also internally adjustable from 100, 120 or 140mm using spacers supplied with the fork.
Weighing in at 1799g (QR15) for an open bath, air sprung fork the 44 Micro Ti weighs the same as the outgoing ATA model.
44 RC3 Ti QR 15 £679.95
44 Micro Ti QR15 £569.95
44Micro Ti (QR) £569.95
Expected delivery Sept 09.
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Nice.
They’ll make a change from Fox or Rockshox, so long as they live up to their promise
Thats what I was thinking, you would hardly expect the marketing department to say ‘and for 2010, we have updated our fork whilst maintaining our now legendary the shonky reliability, all, so you the punter can give us £600 and beta test it for us’
The problem with Marzocchi since they threw away their reputation to save a few pennies is, why would you risk it? When you can get a bloody good fork which weighs less, costs less and doesn’t carry the risk of having to send it back 3 or 4 times a year before you give up and ebay it.
Has Marzocchi gone back to tapered bushings? The lack of ’em seemed to be one of the problems with their more recent forks…
difficult – let’s hope they return WITH the reliability, as their function was always fantastic.
if they really do ‘return to their roots’ i’ll be very happy. i am slightly suspicious tho, especially when they start talking about ‘air vavles’ and so on. That really isn’t in Marzocchi’s roots unless you go right back to the terrible XC600 before the Z1/Z2. Maybe they should just stick to making forks that are heavier than everyone else?
we’ll see. I will wait a couple of years before I buy another Mazz. The Fiat Punto of the fork world.
Hora, please don’t swear, FIAT is a four-lettered word.
“468g less than the 2007 Z1 RC2” nice, if it’s as plush and stiffer then I’ll have one, losing 1lb from the beast bike would be a great help.
I’m a bit bored with all the Marzocchi-bashing we’re hearing at the moment. yes, the high-end ’08 air forks were very poor and there can be no excuses, but they seem to have sorted out the problems for ’09 – I’ve been hammering some 55 ATA Micros for a couple of months now and they work impeccably. Air preload has been part of Marzocchi for a long time – my ’05 66RCs have it and these are widely acknowledged as being some of the plushest forks ever made. (thankfully I am fairly tall and the high axle-to-crown height doesn’t bother me at all).
While I know there have been manufacturing errors, I reckon a lot of the time people just aren’t setting the forks up properly – the manuals are amusingly bad and the air forks take a lot of effort to fine-tune. However, that’s a user problem, not a fork issue. these new 2010 forks look absolutely amazing: I’ve used nothing but Marzocchi forks for the past 11 years and can’t see that changing any time soon (unless Avalanche bring out a new internals kit for the 888….)
sounds like the ‘1 million angry customers can’t be wrong’ argument.
Oooh! I hope this will be good! I still miss my 03 Marathon S!
Marzocchi used to be the kings of plush, you know!
blimey im still running my 05 66rc’s in, wont need to replace these bad boys for a few years more yet
Aye, I have some 05 Z1 FR’s still. What does putting a Ti spring really in gain? I mean weightwise in the grandscheme? Its marketing people trying to powerup the ‘ti’ bits to cover the rest of the forks not really being that good IMO I bet… Manipoo can rest easy as Mazzipoo is here!
If Marzocchi did a plush coil sprung, open bath fork with 100mm or 125mm travel that weighed 4 pounds, had rebound adjustment and a good manual so you could service it yourself – I’d definitely buy one.
Fit, take off, send back, forget, remember, fit, take off, shout, send back, wait 2 weeks, put in the shed. Forget.
When I got my first mountainbike and was looking for a fork upgrade I saw the vulgar graphics on the Marzocchi and looked at their grotesque soft-porn catalogue and wrote them off. Whether they work or not, they’re just too adolescent-boy-racery in their presentation to take seriously.