Dirt

By the time it introduced its first mountain bike suspension fork, the Star, in 1989, Italian company Marzocchi had been involved with suspension innovation for motorbikes for 40 years. Until 2007, when the company was purchased by American auto-parts conglomerate Tenneco, most of its mountain bike forks were produced in Italy, but now production has moved to Taiwan.

The air-sprung Star, with 50mm of travel, was followed by the XC51 with bigger, tougher arch, and then, in 1995, the revolutionary Bomber Z1 BAM, which used motorbike technology and had a full 100mm of travel. In 2000, Marzocchi introduced one of the world’s first carbon forks, and two years later came the 6 kg Super Monster T, with an incredible 300mm of travel.

All of the company’s work into long travel forks culminated in the Triple 8, released in 2003 and still part of the Marzocchi line-up today, where it is available in CR and RC3 EVO V.2 versions. It has been joined by models such as the downhill-focused 380 C2R2 Titanium, touted as the ‘most advanced coil fork ever made’, and there is also a full range of air and spring shocks for XC, downhill, trail and enduro use.

Marzocchi products are used by many of the world’s leading mountain bike teams including IXS Gravity Union, MS Team Mondraker and Specialized Racing, and its list of riders includes Damien Spagnolo, Sam Pilgrim, Morgane Charre, Tyler McCaul, Michal Prokop and Cedric Ravanel.