Suspension: MARZOCCHI 55 RC3

If there’s one thing about forks which doesn’t seem to have improved much over the years it’s reliability. The thing is though that Marzocchi are really the only company that haven’t had to improve as they’ve consistently made the most maintenance free forks around. That’s the main reason why we’ve included these 55’s, but they’re also one of the best performing 160mm forks you can buy so you don’t have to make a trade off between reliability and performance. 2009 sees this new RC3 model added to the 55 line up, and essentially it’s just a scaled down version of the superb 888 RC3. At the top of the fork you’ll find a rebound adjuster and an air preload valve (the fork is mainly coil sprung), and then at the bottom there’s the compression adjuster which controls Marzocchi’s unique and highly effective position sensitive damping. It seems to work just as well as forks with independent low and high speed adjusters, but it’s much simpler to set up. If you don’t want the hassle or cost of regular servicing buy a pair of these.

Price: £729.95
Windwave 02392 521 912
www.marzocchi.com
www.windwave.co.uk