An iconic brand, a bastion of mountainbike equipment used by regular riders day in day out offering great performance and superb, almost unbeatable reliability. One of the earlier Marzocchi forks, the Bomber changed everything – it increased the speed we rode our bikes off road. From the early 100mm forks right through to the present day it has been a reliable servant to mountainbiking.
“the stock 380 is the smooth running, easy to adjust, low maintenance fork its always been”
But it’s probably the 888 series that became the fork that was so popular amongst riders world wide for its simplicity and above all else its reliability. The 888 was a fit and forget unit but if you really wanted it badly it was a fork that could win World Championship titles as it did in 2004 and 2005 with Fabien Barel. So many incredible forks over the years from the Italian specialists have graced downhill bikes of the highest level. Corrado Herin winning the World Cup title on the Super T forks of 1997 vintage, the massive Monster T’s that were such a hit with the air dropping Canadian freeriders of the late nineties.
It was the basis for many of today’s units, a fork used by Danny Hart and the Mondraker team last season. But what of the Marzocchi 380? It’s true that many riders on the World Cup circuit have custom tunes on their forks when being used at higher velocity’s with bigger g’s to deal with, but for many the stock 380 is the smooth running, easy to adjust, low maintenance fork its always been.
